Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #761 In A Matter of Life and Death; Choose Life! On the Feast Day of Saint Therese

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#761 In A Matter of Life and Death; Choose Life! On the Feast Day of Saint Therese · Claymore: Become Who You Are

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
0:00
SPEAKER_00: Glad you're joining me.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're doing okay.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: This is the feast day of Saint Therese of Lesoux.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I want to start out today reading the introduction to the Mass readings.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: So Saint Therese of Lesoux, who's known as Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Therese was born in 1873 to Saints Louis and Zellie Martin.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Her mother died when she was four years old.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: And at age 15, she followed her two older sisters into the Carmel at Lesoux, France.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: She eschewed extreme penances.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: So she said, nope, those extreme penances, they're not for me, because she said it's sufficient to acknowledge one's nothingness and to abandon oneself like a child to God's arms, right?
0:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you think about the world out there, you know, we we we put ourselves in the center.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, you know, that's a terrible way to live.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: We have to become unselfish, humble, abandon ourselves, like she said, like a child to God's arms.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful, it's much more peaceful to live like that and let God guide us.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Even after the onset of tuberculosis and the trial of interior darkness, Therese persevered in her little way of confidence and love.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: My God, I love you, was her final prayer.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: The little flower died in 1897 at the age of 24.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: She's a doctor of the church.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: I want to read you one more thing.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So there's a meditation every day.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: I get the uh Magnificat.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: I read it on my phone.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: There'll be readings, there's going to be saints in there all the time.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's going to be a meditation.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to read you a little bit from the from the gospel.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I'll read the gospel.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke, because this is talking about that spiritual battle.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: And our job, our job to go out and save souls, you know, and to bring good into the world.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: There's so much evil.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: We're in this spiritual battle.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: We have the midterms coming up, and we have to act.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: We have to act.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: If Christians acted, stood up, the world would change.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: But we don't, huh?
2:12
SPEAKER_00: So many of us are apathetic.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Not you, not you.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: I know you guys are different.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And thank God for that, right?
2:19
SPEAKER_00: When we act, when we do the good, we become good as a person.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: I am good as a person.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: When you when you allow uh Satan to come in and twist your heart, you start to do small things, evil, little things.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, these politicians that we have that are so corrupt and evil today, they didn't get that way overnight.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, they were little children that are born into this world in their innocence, and slowly they gave themselves over.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: This is a warning for all of us, right?
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Choose the good.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: This is Luke chapter 10, verses 1 through 12.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Jesus appointed 72 other disciples whom he sent ahead of him and parish to every town and place he intended to visit.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: He said to them, Listen to this, the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: So ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Go on your way.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I am sending you like, listen to this, like lambs among wolves.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: The evil one has control of this world.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: We're fighting it back.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: The Trump administration is fighting back again.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: But the midterms, we could lose the midterms, and all that evil will come flooding back in again, right?
3:27
SPEAKER_00: He said, carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals, and greet no one along the way.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: In whatever house you enter, first say peace to this household.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: But if not, it will return to you.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, we can't force people to do things.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: And he said a couple things there, right?
3:47
SPEAKER_00: He said along the way, he said, greet no one along the way.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by this?
3:50
SPEAKER_00: He said, Look, and I'm putting you on a mission.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Don't get sidetracked.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Don't start doom scrolling.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Get out and do this, right?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: If not, it's going to return to you.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: So I go and talk to somebody, you can sense that, right?
4:05
SPEAKER_00: You're bringing peace, you're bringing love, you're bringing joy into the world, standing up for the innocent, and you're going to get this vitral.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Then I just take my peace back and I walk away.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: He said it's going to return to you.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: So let that peace return to you.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: If I get into a discussion with somebody and I feel this negativity, look at I'm I'm going to walk away.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, I and my peace is coming back to me.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I tried to share this with you.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: You didn't, you didn't accept it.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Stay in the same house, he said, and eat and drink what's offered to you, for the labor deserves its payment.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Do not move about from house to one house to another.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Don't be looking for better food or this or that.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, look at I'm providing for you.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Stay there and focus on your mission.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it, and say to them, the kingdom of God is at hand for you.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the street and say the dust of your town that even clings to my feet, even that we shake off against you.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Yet know this, the kingdom of God is at hand.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom, this is Sodom and Gomorrah, right?
5:14
SPEAKER_00: The evil, especially the sexual evil and stuff that was in that town.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: It will be more tolerable for them, though, on that day than for this town that rejects me because Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, they didn't have Jesus Christ, right?
5:29
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God had not entered like it does now with Jesus.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: All right, now I'm going to read you the meditation from Saint Therese today.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Asked the master of the harvest.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is our job now to go out.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Listen how beautiful this is.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Now she wanted to be just a little side note, a great missionary.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: She wanted to go all over the world and evangelize, but she never did.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: At 15, she entered that convent where the Carmelite nuns were, and she never left there.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And yet she accepted that.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: She got tuberculosis early on, died at 24 years old, right?
6:04
SPEAKER_00: So she said, one day when I was thinking about what I could do to save souls, a word of the gospel gave me a real light.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to his disciples, When showing them the fields of ripe corn, lift up your eyes and see how the fields are already white enough to be harvested, and a little later said, In truth, the harvest is abundant and the number of laborers is small.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Ask then that the master of the harvest to send laborers.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: What a mystery, she said.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Is not Jesus all powerful?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Are not creatures his whom he made?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Why then does Jesus say, Ask the Lord of the harvest that he send out some workers?
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Ah, it's because Jesus has so incomprehensible a love for us that he wills that we have a share with him in the salvation of souls.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: He allows us to come in and share this mystery, the mystery of the Pietatus, the mystery of his passion, death, resurrection, the power to restore.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: The creator of the universe awaits the prayer of poor little souls to save other souls, redeemed like it is at the price of his blood.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Jesus allows us, right?
7:18
SPEAKER_00: These poor little souls, right, that open themselves up to him.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Hey, now you can go out.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: You have the power to share this, right?
7:25
SPEAKER_00: To share this story with them.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Therese goes on to say, Jesus does not say to us, lower your eyes, look at the fields and go harvest them.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is still even more sublime.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: These are the words of our Jesus.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Lift up your eyes and see.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: See how in my heaven there are empty places.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: It is up to you to fill them.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: You are my Moses praying on the mountain.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Ask me for workers, and I shall send them.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: I await only a prayer and a sigh from your heart.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: That's so beautiful.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what Claymore is all about?
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Claymore is this apostolate to empower all of us to go out.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: The Claymore Battle Plan outline and the handbook are just tools in your hand that God hands to us and says, here's the vocabulary, here's the way you do that.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget the Catholic social teaching that I'm going to get into now.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: It's like a triangle in front of you, held up by what?
8:21
SPEAKER_00: The individual human heart that seeks the good.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Now marriage and the family becomes that cornerstone.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Marriage and the family all through history.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: On the other side, holding this triangle up is Christ in the church on the cornerstone.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Once you put this together, you're united in Christ, your heart is redeemed.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: You choose the good, you go out and stand up for the innocent.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: You stand up for the nuclear marriage and the family because a child has a right to a mother and a father.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: He comes from a mother and a father.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: You get the grace to do this through Christ.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: And then we go out into the world and restore the culture.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And polity is the third necessary society, which is, in a sense, a way we organize ourselves, right?
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Our political order, the way we organize our society.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Those laws, then from politicians, should be a reflection of this base.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Marriage and the family, religious freedom, right?
9:15
SPEAKER_00: And that should be reflected in our laws, but it's not.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: This is where the battle really goes on.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: So in this battle between life and death, choose life.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: This is Mysterium inequitatis.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Mysterium inequitatis is Latin for the mystery of evil.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the great mysteries to me in this great spiritual battle we're in, one that causes so much human destruction, are the people I meet within the church even.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Look at I get it in the secular world, you know, you've rejected God, say, and you become caught up in the world.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: I get that a lot more than the people I meet within the church, some daily mass rollers who go to mass in the morning and then vote for politicians who are radically supportive of human death and destruction.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
10:04
SPEAKER_00: See, that's the real mystery of evil.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
10:08
SPEAKER_00: I meet people that seem to be nice.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And then they say, well, we're going to vote for a democratic uh platform.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, these are people who would strip away our religious freedom at the first opportunity they have.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: They do anything to retain power, including what?
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Open borders, no voter ID.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: You saw the attacks on Trump when he comes in.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: So again, the mystery.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: How could I receive Jesus Christ in intimate union in the Eucharist at Mass in the morning, and then with no second thought support someone who runs a campaign promised to give you the right to murder not only a child, but your own child.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: But it gets worse.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: They write laws that force the rest of us to allow it too.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Mysterium inequitatis, huh?
10:52
SPEAKER_00: The mystery of evil.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Why do I bring this up?
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Because as Jesus said in the so-called practicing Jews of his day that were out to murder him, what did he say to them?
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm just going off the top of my head.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I'm not going to go off the top of my head.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read you from John 8.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: If God were your father, he said, You would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Why do you not understand what I say?
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Mysterium inequitatis, right?
11:24
SPEAKER_00: It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: What are your father's desires?
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: He was a murderer from the beginning, has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: He is a liar and the father of lies.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Which of you convicts me of sin?
11:52
SPEAKER_00: If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: He who is of God hears the words of God.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: The reason why you do not hear them is you are not of God.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Look at I'm not going to judge these people.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: We leave it to God to judge.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: But again, I know these people.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: I love these people.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: I want their salvation, but you can't go out and receive Christ intimately within yourself and then go out and vote for a platform that would destroy the innocent child in the womb?
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Look at the reason I bring this up is don't get into the weeds with people.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's cut through the TDS, right?
12:25
SPEAKER_00: The Trump derangement syndrome.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: I ask this.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: I just say, okay, let me ask you this.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Where do you stand on the life of the innocent?
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Where do you stand on the right for a child who escapes his or her mother's womb alive and takes a breath?
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Where do you stand on their right to a mother and a father?
12:42
SPEAKER_00: I remind them of the last general election to put Biden and Harris in charge, a man with dementia and a woman without a moral compass.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: I remember having a conversation not too long ago.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I was at January 6th standing up for fair elections in the Capitol.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: That was almost six years ago.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And I met hundreds of people there.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were way more than that, but I met hundreds of people and talked to them.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: These are Christian patriots who saw the writing on the wall.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: They were peaceful people.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: They stood up for life, marriage and the family, religious freedom.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And they knew this attack on those three necessary societies.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Again, marriage and the family, Christ in the church, and polity, which is a reflection back of these traditional values.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have this framework, you won't have freedom.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: I remember talking to them and saying, forget about the election, I mean election fraud, because we're here to stand up for the truth.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: But Biden's going to become the next president, it looks like.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And if he does become the next president, and don't forget, he says he's Catholic, Americans are in store for perhaps the most pro-abortion presidential administration in history.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: And it was.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: The first day, him and Kamala Harris are there.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't wait to sign executive orders promoting abortion, gender ideologies.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: They put uh Richard Levine, a man who dresses like a woman, calls himself Rachel, in charge of health and human services for the entire nation.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: A man dressing and pretending he's a woman and then pushing these radical gender ideologies down on us.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing, you know.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: And they took away uh religious freedom.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget, during the Biden administration, again, he says he's Catholic.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Again, he's one of those people in the pews that I'm talking about here.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And what does he say, what does he do?
14:30
SPEAKER_00: You you couldn't even say Merry Christmas, remember?
14:32
SPEAKER_00: You had to say happy holidays.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Remember uh that the sports teams like the NFL.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't even play the national anthem at the games.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was amazing what was going on, right?
14:43
SPEAKER_00: So they attacked those three necessary societies.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: When I uh uh tell them about that, I said, this is what's what you're voting for.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: This is going to come again.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: So again, the pillars, those two pillars, marriage and the family and the innocent.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Ask people that.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: And they're united to religious freedom.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: That's what's being attacked always, always throughout history.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Once our house is built on rock, though, once we accept Jesus in our own heart, we build marriages and the families, we fight for religious freedom, we build then a culture of life and love throughout our nation.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Christian uh patriots are doing.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: You have to love your country.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: You have to want that country to be again a reflection of these values.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Catholic social teaching again causes polity, right?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: The mystery of evil and the power to defeat it are available to all of us.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: But we must choose.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Think back to little uh Therese, she said, God gives us the power to be his voice in the world to fight evil.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Most of the evil in the world, murder, theft, lies, are caused by people who choose evil.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And the good comes into the world by people who chose good.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Only God is good.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: The battle we're in is no doubt accelerating, but it's certainly not new.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing new under the sun.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Ever since men and women lost Eden, original sin came in.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: A brutal war has been unleashed against humanity.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: This is the spiritual battle we're in.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: It did not take long after the fall for Cain to kill his brother Abel.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Remember, murder came right in.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Today we the people elect politicians who promise to legislate their opinions into law, granting citizens the right to kill their own children in a supposed safety of the womb.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: For those children fortunate enough to be born, the next stage in this human pulverization often comes through teachers' unions, school boards, districts that use public funds to promote pornography, gender ideologies, to kids in kindergarten.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: More baffling still to me, Mysterium inequitatis are the parents who look the other way, or bring their kids to these drag queen story hours.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: While we must fight for our children's right to a sound education and insist that teachers leave pornography, ideological activism at the door, we must also recognize we're engaged in a spiritual battle that will ultimately won only on our knees.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Remember with the Claymore battle plan?
17:11
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Just two asks of everybody, right?
17:14
SPEAKER_00: We start on our knees before we look at that phone with the 10-minute Claymore morning ritual and we read one of those acts before we go to bed, opening ourselves up to Christ and his church instead of doom scrolling, always filling in with the good, filling in with the good.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And we take action, right?
17:30
SPEAKER_00: We always start on our knees.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: St.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Paul understood clearly that the real enemy is not our neighbor, but the serpent who first deceived humanity.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: That's why I don't argue with people.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I say, you know, I even tell them when they vote for these Democrats, they said, look, it, I have to love you.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm called to do.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And my real enemy is not you.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: The enemy, Satan is the enemy.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, you you somehow you've allowed him into your heart, into your mind, into your actions.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Be very careful, as St.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Paul said, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we're not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of the wickedness in the heavenly places, and it's here.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 6.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: We are engaged in a definitive battle right now.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: You see it in the culture between the culture of life and the culture of death.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: In this battle, there'll be no great political savior that's going to redeem all of us and save all of us.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump is not Jesus Christ.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Yet there is a hero, or rather, millions of heroes.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: That hero is you, that hero is our brothers and sisters, like little uh Therese says, just go out and unite ourselves with God who loves us so much, he's gonna allow us to go into the world and help redeem and bring people into what?
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Eternal life.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: So the heroes are there, they're us.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Those countless others who chose to be forces for truth and goodness in the world.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: When you pray, when you go to mass, you have to act like that out in the world.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, each of us stands before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and is called to salvation through Jesus Christ.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: We have to have faith in Christ, the true light that enlightens everyone, uh Saint John said.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: We become light in the world and children of light, Saint Paul said, formed by obedience to the truth, said Saint Peter, our first Pope, right?
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Such obedience is not easy because of original sin, prompted by Satan.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: He's a liar and the father of lies.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Humanity is constantly tempted.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: We all are.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Look at I get this.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: I get this.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: I understand.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I was clouded like this.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: You know?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: I look back at my life and go, how was I thinking like this?
20:00
SPEAKER_00: So we have to be very, very careful, don't we?
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Because he's a liar and a father of lies.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: He gets into our hearts, into our minds.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Humanity is constantly tempted to turn its gaze away from the living God toward idols, said St.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Paul, exchanging the truth about God for a lie.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Our capacity to know the truth is darkened, and our will to submit to it is weakened.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Giving ourselves over to relativism, skepticism.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: We go in search of an illusory freedom detached from truth itself.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: We will not find it.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: What is the truth of things?
20:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, the gift of the Ten Commandments was both the promise and a sign of the new covenant when Moses received that, in which the law would then in the future be written on the human heart.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah already talked about this, replacing the law of sin that had disfigured us.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus came in.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: He was that new covenant.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't throw out the Ten Commandments, he brings them to fulfillment, especially the commandment to love one's neighbor by interiorizing their demands and revealing their fullest meaning.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: What is that?
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Love of neighbor springs from a heart that truly loves and therefore dares to live the loftiest moral challenges.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows that the commandments trace a moral and spiritual journey toward perfection.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: We should all be on, whose center is love.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: That's why we go out, not to condemn the world.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come to condemn the world, he came to save the world.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: This is my body given for you.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: This is a love story.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: That's why I don't argue with people because if they don't get it, you know, you just want to plant the seed, you want to try to water those seeds that are out there searching for the truth.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: But God has to cause the growth.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you reject God, then Satan will come in.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Thus the prohibition, you shall not murder, becomes a summons to attentive love that protects and promotes the life of one's neighbor, especially the most innocent among us, the child still within.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: The so-called safe place of its own mother's womb.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Our culture demands for its self that safe place, right?
22:07
SPEAKER_00: College students, I want a safe place, but refuses to grant it to the unborn.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Who stands for them?
22:14
SPEAKER_00: You see those signs, those slogans, love is love.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Is that just merely a slogan of self-indulgence?
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Or does it include the best interests of children?
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Parents who challenge school boards in order to protect their children from being desensitized, groomed, and harmed by pornography and gender ideologies and comprehensive sex ed like here in Illinois that are pushed on kids in grade schools.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And what happened when we stood up?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Biden administration was here.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: They were sending the FBI to investigate parents that were standing up against this.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: So are those parents, right, that are standing up, are they haters?
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Are they extremists?
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Are they just parents and people courageous enough to resist the principalities and powers of this present darkness?
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Are they branded as hateful simply because they affirm what?
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Biological reality?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: My son can't become a girl?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Does truth no longer matter?
23:11
SPEAKER_00: St.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Paul warns, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but will have itching ears, and they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: As for you, he said, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: We're all called, huh?
23:36
SPEAKER_00: To go out into the vineyard.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: In the Gospel of Matthew, we encounter an extraordinary scene in which a young man approaches Jesus and asks, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Jesus replies, Why do you ask me about what is good?
23:53
SPEAKER_00: One there is who is good, God.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: If you would enter life, keep the commandments.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: The young man presses further, though.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Which ones?
24:02
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answers, You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: The young man responds, All these I have observed.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: What do I still lack?
24:18
SPEAKER_00: See, he still senses there's still something more, something more.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Despite believing that he's kept the commandments, the young man senses that something is missing in his heart.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: He experiences what Scripture calls the law written in his heart.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, who searches hearts, probes this restlessness and says, What?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: If you would be perfect, then go sell what you possess, give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and then come follow me.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Don't detach from the truth of things.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: If you really want to come follow me, come.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Give all this stuff away that's holding you back, young man.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: But what happened?
24:55
SPEAKER_00: When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions and he wasn't willing to do that, right?
25:02
SPEAKER_00: I challenge all who repeat the slogan like love is love, to invite Jesus Christ who searches hearts into your own.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: The commandments Jesus recalls are meant to safeguard what?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: The good of the person, the image of God within us, and by protecting those goods, allow human life to flourish as we bring it out as the culture.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you should not steal, you shall not bear false witness, our moral norms expressed as prohibitions, yes, yet they powerfully affirm what?
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Affirm life, marital communion, private property, truthfulness, a person's good name.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: The commandments, therefore, represent the basic condition for love of neighbor and at the same time provide proof of that love.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: They mark the first step on a journey toward our freedom, its indispensable starting point.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: As Saint Augustine writes, the beginning of freedom is to be free from sin, free from crimes, he said, such as murder, adultery, fornication, theft, fraud, sacrilege, and the like.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Only in true freedom are we free to love.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Love does no wrong to a neighbor, especially the most innocent among us.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: The whole reason for uniting with us in Claymore is simple.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: We seek to bring the gospel of love to young people and to those growing up that we meet in a culture that's often twisted, distorted, and toxic.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: A culture that leaves many without hope.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: They're repeatedly misled about the meaning of marriage and the family, of authentic love, about the true meaning of sex and sexuality.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: This confusion has left many anxious, depressed, and even hopeless to the point of committing suicide.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: We meet them.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: How many lives might be saved?
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking about eternal lives too, if we were not afraid to speak the truth, to act in the truth.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Saint John Paul II once observed that the more the world deprives young people of what's true, good and beautiful, the more earnestly they will yearn for it.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: The vacuum of modern secularism is actually a fragrant invitation for young people to rediscover the sacred, right?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Someone, though, must be willing to proclaim the gospel to them.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: St.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Paul said to Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, preach the word, be urgent, in season and out of season.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, the time for silence is over, as Saint Catherine of Sienna said.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Will you be men and women who guard the innocence of children, marriage and the family who stand firm with Christ and his bride, uniting, right?
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Marriage and the family are reflection of Christ's love for his bride, the church.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: These are united.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: We are men and women committed to proclaiming the truth and love and loving others in the truth.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: We are people who stand firm in a world gone mad with lies.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: And we're we're going to do that in season and out of season.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Take action.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Today, the midterms are coming up.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Find out who your local politicians are and just walk into an office there and ask them, know where they stand on life, marriage and the family, religious freedom.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: And if they stand for those things, ask them how to get involved.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: As the Claymore Battle Plan handbook and our whole post says, choose life for the innocent, for marriage and the family.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, you will choose eternal life for yourselves.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: If you want some reference today on some of the things that I'm talking about here, read Act 40 in the handbook.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Subscribe and like this.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Share this with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a lot of time.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Midterms are coming up.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump will have two more years in office.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: He has a praying cabinet, doesn't he?
28:58
SPEAKER_00: People who are trying to do the right thing.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Look at there's a lot of evil in the world.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: The deep state and the deep church is real.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: He has a big battle taking place.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And that cabinet prays.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: They open their hearts up, right?
29:11
SPEAKER_00: They're opening their hearts up.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's embarrassed to say Jesus Christ anymore.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Nobody was embarrassed to say Merry Christmas this year.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: The national anthem is playing at all the ball games again.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: This is that polity again, this reflection of these values.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: No matter if you have a little bit of Trump derangement syndrome because you don't like his ego or whatever.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: Look to see what is the truth of things.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: What are they doing?
29:37
SPEAKER_00: How are they acting?
29:38
SPEAKER_00: He's a man of action.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Now you be a person of action and quit cutting them down, and you go out, knowing that he stands for life, his administration does, for marriage and the family, to get all these ideologies out of the culture.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: He's doing the best he can.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Fighting corruption at so many levels.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Politics is a messy business, isn't it?
29:59
SPEAKER_00: We only have one king.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus Christ.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine if we had Kamala Harris and Tim Wallace as our president and vice president of the most powerful people in the whole world?
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Evil would have just rained in on us.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: We have a little window here, guys.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: We have to stand up for the truth.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Hey, God bless you.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Be hopeful.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: We're going someplace, but you got to do your job.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: I got to do mine.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being with me today.