Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #757 Slaying Dragons; Restoring the Heart of a Man... with Special Guest C.S. Lewis

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#757 Slaying Dragons; Restoring the Heart of a Man... with Special Guest C.S. Lewis · Claymore: Become Who You Are

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Claymore Become Who You Are podcast and production of the John Paul Tour Renewal Center.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Today I want to talk to you about slaying dragons, restoring the heart of a man.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: And before I get into today's episode, I want to show you a flyer, a draft of a series of events we're going to be doing, starting around the Chicagoland area and then expanding out.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: I'll throw the flyer up for those of you who could see it.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Slaying dragons, very, very cool thing.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: And part of that series is going to be based on the Claymore three-step battle plan.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Get the heart back, understand our sexuality, marriage in the family, united to Christ in the church.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: And then we go out, especially go out and invite other brothers and sisters into the story.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: We gotta we gotta help each other get through this crazy toxic culture and understand what's going on and provide the framework for that.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Let me put this up on the screen.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: I'll expand it a little bit.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: So slaying dragons, and you can see right there, restoring the heart of a man, and it talks about the five, it'll talk about the five aspects of spiritual formation.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: But it's gonna be very cool because we're gonna have John Krueger there talking about the America's Catholic Comeback led by Gen Z.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: He's a Gen Zer, wrote a book called America's Catholic Comeback, Dwelt Among Us.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: He'll be there.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: We've done some things together already.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Mark Schmidt, he's an evangelist, husband, father.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're going to really have some fun with this.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: It's going to have a barbecue dinner as part of it, QA.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: We want to open this up so that uh Claymore men can invite their friends to it.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh fathers can invite their teenage and up uh sons, let's say 16 years old and up, and expose them to what's going on in the culture today, and and most of all, how to how crisis come into the story to help redeem and save us, right?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Let me close this down right now and get into today's episode.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to talk about slaying dragons, and it really is slaying dragons, and I'm talking about the dragon, how Satan himself, you know, the big tempter out there.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: But before we talk about the dragons in the culture, I want to be able to talk to you about something much closer to home, the dragons within the human heart, and particularly the heart of a man, huh?
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Every man has a story to tell.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Every man has experienced beauty, every man has experienced temptation, every man has sinned, every man has been wounded.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Some of these wounds began extraordinarily early, especially today's young guys.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Consider this, according to the CDC, at least one in four girls and one in six boys in the United States experience child sexual abuse.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: That means out of every adult you see walking around the United States, one out of every four of those girls, one out of every six of those boys were sexually abused as kids.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: But there's been all kinds of other abuse that is not in those statistics.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk just a little bit about that.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Other retrospective research has produced estimates even higher.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And because many of these victims delayed disclosure or never disclosed what happened to them, the true prevalence is difficult to know, but we would suspect it's going to be higher, not lower.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Now think about what those numbers mean.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Don't just think about the statistics.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Think about the people, the men and women that you work with, the people sitting alongside you with masks, your neighbors, your friends, your families.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: And here's something else we need to understand.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Among juvenile sexual assault victims and cases reported to law enforcement, which are again a low amount that actually gets reported to law enforcement, 93% knew their abuser, 59% were acquaintances, 34% were family members, and only 7% of all the child's sexual abuse were strangers.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: So for many children, the dragon, the evil in this life, didn't come from some dark alley.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: It entered through a relationship of trust.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: And those children eventually grew up.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Many of them became husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, priests and religious, businessmen, teachers, neighbors, friends.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: They became us.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And they don't necessarily leave those wounds behind when they turned 18, did they?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: It was an innocence that was stolen from them so often.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: What I encounter again and again and again, especially when I speak to young men, and I want to talk directly to the younger men in this audience for a moment.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've asked groups of young men for a very long time a simple question.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: What happened first?
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Did you hold a young girl's hand first or were you exposed to hardcore pornography first?
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Among the young men I've asked, the answer has been remarkably consistent.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Pornography came first.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Think about what that means.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Before some of these boys experienced the innocence of holding a young girl's hand, the power of that, huh?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Think back into your own life if somehow you did get a chance to hold that young girl's hand before you were exposed to pornography.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't the old pornography, right, from Playboy magazine or whatever.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: This is hardcore, really, really diabolical stuff, what they do.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: They twist and distort the heart and the minds.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: But think about that.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, the power of that young girl's hand.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, I remember her so well.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Before some of these boys that we're meeting experienced the innocence of holding a young girl's hand, before the nervousness of a first date, before wondering whether a girl might actually like him, before he had any real understanding of sexuality, marriage, fatherhood, or the extraordinary dignity of a woman's body and the power to draw you in.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: He had already seen pornography.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Some tell me they were only eight years old.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Eight, a little boy.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Innocence.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly images that generations before him might have never encountered in an entire lifetime were placed before his eyes.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, that's a wound, and that stays with you for a long, long time, doesn't it?
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And if that happened to you when you were a child, I want you to hear something clearly tonight.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: That first exposure was not your fault.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: You're a child.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: You didn't create the pornography industry.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: You didn't create the smartphone.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: You didn't design the algorithms.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: You didn't understand what those images would do to your imagination.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: You were supposed to be protected.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Your innocence was worth protecting.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes there's no man there to show you the way.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: See, there's another part of the story we cannot ignore.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Many young men today have grown up in broken or fractured families, and when I say young men, it's young men and women, of course.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Some grew up without their biological fathers in their home.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Some had a father who was physically present but emotionally absent.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Some had fathers struggling with their own wounds, addictions, anger, brokenness.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Some were blessed with mothers, grandparents, stepfathers, coaches, priests, teachers, or other good men who stepped into that gap.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Others did not, and they were left very, very much alone.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't just about blaming single mothers, it's not about condemning fathers who've made mistakes, but it's about recognizing something very basic.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: A boy needs formation.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: He needs someone to guide him, to show him the way.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: A boy needs to hear from a good man.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: This is what it means to respect a woman.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: He needs to hear from a good man.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: This is what your sexuality is for.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: This is how you control your appetites instead of allowing your appetites to control you.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: For some man to model, this is how to treat your mother, this is how to protect your sister, this is how you get back up when you fall.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: This is how a man loves.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps most importantly, son, I'm there for you.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: You're not fighting this alone.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Come to me if you need me, or if you have any questions.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: How many of us never had that?
7:54
SPEAKER_00: But imagine a boy who doesn't have any of that at all.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: At eight, ten, or twelve years old.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: The internet is teaching him then about sex.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Pornography is teaching him about women.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Social media is teaching him what makes them valuable.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: His peers are teaching him what masculinity means.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps no mature man has ever set a cross from him and said, That's not who you are.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, somebody's gonna form that boy.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: The question is who?
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Who's formed you?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Your father?
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Family?
8:29
SPEAKER_00: The church?
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Good men or an algorithm.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Because when good men are absent, something will fill that vacuum, and that helps us understand why fatherhood and spiritual fatherhood matters so much.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: There are young men all around us, and women too again, who need someone to walk beside them, not to lecture them, not to shame them, but to form them, challenge them, protect them, show them what authentic manhood looks like.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Now here comes the challenge.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: We arrive at an important distinction.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: What happened to us as children may not have been our choice, but what we do now is there comes a point in every man's life when he has to decide, am I going to remain captive to this?
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Am I going to allow what I saw at eight or ten or twelve years old to determine how I look at women at eighteen, twenty five, forty, sixty?
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Am I going to allow an industry to train my heart to consume another human being rather than love her?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Am I going to miss the awe and wonder of that beauty?
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Or am I going to fight for something better?
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Because pornography doesn't simply show a boy sexual images.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: It can teach him a counterfeit story about love.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: It tells him that the body is something to consume, that intimacy can be separated from commitment, that pleasure can be separated from responsibility, and that another person can become an object for my gratification.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: We become very selfish, self-oriented.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Eventually it can teach a boy to look at a woman before he has learned to be able to see her, to really be able to see her, the beauty of who she is and being drawn into her heart, huh?
10:13
SPEAKER_00: So the battle for your heart is real.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, there's a battle going on for the human heart, and that battle begins much earlier than many of us realize.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: There are enormously powerful forces competing for the imagination of a boy before he has even become a man.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Pornography wants his eyes, social media wants his attention, advertisers want his desires, ideologies want his allegiance.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And behind the confusion of our fallen world, Scripture tells us there's a spiritual battle behind it all.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Saint Paul writes, for our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: The battle is real, and the battlefield is the human heart, your human heart, my human heart.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: And the enemy exploits that wound.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: The enemy does not create every wound.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Human beings wound one another, our fallen culture wounds us.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we wound ourselves to our own choices, but the enemy knows how to use all of that and exploit the wound.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: A wound can whisper to you you are unlovable.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Shame can whisper if people really knew you, would they reject you?
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Loneliness can whisper to you, no one understands you.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Pornography can whisper, come back, this will ultimately satisfy you.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Lust can whisper this is love.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Fear can whisper, stay hidden.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: An accusation can whisper after what you've done or what you've been up to, how could God possibly want you?
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Those are lies, huh?
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Scripture gives a name to the one that Jesus calls who?
11:57
SPEAKER_00: He was a liar and a murderer from the very beginning.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: The father and the father of lies, Satan.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: The enemy doesn't need to create every wound.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: He only needs to convince us to build our lives around the wound rather than bring it into the light of Christ.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: And this brings us to one of the most important things I want every man here to understand.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Temptation is not a sin.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: In fact, as a man of Claymore, you know from the Battle Plan Handbook, Act 11 especially, that temptation is an invitation to pray.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: We start that every morning, don't we?
12:31
SPEAKER_00: First thing we start on our knees, huh?
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Open up our hearts, our blessed mother, let it be done to me according to your will.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: The second thing is praying with temptation.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, Father Ryan Browning is a pastor who wrote a part of that chapter or Act 11 for us for the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook on Praying with Temptation.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: He understands the spiritual battles men face.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Here he offers a powerful guide for praying through temptation, particularly lust.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And his approach aligns, of course, with the battle plan's call to restore the dignity of the human heart by redirecting desire toward God's purposes.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: There are temptations that assail me, Father writes all the time.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: I feel like giving up.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm never going to escape their grip.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had those thoughts such as these when you try to live out the faith?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Does it seem hopeless at times to escape the grip of temptation?
13:24
SPEAKER_00: He said what I'm about to suggest will help in all matters of temptation, but I will specifically address temptation of lust.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Two preliminary considerations.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: First, temptation is not a sin.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself experienced temptation in the desert.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Since he's God and all sin is against God, he could never sin.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Temptation's not a sin.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: It's what we do when temptation comes that is either virtuous or sinful.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: It can be sinful, of course, to place oneself in the near occasion of sin.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: But if we're prudent about what you look at online, what you watch on television, and the boundaries you form in relationships, you're already off to a better start.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may be thinking, but Jack, I can't get my innocence back.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: In one sense, that's true.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: We cannot unsee what we've seen.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: We cannot rewrite our childhood.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: We cannot make something that happened at eight years old not have happened.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: But you're not fighting for your innocence.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: You're fighting for your freedom from here.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ can redeem what has happened.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Christianity doesn't promise us a time machine, it promises a redeemer.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Christ takes that place in our lives where sin and suffering have left scars and brings something new from them, something even more beautiful.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: So if pornography entered your life before you even understood what you were seeing, don't spend the rest of your life staring backwards, fight forward.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come for sin management.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: He came with power and he wants to pour that out to you.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole reason he came here.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: You may not be able to recover yesterday's innocence, but by the grace of God you recover your freedom, and then you are appreciated even more.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: You become more powerful.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: See, you can learn purity and self-mastery.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: You can learn to see a woman not as an object but as a person.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: You can learn what authentic love looks like, and then you really appreciate it.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: You become a faithful husband, a faithful friend, perhaps a faithful father.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: You can become the man God created you to be.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Second, we must recognize that sexual desires are not bad in themselves.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: You could talk about sex and God in the same sentence if you're Catholic.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: He created it, he thinks it's beautiful.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: God created us as sexual beings in order to stamp into our very bodies that mystery hidden from all eternity in God.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: That God Himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: And while God himself is not a sexual being, he's a spirit, he created our sexuality, right?
15:55
SPEAKER_00: So that we can be that visible sign in the world.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: He's destined us to share in his love and bring that into the world.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: The union of man and woman in marriage, where the two become one, and sexual marital union is meant to be a sign of Trinitarian love, huh?
16:11
SPEAKER_00: The eternal exchange of love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: But this is a sacramental sign expressed to our sexuality.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: But it is also supposed to be a sign pointing to the end, where Jesus is the bridegroom on the cross who wants to marry his bride to church.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's a tiny sign reflecting what is Christ saying on the cross.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: God wants to marry us.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: So this is what I meant when I say the union of a man and woman in marriage is ultimately when the smoke and bog clears points right to the Eucharist and God's desire to become one flesh with us.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Both are meant to be fruitful.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Given the importance of the sign, it's no surprise that this is where temptation and confusion strike most forcefully in our fallen world.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Precisely where the evil one attacks.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: But John Paul II, be not afraid.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Our Lord becomes one of us and went through his passion, death, and resurrection to offer us the grace of redemption.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: That grace is for us, body and soul.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Praying through temptation helps us experience the redemption of our bodies for which we long.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: So in the grip of temptation, turn to prayer, intentional prayer.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: For example, if you see someone, a beautiful woman walking down the aisle of Costco and you find her attractive and the temptation of lust arises, treat that temptation as a trigger for prayer.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, for the beauty of that woman.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Give me the eyes to see her purely as your as your daughter.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Give me and them all the grace we need to know and love you.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: I open that up.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to push it down, I want to open it up.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: I lift her up in prayer, and in doing so, I lift my heart up in prayer.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: And Christ comes into that, right?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And fills us because his heroes on the cross is for us, but his early is totally agape, divine sacrificial love.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Ours will become like that with him.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: So praying with temptation becomes a source of grace and transformation.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean we're never going to fail again?
18:06
SPEAKER_00: No, it's a battle.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: But we can't be discouraged.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Over time with cooperation, God sets us free.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Temptation will remain, but it remains a means of purification.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: God works all things to the good for those who love him.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And look at, let's be honest, God knows everything already.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: So enter the battle of the heart.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: All those temptations will change.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: You feel that temptation, you go, ooh, yes, God wants me to open up my heart to him.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: What does this all mean?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Why should I go through all this?
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Let me read this part of Act 27 from the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: I'll call it C.S.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Lewis and the Lizard of Lust.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come again for sin management.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: He came with power.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: The world works relentlessly to form you into men who are weak, distracted, and spiritually tepid.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: God always wanted something else.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: He told the prophet Jeremiah while he was young, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Before you were born, I dedicated you.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: A prophet to the nations I appointed you.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah protested, God, I do not know how to speak, I am way too young.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord answered, Say not I am too young.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: To whomever I send you, you shall go.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: To whatever I command you, you shall speak.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Have no fear of them, because I am with you to deliver you.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: God speaks to all of us like this, huh?
19:28
SPEAKER_00: He wants your hearts and he wants you not to be afraid to stand up and be a man.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite authors, as you know, is C.S.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, and in The Great Divorce, the characters in his story are weak, tepid, and complacent men who have normalized sin to the point that they're drifting toward eternal darkness.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget, when we're battling the heart here, we're battling for the eternal place we're gonna be.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Heaven, hell.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Yet God in his mercy wills to give them one chance.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: So here's men who are drifting toward eternal darkness to hell.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Yet God in his mercy wills to give them one final chance.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so these are these these are dead men, maybe someplace between purgatory and hell.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And God wants to give them a last chance before they go into eternal damnation.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: In this story, these these ghost-like creatures find themselves riding a bus that travels first through hell and then to the foothills of heaven.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: So they see, they experience hell, and now they're gonna go to the foothills of heaven.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: When they arrive at what the driver calls the high country, they're invited to step off and look around.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Upon leaving the bus, they discover that they're transparent, much more like ghosts, and the world of heaven is somehow up there heavier, more real than anything they've known before.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: Some wander upward and encounter angels toward the border, towering figures, larger than men, clothed in light.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: One of the ghost like characters is described as dark and oily, with a small red lizard perched on his shoulder.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: The creature twitches its tail like a whip and whispers constantly into his ear.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: As the ghost approaches one of the angels from up on top, he snaps at the lizard.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Just shut up, I tell you, you're embarrassing me.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: But the whispering continues, huh?
21:18
SPEAKER_00: The lizard of lust.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: The ghost begins to smile, yields inwardly to whatever this lizard's telling him, and slowly turns back toward the valley, limping away from the mountain.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Off soon?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: asked the angel, whose brightness is almost unbearable.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm off, replied the ghost.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: I told this little fellow on my shoulder he would have to be quiet if he came.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Of course I know his business will not do up here, and my actions won't do up here either.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: But he won't stop, so I suppose I must go home.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Would you like me to make him quiet?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: asked the flaming spirit, the angel.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Of course I would.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Then I will kill him, said the angel.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: The ghost recoils.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: You did not say anything about killing him, you The angel says it's the only way.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: His burning hands now draw close to the lizard.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Should I kill it?
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh I was only thinking about silencing him.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Up here it's rather embarrassing.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: May I kill it, said the angels.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Look, he's gone asleep.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that I should be able to keep him in order now.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: It would really be silly to do it now.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps some other day, perhaps.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: There is no other day.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: How long before you become the man who you were created to be?
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Get back, get back, you're burning me.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: How can I tell you to kill it?
22:34
SPEAKER_00: You'd kill me too if you did.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: No, the angel said quietly, I won't kill you, but you're free to choose.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Do I have your permission?
22:43
SPEAKER_00: At that the lizard began chattering furiously, shrill and desperate, pouring its warnings into the ghost's ear.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Be careful it hissed.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: He can kill me, and then you'll be without me forever.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: It's not natural.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: How could you live?
22:56
SPEAKER_00: You would just stay a ghost, never become a real man.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Who would you be?
23:02
SPEAKER_00: it whispered, if you don't lust anymore.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: The ghost faltered.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Then with shaking voice he turned to the angel.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: All right, get it over with.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: You have my permission.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: God help me, he said.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: As the angel reached for the creature, the ghost cried out in agony.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: You think I'm a coward, but you're hurting me.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: I never said it wouldn't hurt, replied the angel.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: I said it wouldn't kill you.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: The burning angel closed his grip on the reptile, it twisted and wreathed, and it snapped wildly until he flung it down upon the ground, its back broken.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: And I witnessed to what followed, scarcely believed his own sight.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: He said that an incredible thing unfolded before my eyes, said the witness.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: The dark, oily ghost was gone, and the form grew solider, the upper arm and the shoulder of a man.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Then brighter still and stronger the legs and the hands, the neck, and the golden head materialized, an immense man naked but not much smaller than the angel appeared in his place.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: But then my attention was distracted because something was happening to the lizard.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: At first I thought that the operation had failed.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: He was not dead, but growing larger and became taller, stronger, the flickering tail had become a tail of golden hair, and I had to rub my eyes, for what stood before me was the greatest stallion I've ever seen with a silvery white mane.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: He was beautiful and powerful, and he stamped the ground with his hoofs, the whole land shook.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: The new made man turned and clapped the horse's neck.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Then he grasped the arms of the bright angel and embraced him, his face shone with tears.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Letting go and in joyous haste the young man leaped upon the horse's back.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Turning in his seat he waved a farewell, then nudged the stallion with his heels.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: They went off like a shooting star, speeding across the green plain, and were soon among the foothills of the mountains.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Then like a star I saw them winding up and scaling what seemed impossible steps, and quicker every moment, till near the dim brow of the landscape, so high that I must strain my neck to see them, they vanished, bright themselves, into the rose brightness of that everlasting morning.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Will you come with me to the mountains?
25:16
SPEAKER_00: It will hurt at first until your feet are hardened.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows, but will you come?
25:24
SPEAKER_00: That's how C.S.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Lewis finishes the great divorce.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: And in Christ's question to us, Jesus turns to us and is this just like he did to his disciples following him and said, What do you seek?
25:37
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the question he places before every man.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: What do you seek?
25:41
SPEAKER_00: And if your answer is that you long to be remade in his image, to become a new creation, what does he say?
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Come and see.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: You can become the man God created you to be.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: This is why Claymore exists.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, that's what slaying dragons is about.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: It isn't about becoming obsessed with Satan, though he exists and he's real and he's after our hearts.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And it isn't about seeing a demon behind every difficulty we have.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: And it certainly isn't about pretending that every psychological wound is just a spiritual attack.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: But it is about learning to recognize the battlefield.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're fighting temptations.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're dealing with the consequences of our own sin on top of it.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're carrying wounds inflicted on us by others.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the enemy attempts to exploit all three of those.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: We need to learn the difference, and we need to learn how to fight not with fear, not with shame, and certainly not alone, but with truth, prayer, the sacraments, brotherhood, formation.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, of course, it depends on Jesus Christ.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Because the purpose of spiritual warfare isn't simply to defeat something, it's to restore something, to restore what sin, suffering, lies, and shame have tried to steal, to restore our capacity to love, to restore our families, to restore our culture, and ultimately to restore the heart of every man.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, let's slay some dragons together.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Reach out, get us into your parish.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to pick up the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Of course, you can download the Claymore Battle Plan outline for free right on our website.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Take a look at it.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Claymore Militis Christie dot com.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Talk to you again soon, everybody.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.