Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #487 The Sacrament of Marriage; The Power To Overcome Satan
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
- 0:11Speaker 1: I'm Jack Rigg, your host.
- 0:12Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for joining me today.
- 0:13Speaker 1: St Catherine of Siena said that if you become who you are, that you would literally set the world on fire.
- 0:19Speaker 1: And St Athanasius, an early church father and a doctor of the church, said the son of God became man so that we might become God.
- 0:26Speaker 1: You know I make a wild guess at this, but I bet you, most of us, are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to.
- 0:33Speaker 1: Yet Saint John Paul II said there's an echo of the story of this divine life that we're created for, inscribed in each human heart, in your human heart.
- 0:42Speaker 1: And if you put on the proper lens, if I put on the proper lens, if I put on the proper lens, we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment.
- 0:50Speaker 1: See, that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology of the body.
- 0:56Speaker 1: It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today, meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today.
- 1:08Speaker 1: Who am I?
- 1:14Speaker 1: What's my purpose?
- 1:14Speaker 1: Why were we created male and female?
- 1:16Speaker 1: How do I find happiness here on earth?
- 1:19Speaker 1: How do I find love that satisfies forever?
- 1:21Speaker 1: Hey, glad you're with me.
- 1:22Speaker 1: I'll be Welcome to another episode of John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
- 1:33Speaker 1: From Men and Women, he created them.
- 1:36Speaker 1: Theology of the Body.
- 1:37Speaker 1: This is number 87, so we got quite a ways with this.
- 1:41Speaker 1: This is called the Sacrament.
- 1:42Speaker 1: This opens up part two as we come into the second part and actually a little bit shorter part of John Paul II's work.
- 1:52Speaker 1: He gave this audience on July 28th 1982.
- 1:57Speaker 1: Usually, as you know, usually Linda Piper is with me.
- 2:00Speaker 1: Linda's got some family issues that she's taking care of, so she didn't join me today, but I'm glad you did, I'm glad you're with me.
- 2:09Speaker 1: This is really a battle and I think you know, as we start to look around the world, we start to see this battle taking place.
- 2:16Speaker 1: Sometimes it really takes a while before it dawns on us.
- 2:20Speaker 1: This is really a battle between our Lord and Satan.
- 2:23Speaker 1: This is a spiritual battle taking place and our human hearts are at the stake.
- 2:28Speaker 1: We're at the stake in this battle.
- 2:30Speaker 1: We are actually in the midst of this.
- 2:34Speaker 1: They're playing tug-of-war with us, in essence, and the tug-of-war is at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- 2:41Speaker 1: This is where we lost it in the beginning.
- 2:43Speaker 1: This is what every generation comes into.
- 2:45Speaker 1: We stand at that tree and we either accept or we reject God.
- 2:49Speaker 1: And this is just the reality of the world that we came into.
- 2:52Speaker 1: We came into a bigger story and somehow we just don't grasp this.
- 2:57Speaker 1: And Satan loves this.
- 2:58Speaker 1: Satan just loves this.
- 2:59Speaker 1: You know, satan doesn't have his own clay.
- 3:01Speaker 1: He can only twist and distort what God created good.
- 3:05Speaker 1: This is what he does in our lives.
- 3:07Speaker 1: This is what he's allowed to do in creation.
- 3:10Speaker 1: This is allowed what he's doing to the individual human hearts, and you see this all over.
- 3:15Speaker 1: This is what's happening to marriages and the families.
- 3:17Speaker 1: When someone will say to me, where's God in all of this?
- 3:21Speaker 1: As they look around the evil, I just say what do you mean?
- 3:24Speaker 1: Where's God in all this?
- 3:25Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, we've rejected God.
- 3:27Speaker 1: The world's rejected God.
- 3:28Speaker 1: We throw him out of the picture.
- 3:30Speaker 1: It's called free will, my friends, it's called free will.
- 3:33Speaker 1: So I want to talk a little bit about that as we get into the sacrament of marriage.
- 3:38Speaker 1: John Paul II starts out the sacrament of marriage, this part, and right away he's linking Ephesians 5.
- 3:48Speaker 1: So what is he doing here?
- 3:50Speaker 1: He's linking Ephesians 5, that's linking husbands and wives to Christ and the church.
- 3:56Speaker 1: Because why?
- 3:57Speaker 1: Because in this battle, this is a sacramental sign right from the very beginning.
- 4:02Speaker 1: Remember, jesus takes us back into the beginning when he's talking about the indissolubility of marriage with the Pharisees, and he takes them back into the beginning, into the model before sin came into the world, that this is the primordial sacrament.
- 4:17Speaker 1: So let's just take this one step at a time.
- 4:20Speaker 1: God creates everything and everything's good.
- 4:23Speaker 1: On the sixth day he's going to kind of draw back into himself and he says, okay, now I'm going to create mankind, I'm going to create this partner with me, and that job of man will be to do what and this is men and women will be able to do what You're going to.
- 4:41Speaker 1: Take my love, the essence of the Trinitarian story and bring this into the created world to actually partner with me, to co-create, to procreate.
- 4:51Speaker 1: We call the word procreate when we co-create with God to bring eternal beings in the world.
- 4:56Speaker 1: But that's not all, not just to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth but also subdue it.
- 5:02Speaker 1: This is all yours.
- 5:03Speaker 1: All of creation is yours.
- 5:05Speaker 1: You know this is also the raw material.
- 5:07Speaker 1: You're also going to take the raw material that I've given you of all of creation and make goodness out of it.
- 5:14Speaker 1: Bring beauty, even more beauty than I put into it.
- 5:16Speaker 1: Bring it out even more and use it for your own benefit.
- 5:20Speaker 1: But the crown of creation, of course, is man and woman own benefit.
- 5:25Speaker 1: But the crown of creation, of course, is man and woman, and so we're.
- 5:26Speaker 1: You know, in Genesis 2.7, god takes this creation, this biology, and he blows Ruah into it.
- 5:36Speaker 1: He blows the essence of who he is into it.
- 5:37Speaker 1: And this is what happens right off the bat.
- 5:38Speaker 1: And we know we're different than the rest of creation.
- 5:41Speaker 1: So a body and a soul, right, just biology, and now this soul, god breathes into that soul.
- 5:50Speaker 1: So now we're filled with grace, we're filled with the essence of who God is.
- 6:02Speaker 1: In the beginning, no sin.
- 6:04Speaker 1: In the beginningus said the glory of God is mankind fully alive.
- 6:10Speaker 1: When we're fully alive, this is the glory of God, because we manifest this glory in the created world.
- 6:15Speaker 1: This is our job, but, but, but the very crown of that is marriage and the family, because each one of us is created in the image of God.
- 6:24Speaker 1: Again, we have reason that seeks the truth, always wants to live in the truth.
- 6:30Speaker 1: We have free will, which is the motor to the good, to choose the good.
- 6:35Speaker 1: So we live in the truth, we choose the good, we become good when we choose the good that's in our actions and we bring good in the world.
- 6:44Speaker 1: This is what we're created for, and so the transcendentals true truth, goodness and then beauty, to make this even more beautiful, to give what God created in this beautiful way, this good and also the beauty of all of creation and us, and now even make it more beautiful, bring more internal beings into the world.
- 7:05Speaker 1: You bring eternal beings in the world and marriage and the family which will be with us forever.
- 7:11Speaker 1: I mean, you know this is a big privilege, you know it's so beautiful.
- 7:15Speaker 1: Now we know we're different than the animals.
- 7:18Speaker 1: We look around we say, ooh, this really made us different.
- 7:21Speaker 1: I have reason, I have intellect, I have free will.
- 7:23Speaker 1: So now the fuller image of that, the fuller image of that, is man and woman in the family, because this is the image of Trinitarian love in the world, where the two, a man and a woman, become one, open to new life, become three, three persons in one, a tiny, created reflection of Trinitarian love in the world, and each family gets to participate in this and then all together we're the body of Christ.
- 7:49Speaker 1: So when we blew that out, that ruah at that tree, and we chose sin, we chose Satan, we fell for that temptation and rejected God.
- 7:59Speaker 1: We basically breathed this out.
- 8:01Speaker 1: Now mankind is a body, soul, but crippled, twisted and distorted.
- 8:07Speaker 1: We no longer seek the truth or our darkness.
- 8:10Speaker 1: Darkness comes into us and we no longer see the truth and then we no longer choose the good, we choose ourselves.
- 8:18Speaker 1: This is Satan, right, I will not serve.
- 8:21Speaker 1: He's too proud to serve.
- 8:22Speaker 1: This is the essence of who we become.
- 8:24Speaker 1: We're too proud to serve.
- 8:26Speaker 1: So we fall for the threefold concupiscence, the pride of life, proud, right.
- 8:31Speaker 1: We see the concupiscence, this falling, the weakness of the eyes, which is materialism, you know, and consumerism.
- 8:38Speaker 1: We look around the world and we see all that God created good, and now we got to use it and distort it.
- 8:44Speaker 1: God said, you know, go out and bring forth this fruit and it'll continue to come, you know, just like the vines continue, the grapes continue to come every year and we can harvest more and more and more beautiful wine.
- 8:57Speaker 1: Huh.
- 8:58Speaker 1: And so what happens though?
- 8:59Speaker 1: We grasp and we take and we rape and we pillage it's disgusting what we do and then the concupiscence of the flesh.
- 9:07Speaker 1: We feel that in our bodies, instead of being selfless gifts to one another, instead of bringing God's fruit and also his love into the world and manifesting this, we grasp and take and we start to use one another.
- 9:21Speaker 1: You know, this is the opposite of love, is not hate.
- 9:24Speaker 1: The opposite of love is grasping and taking.
- 9:26Speaker 1: If love is pouring oneself out to another, look at a cross, look at a crucifix.
- 9:31Speaker 1: This is my body, given for you, and this is what we do.
- 9:36Speaker 1: And so we are to be filled with that divine life and love, as we were in the beginning, and then pour this out into the world.
- 9:43Speaker 1: This is how we find fulfillment and happiness.
- 9:45Speaker 1: When we act right, when we act for the good, when we choose the good, we become good.
- 9:51Speaker 1: I am good, only God is good.
- 9:54Speaker 1: Jesus said Well, because I'm united in union and communion with God, I become good.
- 10:00Speaker 1: I become good in union and communion with God.
- 10:02Speaker 1: Well, how do we do that today In the audience right before this one 87,.
- 10:08Speaker 1: So in 86, we're finishing up that first half of John Paul's work.
- 10:13Speaker 1: It's called redemption of the body.
- 10:16Speaker 1: So this body's being redeemed and this is what Jesus does.
- 10:20Speaker 1: Jesus comes into the world to do what, to redeem us.
- 10:24Speaker 1: Because Jesus comes into the world to do what To redeem us Basically and just in essence and not just in essence, but basically his whole foundational piece is to defeat Satan, defeat sin and death, defeat Satan.
- 10:36Speaker 1: The gospel just today.
- 10:38Speaker 1: According to John, the gospel today is for mass today.
- 10:41Speaker 1: Well, I record this on a Tuesday, it'll be brought out on Wednesday.
- 10:45Speaker 1: So if you back up one day, this is for mass today.
- 10:45Speaker 1: Well, I record this on a Tuesday, it'll be brought out on Wednesday.
- 10:46Speaker 1: So if you back up one day, this is from John 14, verses 27 to 31.
- 10:52Speaker 1: And you're going to see in here, you're going to hear Jesus bring his peace.
- 10:57Speaker 1: When Jesus brings peace, this is not just the lack of something.
- 11:00Speaker 1: We think about war and we think, okay, well, jesus, bring in peace.
- 11:05Speaker 1: Well, that means no more war.
- 11:06Speaker 1: No, this is not just the absence of war.
- 11:09Speaker 1: It is the absence of war, but it's much more.
- 11:11Speaker 1: Again, if you think about this.
- 11:14Speaker 1: Jesus comes to fill us again, to fill us up.
- 11:17Speaker 1: So his peace brings something very deep.
- 11:19Speaker 1: It brings union and communion again with God.
- 11:22Speaker 1: It changes everything.
- 11:24Speaker 1: So Jesus, and then also in here, listen to this battle between Satan.
- 11:29Speaker 1: Again, jesus says to his disciples peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.
- 11:35Speaker 1: Listen to this, not as the world gives, do I give it to you Again.
- 11:40Speaker 1: What does the world do?
- 11:41Speaker 1: It says, okay, well, you're not fighting for today.
- 11:43Speaker 1: So this is peace.
- 11:44Speaker 1: We just still live on the surface of things.
- 11:48Speaker 1: But no, this is not what Jesus does.
- 11:50Speaker 1: He fills us, he redeems us, he gives us the power.
- 11:55Speaker 1: Jesus didn't come for sin management.
- 11:56Speaker 1: He came with power, of grace, this beautiful unity and community of authentic love, to overcome these threefold concupiscence, to be a force for good in the world.
- 12:06Speaker 1: So this is his peace.
- 12:07Speaker 1: His peace is very deep.
- 12:08Speaker 1: It goes to the very soul of things.
- 12:10Speaker 1: It gives us that breath of life in the beginning again, and this breathing in is the breathing of himself.
- 12:18Speaker 1: This is why we die with him and we rise with him.
- 12:21Speaker 1: We take him on, we take his virtues on.
- 12:25Speaker 1: This is my body given for you.
- 12:26Speaker 1: He pours himself out to us and we say, yes, we receive this, and then we become like Christ.
- 12:32Speaker 1: This is the closer we become like Christ, the more peace we have.
- 12:35Speaker 1: So Jesus goes on to say do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
- 12:39Speaker 1: Well, he knows we're troubled and afraid in this world.
- 12:42Speaker 1: Don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
- 12:44Speaker 1: I'm giving you my peace.
- 12:46Speaker 1: You heard me tell you I'm going away and I will come back to you.
- 12:50Speaker 1: If you love me, you would rejoice that I'm going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
- 12:56Speaker 1: And now I have told you this before it happened, so that when it happens, you may believe.
- 13:02Speaker 1: Well, what's gonna happen.
- 13:03Speaker 1: He's going to suffer his passion and death on the cross.
- 13:07Speaker 1: So he's telling them ahead of time Now why the father is greater than he.
- 13:11Speaker 1: The father is the initiator of the gift, but he's saying this because now he has a body.
- 13:16Speaker 1: Huh, he has a body, and God is the one pouring himself out into the son.
- 13:21Speaker 1: The son receives that and gives that back to the father again.
- 13:24Speaker 1: And so this is this beauty of the flow of love.
- 13:27Speaker 1: And now Christ took on a body, took on all of our humanity, unites it in his body with divinity and now he's going to pour this out on the cross to us.
- 13:37Speaker 1: This mystery is where the mystery of the redemption of our bodies come from.
- 13:42Speaker 1: It happens on the cross.
- 13:44Speaker 1: So we accept that.
- 13:45Speaker 1: We look at Christ, we say, yes, our fiat, we kneel with our blessed mother and we say, yes, be it done to me according to your word, be it done to me according to your will, fill me, breathe that peace into me.
- 13:58Speaker 1: And Jesus says and now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.
- 14:04Speaker 1: In other words, don't be afraid, don't run away, don't be scared, even though they all did, didn't they?
- 14:08Speaker 1: I mean, this shows our human weaknesses, but he's telling them ahead of time and he goes.
- 14:12Speaker 1: I will no longer speak much about, I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming.
- 14:20Speaker 1: So here is Satan.
- 14:22Speaker 1: Huh, this is that you know.
- 14:24Speaker 1: Can you imagine the passion in the garden when Jesus is really his power is taken away?
- 14:31Speaker 1: You know, and so Satan is allowed right.
- 14:35Speaker 1: Can you imagine the pressure of this?
- 14:37Speaker 1: We can't imagine this evil force that has changed the whole world.
- 14:42Speaker 1: We fell for that tempter and now Jesus is allowing that to come over him and to actually bring him to the point where he's going to die on the cross.
- 14:53Speaker 1: But what's the resurrection of the body?
- 14:54Speaker 1: Well, jesus didn't stay there.
- 14:56Speaker 1: Jesus didn't stay there.
- 14:58Speaker 1: He overcame in the body, in a human form.
- 15:01Speaker 1: He overcame sin and death.
- 15:03Speaker 1: He overcame in his temptations, when Satan tempted him, the threefold concupiscence.
- 15:08Speaker 1: Jesus who humbles himself right and destroys this pride.
- 15:14Speaker 1: Jesus who looks at the world and says no, this is not of the world.
- 15:18Speaker 1: In fact, remember, he tells the rich young man he says go and sell everything and come, follow me, you don't need this stuff, I will take care of you.
- 15:26Speaker 1: The Father who created you, he knows what you need, follow me.
- 15:29Speaker 1: And created you.
- 15:30Speaker 1: He knows what you need.
- 15:30Speaker 1: Follow me and God will give you everything that you need.
- 15:33Speaker 1: And then the flesh also.
- 15:35Speaker 1: Jesus even doesn't take on a wife, right.
- 15:40Speaker 1: And St Paul does the same thing.
- 15:41Speaker 1: He says we abstain right from this marriage and this life for the kingdom because we want to be a sign of the kingdom that you can overcome this.
- 15:52Speaker 1: At the end of the day, what are we doing?
- 15:54Speaker 1: Not only overcoming the threefold concupiscence, but we're aiming right at God, the Father, right at Trinitarian love.
- 16:01Speaker 1: We're skipping this marriage to go into the marriage that we're all created for in the beginning.
- 16:05Speaker 1: That we were to be a sign of in the beginning was what again?
- 16:08Speaker 1: It was Tr in the beginning was what again?
- 16:09Speaker 1: It was trinitarian love.
- 16:10Speaker 1: It's the union and communion, the, the marriage of the lamb, the marriage of the bridegroom, jesus christ who marries us, who brings us into union and communion in this incredible, incredible power and beauty of unity and community.
- 16:25Speaker 1: Union and communion with god.
- 16:27Speaker 1: This is where we're going.
- 16:28Speaker 1: This is why John Paul's work.
- 16:31Speaker 1: You know he's following Jesus in the beginning.
- 16:33Speaker 1: Here's the model.
- 16:33Speaker 1: The primordial sacrament is marriage.
- 16:36Speaker 1: You know again, you know we're all created in the image of God.
- 16:40Speaker 1: We take it into ourselves, the fuller image.
- 16:43Speaker 1: Then we give ourselves to one another in the spousal love between a man and a woman open to life.
- 16:49Speaker 1: This is the fuller image.
- 16:50Speaker 1: But this was always to be a reflection of God's love and to be filled with God's love in order to live this out.
- 16:57Speaker 1: The primordial sacrament, the visible sign of God's love in the world Well, now we know it got twisted and distorted and we lost that.
- 17:05Speaker 1: Remember Adam and Eve put loincloths on and then they hid.
- 17:08Speaker 1: We know lust and selfishness had entered into the garden, it was no longer without sin.
- 17:14Speaker 1: So that's why the second word of Christ is in Matthew 5, where Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard it said you should not commit adultery.
- 17:24Speaker 1: But I say to you, everyone who even looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
- 17:32Speaker 1: And they look at one another and they go.
- 17:34Speaker 1: How do we overcome this Now?
- 17:37Speaker 1: Jesus didn't come for sin management, he came with power.
- 17:40Speaker 1: The only way you know this is you've got to walk into the narrow gate that Jesus talked about.
- 17:47Speaker 1: And the narrow gate you will cross, the bridge over the abyss of sin and evil.
- 17:51Speaker 1: That's the cross, you know.
- 17:53Speaker 1: You look up at the cross and Christ pours himself out to us.
- 17:56Speaker 1: We have to die to ourselves, st Paul says.
- 17:58Speaker 1: And then, when we die to ourselves, we will also rise.
- 18:02Speaker 1: So this is the hope of everyday life.
- 18:06Speaker 1: John Paul says this isn't just some story for eternity.
- 18:09Speaker 1: Oh, we're gonna die and go to heaven.
- 18:11Speaker 1: Well, I hope so, but eternity doesn't mean tomorrow.
- 18:14Speaker 1: Eternity means forever.
- 18:16Speaker 1: We take this on, we live this out.
- 18:18Speaker 1: You look at the evil in the world, you look at these twisted ideologies right.
- 18:23Speaker 1: And he says and Jesus says well, the ruler of the world is coming, he's here, but, but?
- 18:30Speaker 1: But Jesus says this he has no power over me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do justice.
- 18:39Speaker 1: The Father has commanded me, the Father's commanded me, what To take on the sin and death in the human form, and to live this out.
- 18:47Speaker 1: I mean it's amazing, isn't it?
- 18:49Speaker 1: And then you overcome in his body, he overcomes Well, this is our flesh, he takes on and he does what the Father commands.
- 18:57Speaker 1: It's amazing, a beauty to this story.
- 19:00Speaker 1: I want to read you something from St Catherine of Siena.
- 19:03Speaker 1: St Catherine of Siena, you know it's an amazing woman, isn't it, isn't she?
- 19:09Speaker 1: And she had the stigmata, lived in the 13th century, she died in 1380.
- 19:21Speaker 1: And she's talking about recognizing whose image.
- 19:22Speaker 1: This is now 1380.
- 19:24Speaker 1: So this is how beautiful this is John Paul's work.
- 19:25Speaker 1: We're pulling all the way through the traditions, all the way from Jesus himself, all the way back to the Old Testament in the beginning, and all the way through, and bringing us all of these gifts.
- 19:35Speaker 1: And so what does St Catherine of Siena say?
- 19:39Speaker 1: She says it's in our actions.
- 19:42Speaker 1: Learn the master of truth, who preached virtue only after he practiced it himself.
- 19:47Speaker 1: In this way, you will produce fruit, you will become the good and you'll be channels through whom God will offer his grace within the hearts of those who hear you.
- 19:56Speaker 1: You know, when we take on Christ, we go out into the world.
- 20:00Speaker 1: We bring back this grace that we've been given in the beginning and we are supposed to be able to, you know, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, bring God's love into the world.
- 20:12Speaker 1: Well, this is what we're doing.
- 20:14Speaker 1: When we go back to Christ, our hearts are filled.
- 20:16Speaker 1: We bring this into the world, into a world that needs to hear the story of Jesus Christ.
- 20:23Speaker 1: I mean, think about these kids on the college campuses now, the vitriol they're just ready to destroy violence, you know, from the river to the sea, you know, just, you can stick up for you know those, you know those poor families.
- 20:39Speaker 1: You think about these children and these young families in Gaza.
- 20:42Speaker 1: And you know they didn't choose to come into that world.
- 20:48Speaker 1: They just came into that world.
- 20:49Speaker 1: And, of course, whether they get indoctrinated or not get indoctrinated, whatever happens there, these are human beings that come into the world.
- 20:57Speaker 1: And now the same thing with the Jewish people in Israel.
- 21:00Speaker 1: You know, when Hamas came in and raped and destroyed I mean, when you think about what they did, the violence to those people plucking out eyes, putting nails right into the vaginas of young women and stuff after they raped them and things I mean these are sick people and it goes all the way back.
- 21:21Speaker 1: I don't even want to bring through that evil anymore.
- 21:26Speaker 1: You can go back and look at all that, but this is what we have to overcome.
- 21:30Speaker 1: See, god will offer his grace.
- 21:32Speaker 1: St Catherine of Siena said within the hearts of those who hear you Well, this again, this isn't my peace that I'm bringing to these people.
- 21:40Speaker 1: This is from St John again, where he said Jesus said to his disciples peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.
- 21:46Speaker 1: This is the peace that we're bringing into the world.
- 21:49Speaker 1: This is a big deal.
- 21:51Speaker 1: This is way, way different when you look at other religions, like Islam or whatever.
- 21:56Speaker 1: You know there's violence there that you don't hear from Jesus.
- 22:00Speaker 1: You know Jesus didn't come to overcome the world.
- 22:03Speaker 1: He didn't come to take on 100 virgins, and you know what are you doing with 100 virgins?
- 22:08Speaker 1: You're using them.
- 22:09Speaker 1: I a hundred virgins, and you know what are you doing with a hundred virgins?
- 22:11Speaker 1: You're using them.
- 22:11Speaker 1: I mean, are you giving yourself to a hundred?
- 22:12Speaker 1: No, you're taking and grasping.
- 22:13Speaker 1: Jesus doesn't do that.
- 22:15Speaker 1: You know, watch Jesus.
- 22:16Speaker 1: I'm not even going to take a wife here, because this is about a self-giving love.
- 22:21Speaker 1: This is about to love as God loves.
- 22:23Speaker 1: This is about actually coming into union and communion with God himself.
- 22:28Speaker 1: And so St Catherine goes on and says realize it's impossible for us to either to learn about or to have the good life, or to be hungry for God's honor and the salvation of souls, unless we go to the school of the Word, capital W, the Lamb slain and abandoned on the cross, because it is there that the true teaching is found.
- 22:50Speaker 1: This is what he said.
- 22:52Speaker 1: I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one can go to the Father except through him.
- 22:58Speaker 1: She says let your mind's eye be open to see, unplug your ears, listen to the teaching he gives you.
- 23:05Speaker 1: Look at yourselves, for in him you will find yourselves, and in yourselves you will find him.
- 23:12Speaker 1: She says what I mean is that you will find yourselves in him and that he is creating you in his own image and likeness.
- 23:21Speaker 1: Ooh, he's creating you in his own image and likeness.
- 23:26Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing, as it was in the beginning, before we blew this out again, gratuitously and not because he owes it to you.
- 23:37Speaker 1: As he's doing this, and within yourselves you will discover God's boundless goodness.
- 23:43Speaker 1: And, having taken on our likeness by the union and the divine nature, has affected within our own nature.
- 23:51Speaker 1: See again, we're created in the image of God.
- 23:53Speaker 1: All of us are Again ruah, reason, intellect, free will, but that can be darkened and twisted and distorted.
- 24:00Speaker 1: It's only by taking this grace back in, by accepting the redemption, that all of this light comes back into us, that frees us to.
- 24:10Speaker 1: Our reason is restored and we start to seek the truth again, we start to choose the good again, we see the beauty in the world and we love our brothers and sisters, even our enemies.
- 24:22Speaker 1: How can we do this on our own?
- 24:24Speaker 1: Well, of course we can't.
- 24:25Speaker 1: So that's the likeness, so the image of God within us, again reason, intellect, free will, but it can be darkened, twisted, distorted by evil, by our own decisions.
- 24:35Speaker 1: But the likeness then, the image and likeness Christ restores because we start to do good.
- 24:41Speaker 1: What does that mean?
- 24:42Speaker 1: The likeness?
- 24:42Speaker 1: I act like Christ.
- 24:44Speaker 1: I am goodness in the world.
- 24:46Speaker 1: I am Jesus' visible reality in the world, because I gave him my own heart right.
- 24:53Speaker 1: We have that boundless goodness and we bring it into the world.
- 24:57Speaker 1: Let our hearts explode wide open.
- 25:01Speaker 1: St Catherine says Then, as we contemplate, a flame and a fire of love so great that God has engrafted himself unto us and us unto himself.
- 25:12Speaker 1: Amen, oh, unimaginable love.
- 25:15Speaker 1: She says it would be enough if we had even appreciated it.
- 25:19Speaker 1: To this wonderful school.
- 25:21Speaker 1: Then my sons go to this wonderful school, she says, for this energy and love will lead you on and will be your life.
- 25:30Speaker 1: Wow, this is the story, this is the hope.
- 25:34Speaker 1: But this begins today.
- 25:35Speaker 1: See, we see this as we act.
- 25:38Speaker 1: As we act.
- 25:39Speaker 1: It's not enough just to pray, not just to be filled.
- 25:44Speaker 1: See, we're a body and a soul and we have to make it visible.
- 25:48Speaker 1: We have to make Christ visible.
- 25:49Speaker 1: We see it then in the created world.
- 25:52Speaker 1: We see it and we experience it within ourselves and in those that we help the poor, those that need it.
- 25:59Speaker 1: And when I think about the poor and those that need this message, I think about these poor trans kids and these kids that are so confused on these colleges and then spewing this vitriol.
- 26:09Speaker 1: Can you imagine how dark they are.
- 26:11Speaker 1: They're spewing hatred at such a young age because they were never given the light.
- 26:16Speaker 1: You know, if you go up to them and just say do you believe in Jesus Christ?
- 26:21Speaker 1: In 1 Peter 5, 7, st Peter says cast all your anxieties on Jesus Christ, for he cares about you, but be sober, be watchful for your adversary.
- 26:34Speaker 1: The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, and that's what he does.
- 26:40Speaker 1: So here's how I'm going to end this.
- 26:44Speaker 1: Jesus or John Paul, I should say John Paul in 87 talks about the sacrament of marriage.
- 26:52Speaker 1: Well, what is that sacrament of marriage?
- 26:54Speaker 1: When you're standing at an altar in a Catholic mass and you look up at the crucifixes behind you, you're getting married.
- 27:04Speaker 1: With the backdrop of the bridegroom pouring himself out to you, you become this tiny sign again.
- 27:11Speaker 1: But this tiny sign is a big deal to you, isn't it?
- 27:14Speaker 1: It's a big deal to your spouse, because your body and a soul default position is sin and death, using abusing one another.
- 27:24Speaker 1: But what happens when you're filled with grace, this peace of God, the redemption of the body that he offers us on the cross, what happens?
- 27:33Speaker 1: So now I'm a body, soul plus grace, as it was in the beginning.
- 27:36Speaker 1: And then what happens?
- 27:37Speaker 1: Now?
- 27:37Speaker 1: I have a body, soul, plus grace, as it was in the beginning.
- 27:38Speaker 1: And then what happens?
- 27:39Speaker 1: Now I have the power, the potential.
- 27:42Speaker 1: This equals the potential for human flourishing, the potential for human freedom.
- 27:48Speaker 1: Well, how do I actually make it efficacious in the sacrament?
- 27:52Speaker 1: I have to do it.
- 27:53Speaker 1: I have to understand and my reason, I see the truth, it I have to understand.
- 28:01Speaker 1: In my reason I see the truth and then my free will, working with that in my conscience, says yes, what is the truth?
- 28:04Speaker 1: What is the good?
- 28:05Speaker 1: It's to pour yourself out and love to another person.
- 28:08Speaker 1: So I choose the good as a husband and wife, or a future husband or wife, standing there ready to take care of house.
- 28:14Speaker 1: I see the good in my spouse, I see the good in my husband, in my future husband, in my future wife, and I desire their good.
- 28:23Speaker 1: I desire what's good for them and I start by pouring myself into them as a gift.
- 28:28Speaker 1: Well, what am I giving them?
- 28:29Speaker 1: I'm giving them Christ, I'm giving them this grace.
- 28:32Speaker 1: So that's what makes it efficacious.
- 28:35Speaker 1: We have those two people there.
- 28:36Speaker 1: That's what makes it efficacious.
- 28:38Speaker 1: We have those two people there, body, soul, both filled with divinity of God himself who sacrificed for us.
- 28:42Speaker 1: And now we're pouring that out to one another as it was in the beginning, making God's love, this fuller image of God's love, a man and a woman open to life, right.
- 28:53Speaker 1: And we make it efficacious Now.
- 28:55Speaker 1: Every time a man and a woman make love to one another in a marital act, where the two become one in a one-flesh marital union, john Paul would say you know, men, take your shoes off before you enter the marriage bed, because you're entering unto holy ground.
- 29:11Speaker 1: This is a sacrament, and every time you make love to one another, you're renewing your wedding vows I'm giving myself freely, totally faithfully, open to new life, fruitfully.
- 29:22Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm gonna end this the way John Paul started.
- 29:26Speaker 1: This is the way he started this chapter.
- 29:29Speaker 1: He started with Ephesians 5, verses say 25 to I'll read to you to about 33 if you wanna look it up.
- 29:37Speaker 1: And John Paul calls this passage, ephesians 5, the Summa or the summary of all John Paul's work.
- 29:46Speaker 1: Because, why?
- 29:47Speaker 1: Because he's relinking now the marriage of man and woman to Christ and the church.
- 29:53Speaker 1: See, christ is filling us, bringing us back into this union and communion.
- 29:58Speaker 1: And so this is when I'm reading this.
- 30:01Speaker 1: This is what's happening, where he says husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
- 30:08Speaker 1: You know what happens when I do that.
- 30:11Speaker 1: Why am I doing that?
- 30:13Speaker 1: Ah, so that Jesus can sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word that he might present the church to himself.
- 30:22Speaker 1: So here's Jesus, wedding the church.
- 30:24Speaker 1: Well, we're in the church, we're part of this.
- 30:26Speaker 1: So he's wedding the church, us, to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, so that she, all of us, might be holy and without blemish.
- 30:35Speaker 1: Well, this is his bride.
- 30:37Speaker 1: The church this is all of us might be holy and without blemish.
- 30:38Speaker 1: Well, this is his bride.
- 30:38Speaker 1: The church, this is all of us.
- 30:39Speaker 1: So now he turns to us and he goes even so, husbands, you should love your wives as your own body.
- 30:47Speaker 1: This is what Jesus does, for he who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
- 31:00Speaker 1: For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
- 31:08Speaker 1: And then St Paul and then John Paul points this out.
- 31:13Speaker 1: He goes.
- 31:13Speaker 1: For what reason does a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two become one flesh?
- 31:18Speaker 1: Well, st Paul says this is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church.
- 31:24Speaker 1: Again, this is a sacramental sign of this.
- 31:27Speaker 1: So it was Jesus who came into this broken, sinful world.
- 31:31Speaker 1: He left his heavenly father and his earthly mother.
- 31:35Speaker 1: To do what?
- 31:35Speaker 1: To become one flesh with us?
- 31:37Speaker 1: Where To become one flesh with us?
- 31:38Speaker 1: Where does he become one flesh with us?
- 31:40Speaker 1: At the mass, at the mass in the Eucharist.
- 31:44Speaker 1: It's when a man and a woman receive that Eucharist at the Catholic mass.
- 31:48Speaker 1: This is what they're giving to one another.
- 31:50Speaker 1: This is my body given for you.
- 31:53Speaker 1: This is my blood given for you.
- 31:55Speaker 1: How can I have the power to do this?
- 31:57Speaker 1: I can have the power to do this.
- 31:57Speaker 1: I can have the power to do this because of what?
- 31:59Speaker 1: Because Christ gave this to us.
- 32:02Speaker 1: You see, this is the sacrament of marriage.
- 32:05Speaker 1: This is why we need the sacrament of marriage.
- 32:08Speaker 1: The sacrament of marriage, when we enter into it, it's efficacious.
- 32:12Speaker 1: A sacrament produces grace within us.
- 32:16Speaker 1: This is why, when the two become one, you can't contracept.
- 32:20Speaker 1: You have to be open to life.
- 32:22Speaker 1: It's a sacramental sign.
- 32:24Speaker 1: You know how many people have no idea, have never really made love to one another because they've never had a non-contraceptive sex.
- 32:32Speaker 1: I mean, even in a marital act where the sacrament is efficacious, it's not efficacious when we contracept that act.
- 32:43Speaker 1: It really has nothing to do with how many children you have.
- 33:00Speaker 1: There's a way to abstain natural family planning just during the fertile days of a month and you can forego that if you had some legitimate reason to not have any children or more children.
- 33:04Speaker 1: Maybe you have three or four and you're going crazy and you said there's probably a time we shouldn't do this.
- 33:07Speaker 1: You still can enter into that marital act almost every day of the month, except for that window, and what happens is when you do that, the grace flows into that.
- 33:18Speaker 1: And then those periods you abstain let's call it seven, eight, nine, maybe even nine or 10 days.
- 33:24Speaker 1: This is a great time to become that sacrificial lamb again, to be able to turn yourself to God, have the power to do this and as we turn and love one another.
- 33:37Speaker 1: These are these breaks right that you get that you don't take each other for granted.
- 33:43Speaker 1: You turn into Christ even to overcome our concupiscence maybe, or this desire that we feel in those seven or eight days and you say, oh my gosh, I can't make love to my wife or my husband.
- 33:57Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, over a long period of time, that beauty of lovemaking between a man and a woman will only be sustained, will only be sustained if you're receiving the sacraments.
- 34:10Speaker 1: The poet Renee Maria Wilke identified this very keenly, with this drama in loving relationships.
- 34:16Speaker 1: He said, sensing that ending up in this downward spiral cannot be the only way out, this is the paradox of love, he said, between a man and a woman.
- 34:24Speaker 1: Two infinities right, two infinite persons meet two limitations.
- 34:29Speaker 1: Two infinite needs to be loved meet two fragile and limited capacities to love.
- 34:35Speaker 1: Only in the ambit, this breath of a greater love, do they not consume themselves in pretension and do not resign themselves, but walk together, each toward a fullness of which the other is a sign.
- 34:49Speaker 1: See, the fullness which the other is a sign is only completed in God.
- 34:54Speaker 1: It's a sign, a primordial sacrament, again, this beautiful sign pointing to the Trinity and where we're going.
- 35:02Speaker 1: So he finishes.
- 35:04Speaker 1: The poet Wilkie finishes like this If you do not love Christ, beauty made flesh more than the person you love, the later relationship withers, because Christ is the truth of this relationship, the fullness to which both parties point and in whom their relationship is fulfilled.
- 35:24Speaker 1: Only by letting Christ in is it possible for the most beautiful relationship that can happen in this life not to be corrupted and die in time.
- 35:33Speaker 1: This is the audacity of his claim.
- 35:38Speaker 1: What's the audacity of his claim?
- 35:40Speaker 1: That I will fill you and you'll have this beautiful relationship and it won't be corrupted and die in this time.
- 35:48Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
- 35:49Speaker 1: Good to be with you.