Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #583 Claymore #2: Finding Identity and Purpose: JD Vance and Generation Z's Quest to Find the Truth

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#583 Claymore #2: Finding Identity and Purpose: JD Vance and Generation Z's Quest to Find the Truth · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Riggert, your host.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Glad you're with me.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This is the second episode introducing Claymore Miletus Christi, soldiers for Christ.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It is really focused on young men, young Gen Z men, maybe a little bit older, not precluding women.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: We love to have you in this battle, but what we saw over the last four or five years as we were out speaking, we start to see young men, especially young Gen Z men.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Gen Z be 15 years old right now, going up into, say, 27, 28.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: We saw, kind of the middle of that, 19, 20, 21 and up, starting to look for something else, you know, because in the human heart we're searching for the truth.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: What is the truth?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: What is this?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And they start to recognize how crazy the world has gotten right.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And so when we were getting ready for this last election and man, we dodged the bullet here.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: If Kamala Harris and this crazy Tim Walz, these people really just morally bankrupt people and look there are brothers and sisters We've got to pray for them.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: We have to show mercy.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: God is here on the cross for all of us.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: By the grace of God, go I.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I was probably as bad as any of them at some point in my life.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: But at some point you say what is the truth?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: How should I live?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: This is a crazy world.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: What's going on here, and just when you think that the nation is know, is is just in decline.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: There's no way to stop it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: We always have hope, though.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: There's always hope.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So the this, the title of this episode, is in you there is hope.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: It comes from john paul ii himself, who said to young people at world youth day one time he's talking to all these young people and In you there is hope, for you belong to the future, just as the future belongs to you, for hope is always linked to the future.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It's the expectation of future good things.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: You know these are the theological virtues right, faith, hope and charity.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And modern progressive man.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Over the last couple of generations that came before, these young people said we don't need that anymore.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: We don't need that.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: We were so foolish not to realize that this is a world at war.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It's a world between truth and lies you see this very, very clearly between good and evil, between beauty and everything that would profane and twist and distort beauty.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: It's so clear to see, especially the beauty of authentic love, twisting and distorting the human heart itself.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I love JD Vance.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, trump is amazing.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I think God answered our prayers.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: He said look, I'm going to give you a chance, we're going to push back right.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: We're going off the hip.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: We're all standing at this abyss.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I think we all felt this.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: We're getting pushed into this abyss, into this moral corruption and decadence.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: We saw this all the way through, from the top to the bottom.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I've talked about this over and over for the last five or six years.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Anyways, god, we're all praying right, and God gave us this window.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Surprising, god is always going to surprise you, just when you think.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I really, you know when they're trying to take out Trump.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: You think he's not even going to make it to the.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: You know, through these elections they tried to take him down with unjust warfare.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: You saw, really, the.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You know the scales of justice.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Nope, there is no scale of justice with these people.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: They're just corrupt.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And again, I say, they're brothers and sisters.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: But you got to call out the truth, right.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: You got to speak the truth and love and you got to love people in the truth.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Otherwise we just become just like them.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: But anyways, you still got to speak the truth.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: His pick of JD Vance kind of surprised a lot of people.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Here's this young guy.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: How did he choose JD Vance right?
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Again, I think it's divine intervention here when it comes to saving, say, trump's life.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Now he's not God.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: We never said he's God office than our weak Vatican and shepherds did for pro-life, pro-common sense, pro-sanity, bringing all what's true, good and beautiful into the world right.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Just pushing back against these gender ideologies and the DEI and all these Marxist ideologies.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Anyways, in you there is hope.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So how does JD Vance?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Here's a good question for all of you.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: How does JD Vance, this young guy who's a convert, only came into the Catholic Church, I think since 2019, grows up in a very dysfunctional family, in a very dysfunctional area?
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, read his autobiography Hillbilly Effigy, I think he calls it.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Anyways, look it up.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I haven't really read it myself, but I've seen a lot of clips from it and I have to go back and read that.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: But anyways, he didn't have a silver spoon in his mouth and you start to say, hey, how did he get this?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Somehow he comes out of this broken background.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: He has some good people around him.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: God again intervenes when we have a heart for the truth, right, when we have faith, hope and charity the three theological virtues.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: We discover them almost when we have a heart for the truth.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Every man and every woman, really every human being, has a heart for the truth.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: What is the truth?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: How should I live?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: What is the reality of this world that I came to?
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: What's the meaning of purpose of my life?
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Why were we created male and females?
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: How do I find happiness here on earth?
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: How do I find love that satisfies forever?
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: These are timeless questions that we stopped asking.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: The corruption was coming down, this indoctrination.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: How does a young man like JD Vance get through this?
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And there's many other people that get through this.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: They have a heart for the truth.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And then, as you say, I got to have faith in something besides this man-made craziness that I see around me, and you start to think maybe there is a God.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: If I see all this evil, maybe there is a way, maybe there is a path.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And you start to hope for that.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And that's what I want to talk to today hope.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And, before I forget, on our website, which I'll put in the show notes, go to our website, go under resources and download the battle plan so there'll be something called Claymore Milites Christi Milites Christi means soldiers for Christ and go in there and download that.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So you'll open that up.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: You'll see the sword behind me.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: You'll see that sword is the logo there.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Go under there, click on it and then download that file.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: When you open it up, you'll see some things there, but there's actually a download.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So make sure you hit download and print that out, or at least have that ready for us for next session, because I'm going to actually take you through that, because this is a three-part blueprint to answer all those questions.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Why does JD Vance again?
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Why can he articulate his position so well?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Why does he have these positions?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Why is he such a man of virtue and man filled with wisdom and understanding and knowledge and counsel and all those gifts of the Holy Spirit so early?
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Because he's got a formation.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: He has a foundation so that he can see all this, because it'll be coming at you like crazy what's happening for so many young people today.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: They live on the surface and not only them, it's all the people and the shepherds in the church and maybe parents and schools.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of toxic culture that these Generation Z men and women can actually just make it into their heart.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: It shows you the resilience, the awe and wonder of how we're created to seek the truth.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: No, there's got to be something more.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: There's got to be something more.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And then we find the hope.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not going to just sit by and get pushed around, become a porn addict, sitting downstairs watching pornography and blah, blah, blah.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: It's got to be something more to all this.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: In my heart there's a desire to love and be loved.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: You meet women like this all the time.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I see them crying on social media that they can't find in a real man out there, and it's true.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: And so these men exist, though, and they're starting to come up.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And when I say it's true, it's hard to find they're out there, but they got to stand up.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: You got to realize that this is self-determination, that we determine ourselves, in a way, by the choices we make.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So in you is hope.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So, john Paul II, this is based on a three-part blueprint.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: First, the human heart.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Number one is going to be attacked, this battlefield between love and lust.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Then, what does it mean to love right, to go out and love not only neighbor, but this eros, this power of love between a man and a woman.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: What is that all about?
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: It's going to attack marriage and the family and the babies that come out of this.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: We see that this is a brutal attack, actually.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And then he calls us to disciple, to say, hey, let's journey with one or two or three or five other people.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Let's find other brothers and sisters to journey with.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: So we have to go out and we find one or two other people that want to journey with us and then, finally, we go out and we change the culture, we change the world.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So all of these things, this is a blueprint for all this to take back all of the damage and corruption that we've found in the United States and around the world.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: When you throw out faith, hope and love and throw out God out of it, throw out this higher power, and we become this corrupt, selfish people just grasping and taking.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: But it's not enough just to grasp and take themselves.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: They want to take you and me down and everybody else.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: So in you there is hope and I want to share this.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So John Paul II he was pope for quite a while and he started to unpack all this.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: He saw all this coming.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: He grew up in a communist, marxist country that was doing all these things to young people, and I won't go into that whole explanation now, but he started to put a format together and it's a three-part blueprint that he left us, and he doesn't just make this up.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: This is the battle since human history started, but he just articulated it for our time in a way that we can understand it in our time.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to read some notes that I made from his battle plan.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: He called it Delecti Amici, which was to launch World Youth days for you, young people, for young people to come, because he said, young people, you know that your life has meaning to the extent that it's given away to others, not grasping and taking, but authentic love.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: He knew that that young people were living in a toxic culture.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: He saw this coming.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: You know the prophets of the church have always seen this stuff coming.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: God always enlightens people.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: He enlightened Trump and JD Vance and many, many, many people that they're bringing into.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Hopefully we get through these confirmation hearings, because these are good people.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: They're the JD Vance types, right, the Kash Patels of the world.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: These are good, good people.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: There's many other ones that Trump's appointing that have faith, hope and love and speak, love and the truth.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So this is about a 16-part series that John Paul put together and he outlined this, but it comes into three basic categories.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to open this up with hope, because he said he really wants to talk about hope and hope for the future, and this is what we're starting to see today.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: This is what we want to kind of help you with, help us all with, dear friends.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: John Paul said, speaking to all of you in you there is hope, for you belong to the future, just as the future belongs to you.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to put my glasses on.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: They're just reading glasses and I can read without them, but, man, I'm reading a lot and my eyes are getting a little strained.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So thank you, for hope is always linked to the future.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: It's the expectation of future good things as a Christian virtue is linked to the expectation of those eternal good things which God has promised to man in Jesus Christ.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: And at the same time, this hope is both a Christian and a human virtue is the expectations of good things which man will build using the talents given him by providence.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Again, the Trumps of the world, the JD Vances of the world, many, many others.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: They're given these gifts and talents and they understand that this world is temporal, it's short.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: What kind of world will we build?
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Well, it starts in the human heart.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: It starts with marriage and the family, then it goes out right.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: So John Paul said in this sense, the future belongs to you, young people, just as it belonged to the generation of those who are now adults.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, when I say adults, it's not that when you're 20, 21, or 22, you're already young adults.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: We know that.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: But he means the generations that came before him, who are now running the country, running the corporations.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And he said, precisely together with them, it has become the present reality.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So they have made whatever we see around us, the present reality.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Responsibility for this present reality, for its shape and its form, lies first with all of these people that came before you.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: These generations that came before you form now what's going to become reality within yourselves, and then what lies in the future.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: What kind of world will we create?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: When we say that the future belongs to you, we're thinking about human impermanence.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: It just moves on.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: It's always a journey toward the future.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't long ago.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I was your age, I was just coming into the world.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: You know what is this all about.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I remember it so well.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I'll relate some stories as we go on here.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I'll relate stories from people that I've met for the years.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: The story is the same.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It's only in a different place, in a different time, but it's laid out in a structure.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I came in two generations, say, before you.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Now you're coming in, but you start to see wow, we can change the world.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: You know, depending on who we are and where we're at.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: You know the world can be changed because it's not just us, it's God working through you.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: When you get on fire, you know it's amazing how God will use you in different ways.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: What kind of world will we make?
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Right this journey toward the future?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It's coming every day.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: The world that you find yourself in at this moment took shape by the young people who came before you and now they're grown up.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: How did they do?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: That's what I want to ask you guys.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: How did they do?
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Are you happy with the world?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: If not, what will you do differently?
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: And you know what they keep pushing all these gender ideologies and climate hoaxes and blah, blah, blah.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: These lies to you.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: You know it's amazing, if you watch the confirmation hearings going on with these wonderful people, that Trump's trying to get into these different offices to undo this corruption.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And you see these senators, they're just so angry, they're spewing venom.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I just like they're full of demons.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And what happened?
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: They were young people at one time and they stood just where you are now and they, and slowly, they chose, they walked to walk away from faith, hope and charity, and so away from what's true, what's good and what's beautiful, and these small choices in their life.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Pope Benedict said at first, when you take God out of your life, everything seems like it's going around, okay, right, and then it doesn't.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And now we're at that stage where, no, it doesn't.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: A lot of dysfunction in the human heart, a lot of dysfunction in families, a lot of dysfunction in JD Vance's families.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: But now look at the beautiful family that he has now with his beautiful wife and their children, and look at the way he can articulate his faith and how he's stepping into the arena.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Well, how does he do that?
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Ah, he's got the foundation of faith.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: You don't do that otherwise, because you can know things, but you don't have the wisdom, the understanding, the counsel, the fortitude, the knowledge, because it comes from piety and fear of the Lord.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Now, those are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: So I ask you, do you have hope?
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Not all people do.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: My heart goes out to them and to you, because these are confusing times in which to grow up.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Recently, after a presentation to high school students, I asked them if they had a specific topic they wanted to address in our afternoon session.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: And the reason I bring up high school students is because I want, in the back of your mind, to think.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I want to call you as disciples, to help us disciple these young people that are younger than you.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So once you catch fire, once you start to lay a little bit of a foundation on your heart, don't wait till you know everything.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Come with us, journey with us and help some of these young people.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So that's why I bring up this high school session, because, before you know it, they're going to be your age.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: In fact, those are the younger of the Generation Z.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: They're about 15 years old, 16 years old.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: That's the time to really go in.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But we need young men and women to help us do that right, to bridge this gap, so that they can look up to someone that's just a few years older than you and say, oh yeah, I want what they have.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: So the topic they requested.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: So I asked them.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I said when we come back for the next session we were doing three or four sessions with them anything particularly on their mind.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: You know what they wanted to know hearts and the messages they were receiving from the world around them.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And these young people are not alone.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: You felt that yourselves.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: This is the battle that you're stepping in.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: This is what we want to help you with.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Because you felt it, you said nope, something's got to change.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: You heard Trump.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: He had the courage.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: He said I have the courage and the conviction.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And you say that's what we're looking for, not these sissies telling you about these gender ideologies, and you can kill a baby and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Right, you sense something.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: What is that?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: What is the truth?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Huh, what is the truth?
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Statistics show that this is the most you're in the most depressed and anxious generation of young people that the world has ever seen, and the rates of depression and anxiety have grown incredibly over the last 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Not just COVID.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: This was happening pre-COVID.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Because it took out all the life, all the meaning and purpose of life.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: It took away the identity.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: See, this is what we want to capture again.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: When you don't have and understand who you are, the meaning and purpose of life in general, you get blown around by the spirits of the age all over the place.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: It becomes all emotion.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: You see this with these senators grilling these wonderful people on the hill right now, and they're lost.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: They're like a bunch of angry old kids who are just distorted and twisted in their mind, just full of emotion.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: My power, my money, or tell me that I'm wrong and I've spent my whole life right, doing this crazy stuff that we do.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Huh, trying to soak, really, the American people, right With socialism, neo-marxism, blah, blah, blah.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Those senators are so rich and wealthy.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: The hypocrisy is beyond.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: But let me go on from here.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: So what do you think's going on here?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: To answer that question, I suggest we begin at the beginning.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: There was a precise moment in time that you made your glorious entrance into the stage of this life.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: You were exploded onto the stage.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: That's a fact.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: But to understand yourself and to get a handle on the meaning and purpose, you need to know the larger story that you are intimately linked to one that has been unfolding for many, many, many generations.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Pause to think about this.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: You came into a story.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Did you create the universe?
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Anybody here?
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Anybody create the universe?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Send me a text.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: If you did, did you write the bigger story that you came into, right?
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: No, and this is what confuses so many.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: They never seek to understand the larger story.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: What is the truth of this story?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And then they wonder why they stay confused their whole lives.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: You came into a story and you have a role to play, an important one, especially to the people around you, but it's within the context of a larger story, infused with meaning and purpose, that has been unfolding long before you arrived.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: See, it's like this rope, this timetable.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: It started here.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: There's actually a big bang.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: The world started here.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: It's going someplace, and right here, in this little point, you exploded onto the stage, right?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So what's going on?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: What is the truth of things?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: If you've never taken the time or put in the effort to study and try to understand the larger story, it would be like getting to a movie 35 minutes late.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: See, this is what JD Vance has over so many other people.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: He knows where the story came from.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: He knows where it's going and so he's walked into this adventure.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Look it, we got to determine it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: We don't know all the story, we just take it day by day.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: But once you put it in the context of the story, everything starts to fit in.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You get the wisdom from God himself to help you get through that day right.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, you got to a movie 35 minutes late.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: You take your place, you sit down with your popcorn, already having missed the beginning, and, of course, you haven't seen the end of the movie yet.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And you're trying to understand the plot.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Isn't this what your life is like?
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Sometimes good things happen, sometimes beautiful things.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: You fall in love, right, you get that job you always dreamed of.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: You get into the college you always dreamed of.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: You get into the college, you always dream.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: But then tragic things happen and you start to see this whole decline of the whole country and the whole world.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: In some ways you fall out of love.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe somebody falls out of love with you.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe you never find that love.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: You're thinking where is that love?
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Is there somebody there for me?
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, that job, oh gosh, I don't know how much longer I want to go into this work.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Now they're making me go back to work now, but I have to pay the rent.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe I have a new car, the latest phone.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I got to pay my bills, so I got to go on, got to go on, and here the plot gets really interesting.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The whole universe was created good, but an opposing force sought an anti-creation, and the main target in this battle of good versus evil is what you, the individual human heart, the individual human heart.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: The battle is for your heart.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: The battle is for the heart of all these young people that are around you.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It's an ancient battle.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: You came into a story but you never got the memo, and there's a reason for that.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: You're growing up in a culture that literally screams forget about God, the church and the Bible.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Isn't this what we all hear?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: They took it out of the schools, we took it out of the public places, we took it out of the court systems.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: How do you find justice right when you take God, the church, the Bible out?
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: You don't, you, you don't, and you see the corruption come in, because the corruption started in the human heart and now these people are manifesting that creation in the world.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: We got to undo that.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: That's what the battle plan is for?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: There is no creator.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: We hear.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: We're just here by accident, just random atoms hitting atoms, a world without meaning or purpose or truth other than my truth or your truth.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: But there's something that does not function well in a world without meaning and purpose the human heart.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: The human heart.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: So where do you come from?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: You have to decide.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Either one or the other of these statements are true.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Here it is, there's only two.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: You're either an accident of history and therefore completely at liberty to do whatever you please with your life.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: This is what the modern culture says.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: You have license to do whatever.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: There's no meaning and purpose to your life.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Indulge it, trash it and even right end it.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Even the statement is true.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: If the statement is true, your life is ultimately meaningless.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Now we wonder why are we the most anxious, depressed, suicidal generation that ever came?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Because this is what they're telling you?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Or you're a created being and if that's the case, you've been created for a purpose.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: That's what this plan is.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: We're going to take you through all that.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: We're going to lay out this foundation.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: It's the most exciting thing you can do with your life If you haven't opened your heart and mind to this fundamental question of our existence am I an accident of history or am I created?
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: And so what is the story?
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Huh, what is the story?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: You'll never have peace if you don't figure this out.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: You'll always have a void that will never be filled, because the human heart is made for the truth.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: God wants to move you onto the truth.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So this is what we have to help our friends with, our families with Say there is, the truth exists.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: It can't be just opinions, because you see, the corruption and the decline come all around us.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Psychiatrist Dr Gerald May wrote some incredible books.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I'll talk more about him as we go forward.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: But he said this so he had been a psychiatrist for 20 years a medical doctor, psychiatrist and after 20 years he was frustrated because he wasn't really helping people.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And so he said this, reflecting back huh, after 20 years of listening to the yearning of people's hearts, I'm convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God, whether they are consciously religious or not.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: This desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: It gives us meaning.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Some of us have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we're completely unaware of it.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Or we may experience it in different ways, as a longing for wholeness, completion, fulfillment.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Regardless of how we describe it, it's a longing for love.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: It's a hunger to love and be loved and move closer to the source of that love.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: This yearning is the essence of the human spirit.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: It is the origin of our highest hopes and our most noble dreams.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: As Dr May wrote, the human heart senses the desire for an encounter, for something more than this world has to offer.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: It's a hunger that, at its core, is to love and be loved and to move closer to the source of love.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Isn't that true?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: This is not about learning more information.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: It's about the story that resides in learning more information.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: It's about the story that resides in our very DNA.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: It's in our hearts, it runs through our blood.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: We know it's true and we hear it.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: This is why John Paul II he saw this drama being played out in the church itself and he said what's like to be called itself modern and it's attempt to correct.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: He said the wonder of the event of jesus christ coming into the world, the wonder, the odd wonder of that, and say nope, you know you can either.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: If you walk away from that story, then you have license right.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: This is these weak shepherds that we see around us embracing these gender ideologies and this climate hoax and all this false stuff.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Right, they're worse in some ways than some of our political leaders, because people trust them to be bringing the faith in right and they're not.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, you have some that just get mad about it and say you know what?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: These are rules, you got to follow the rules.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: You got to do this, you got to do this, you got to do that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Well, we do have the Ten Commandments.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: There is a structure to all this, but if you think this is about rule following, you've missed the whole thing too.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: This is a love story.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: This is a God who takes on flesh, human flesh, and walks into the story, walks into the main door to do what?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: To show you love and mercy and to come in with power.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Pope Benedict XVI shared this.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: He said the widespread idea which continues to exist, is that Christianity is composed of laws and bans which one has to keep, and hence is something toilsome and burdensome that one is freer without such a burden.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I want to make clear that being carried by a great love and revelation is not a burden.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: It's like having wings.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You become free.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: John Paul wrote this beautiful encyclical called Fetus and Ratio Faith and Reason.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: He said it's like two wings Once you enter into faith, you open yourself up to wisdom.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And then he said then you have reason, use your reason.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: What is the truth of things?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: You discern it.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: And then he says you, you have reason, use your reason.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: What is the truth of things?
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: You discern it.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And then he says you'll know it.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: In your heart You'll say, ooh, yes, you had that aha moment.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: That's divine life and love, right.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: So this is what frees you.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: You know not to push your passions down and you know even the desire to love and be like these are beautiful passions.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: You open those up, you don't push them down.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: So we'll be getting into more and more of that.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Right, he said something very beautiful in addition to that, pope Benedict XVI, on this subject.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: He said, at the end of the day, this faith, this hope, this love, this Christian faith of ours will never be an ethical decision or some lofty philosophical idea that's being pushed on you.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: It's always going to be an encounter with an event, an encounter with that person.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: He said that encounter will give you a new horizon, this new battle plan, so you could see what's going on.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Ooh, now I start to understand it.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And a decisive direction for your life.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: See, that's what Claymore is all about the fight on the battlefield, the human heart to carry our cross.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: See, that's what Claymore's all about to fight on the battlefield of the human heart to carry our cross.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: See that's the divine mercy right there.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Jesus, I trust in you, the water and the blood that comes out of Jesus' heart on the cross.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: So this is exactly what the Gospels show as the beginning of Christianity an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Albeit, it comes in different forms, but on this point all the Gospels agree.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: It started with an event, a person.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: This is not rules.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: We have walked so far away, we've gotten so far away from an understanding of this person that comes into the story that we're called to intimately know, to encounter, to take this grace and walk into the story.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: How do you think JD Vance comes from this broken home, in this brokenness and drugs and et cetera in his house, and forms this beautiful family and comes into a story like this?
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: This is why he encounters the person.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: The next day, john the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: This is the first chapter of John.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: So he's baptizing with two of his disciples, andrew, peter's brother, and John, who gives us this eyewitness account because he says in there it's about the 10th hour.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Read this, it's so beautiful in John, the first chapter.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: And so he's baptizing in Bethany, near the Jordan River, and he sees Jesus comes down and he sees him walk down and he goes behold the Lamb of God.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: And he repeats it again.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: The two disciples heard him say this and they start to follow Jesus.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Jesus turns and saw them following and said to them what does he say to them?
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: What do you seek?
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Put another way, what are you looking for?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: In its disarming simplicity, this question highlights the fact that Christianity stands in history as a response to a query, a universal quest.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: And they said to him Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: We sense that you have something there, which means teacher, where are you staying?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: We sense that you have something there.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: John is calling you out.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: We're looking for something.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: We're looking for the truth.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: And then Jesus said to him, when they asked him where are you staying?
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: We want to know more.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: We encounter you.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: We want to know more.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And he said to them come and see the first chapter of John.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: The verse is 35, say it's 39.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: This expression will remain in history as one of the, as the one and only synopsis of the Christian method.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: This is it Come and see.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: When I'm talking to you, when you're talking to someone else, you just say come and see.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for something more, come and see, see.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: We think this is about me just giving you more information, but I'm just opening up the story.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: We're just a messenger.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: The power comes from the person who took on a body and walked into the main door.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Christianity is something you can see.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: There's a place you can go.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Jesus never imposed, uttered a single word of propaganda, never imposed an ideology, but with confidence in the ability of the heart of man to recognize the truth.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: How does he know that?
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Because he created us.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Come and see.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: We have so many questions today, don't we?
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: What's my identity?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: What's the meaning and purpose of life?
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Why were we created, male and female?
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: How do I find happiness here on earth?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: How do I find love that satisfies forever?
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: So how do I find it?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Jesus responds to our thirst with an invitation, so that we, like the disciples of John, could draw on our own conclusions, never impose.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: John Paul would say Always propose what's true, good and beautiful and propose that we encounter Jesus Christ, and then you'll know.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Come and see.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Jesus said, followed by in Matthew 7.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I love Matthew 7, chapter 7, verse 7,.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: About verse 7, I think it is.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: He says Jesus says ask and it will be given, seek and you will find.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Knock and it will be open to you.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: For anyone who asks receives, anyone seeks finds, and him who knocks it will be open.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: God didn't come into the world to hide himself.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: God came into the world so that you would have some place to go.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Huh, when you started to ask, when you started to seek, when you started to knock.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I want to know the truth, rabbi.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Where are you staying?
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: To find answers to the yearning, burning desires of the human heart, one must have the courage to take a path beyond the world's noise and the false promises.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Jesus goes on enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: That leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many you see it all around us for the gate is narrow and the way is hard.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: That leads to life, and those that find it are few, as much as this gospel gets out.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Those that actually find it are few.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: There's not that many JD Vance's in the world are there.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Those that actually find it are few.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: There's not that many JD Vances in the world are there.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: There's some, and there needs to be a lot more.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: And now that we've seen the evil, you know that this broad highway doesn't work.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: So we start to open up.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: We knock at the narrow gate and say, ooh, where are you staying right?
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Perhaps we're going to see this relationship more clearly when we meditate on the next session.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about the conversation with the rich young man.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: But we find out the rich isn't about possessions, it's youth.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: The rich young man is rich because he has youth.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: He has a chance and we don't want to ruin that chance.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So I want you to do something again Go to our website, download.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Go under resources, see the sword there, hit it and then download what's there and bring that with you for the next session, and we'll unpack that just a little bit.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you just a start here to work on your own heart, but you'll see, the whole blueprint will be laid out there.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: It's not that complicated.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: It's actually fairly short and I did it in two parts, so there's only a couple of pages with an outline, even, and then a few pages summarizing it after that, to even make it more clear.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: So, hey, god bless you.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Great to be with you.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Talk to you again soon, everybody.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Bye-bye, thank you.