Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #654 (Claymore 7) "Achieving Chastity in a Pornographic World" With Father T. G. Morrow

Transcript

#654 (Claymore 7) "Achieving Chastity in a Pornographic World" With Father T. G. Morrow · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Riggert, your host of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Riggert, your host, our apostle at Claymore.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: A lot of young people are waking up and saying you know, there's got to be something more.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: They've been growing up in a very twisted, distorted and toxic culture, lied to about the very basics concerning marriage, the family, authentic love.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: They've been exposed to hardcore pornography at a very young age.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: So many of them their innocence was stolen from them.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Sometimes, when they're 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, their moral imagination's actually twisted and they know something's wrong.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: They're coming up and working with us and saying what is this?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: One of the best things we can do and then I'm going to bring Father Morrow in one of the best things we can do is tell those young people, and especially those young men, you know, the problem isn't that you have passions and desires.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The problem is with our twisted and distorted passions and desires and when you can allow men to understand that they don't have to kill.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: We're not Puritans, we're Catholics here, and we could talk about the beauty of our sexuality and God in the same sentence because he created it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: He thinks it's beautiful.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited to be with Father Thomas G Morrill.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: He graduated from St Charles Seminary in Philadelphia, was ordained in 1982 for the Archdiocese of Washington DC.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: He has an STL in moral theology from the Dominican House of Studies and a doctorate and I love this right here in sacred theology from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: He was the host for three years of Catholic Faith.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Alive has written many books Straight to Heaven Christian Dating in a Godless World, overcoming Sinful Thoughts.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: The one I really want to talk about today is this book, this little book called Achieving Chastity in an Unchaste World.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: A beautiful book.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: His latest book that we're going to get to in the future Marriage for God's Sake.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Father.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: You've done a lot of other things.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: You've written pamphlets on the rosary stations of the cross, heaven, hell and purgatory.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: You've been on many, many shows and written many articles.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So it's really a pleasure to be with you.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you, it's great to be here.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, thank you.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: You know I was telling you, father, a little bit about our apostolate called Claymore.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Claymore is the big sword behind me, made famous by William Wallace in the movie Braveheart.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And this is a battle.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: This is the battle, and John Paul would say the first battle is fought on the battlefield of the heart.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Between love and lust, tom, between becoming a self-giving person and somebody that's grasping and taking.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Well, your book is just wonderful.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I really love it.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It speaks right to those issues, and one of the things it says in there, father, fairly early on, is that we know this.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: We know that our sexuality and the actual act of sex, it's something more than the culture is telling us, isn't it so?
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: what's going on, father?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, much more.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the problem is, of course, the media television, the Internet, all that that changed everything.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: If someone wanted to go and buy a magazine with pornography, well, he had to sneak into an adult bookstore and so no one would see him and go home and use it.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: The Internet changed all that.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Somebody could do this stuff at home.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: It's not just pictures, but it's live stuff that's on there and a lot of people are very addicted to this and they don't exactly know how to get out of it and they think that the church is just shaking their finger and says you're no good.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: But that's not true.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: The church is here to help people and we're here to develop methods to overcome this and to get beyond this.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I had one guy that was using pornography and masturbating for 20 years every day.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: By using the method we have in the book and by praying more and that's so important, the prayer he was able to kick the whole thing and he almost never falls anymore after all that 20 years, Father, and as you state in the book, but as we know so well with the John Paul II Renewal Center here, you know, if you're watching pornography for any length of time at all, it's like any addict it actually changes your brain, doesn't it, Father?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, your neural pathways actually get rewired and it's very difficult because it's not like just saying, hey, you know, I'm going to turn away.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: You can turn away today, but it's going to take a while to undo all that wiring and those images.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: They're stuck in those poor guys' minds for a long time.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we got to replace this with something else, with a different lifestyle, and the church offers that so beautifully for us to deepen our life of prayer and get the strength to overcome these sins.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: That's where the power is is prayer, and especially the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which is the greatest source of grace we have.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: When I came back into the church, father, I did it on the deathbed of one of my brothers who was actually sexually molested as a child.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: We didn't know it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Later on he would get into drugs and then into a homosexual lifestyle, as he was dying of AIDS his last.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Later on he would get into drugs and then into a homosexual lifestyle as he was dying of AIDS his last day on earth.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: He actually brought us back into the church.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: But here's the point I was going to make.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: It was the encounter with the Eucharist when I came back, and the confession.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: That has power.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Just like you said, it was an encounter with Jesus Christ and the Eucharist and the confessional.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I was away from it for 20 years and I, you know, when you step back in, you realize the gift it is and really, from your experience of falling, my experience of falling I realized.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I realized you know that contrast and I knew right away, I said, something is changing in my heart.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: My heart was changing and that's what we're getting to right here with these young people that we're working with.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: You know, your heart will actually become transformed, won't it, father?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Over a period of time.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful gift what God gives us in prayer, but you know, if somebody were to remain chaste for the rest of his life and not have a prayer life, it wouldn't be worth much.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't be worth much.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: What we're talking about is the whole picture with God not just getting rid of some kind of habit, but actually really getting close to God and having his power to improve every part of our life, not just the part that deals with chastity and purity.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Every part of our life can be renewed and reinvigorated by the grace of God, and that's what we want.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: It's not enough to become chaste.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: You've got to become chaste, and even more so you've got to try to become holy.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: That's so important, so important.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: When I was speaking to young people, john Paul said to them on every continent, don't be afraid, true love exists.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Well, we know that.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Authentic love, father, true love, the source of that is God himself.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: To your point, you know, when you're living a chaste life, that's one thing.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: We all are supposed to live a chaste life, and maybe you want to unpack that a little bit for some of our young listeners, father, that are new to the show.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: That chastity is you know, every single person, you have to live a chaste life.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I have to live a chaste life, a single person has to live a chaste life.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: So you want to unpack that a little bit, because sometimes we get confused with the life of chastity exactly.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Why not unpack?
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: that a little bit, Because sometimes we get confused with a life of chastity.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: What exactly does that mean?
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: And married people need to live a chaste life too.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It's not the same.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's me Father.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: That's not the same chaste, no pornography.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that means no cheating with my neighbor.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: But you know, and to keep my heart open, right Open to, and that chastity to have a married person is not the same as my chastity.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: So my chastity is more rigorous, but all of it, it's part of God's plan for us, and if we— Now, father those of us that have been married for a long time, we'd say ours is pretty rigorous too, but of course we know what you mean.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Yours includes continence, right Right and celibacy, in your case, of course.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, but I mean because and John Paul II was a great promoter and he did so much for marriage.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Pope Paul VI did also, pius XII did a lot for marriage, but John Paul II did the most, really, yes, and he was working with married couples and he used to go camping with married couples and so on, and it would lead him into the truth of Christ, gently and strongly, though, because he was very strong on what's right and what's wrong with regard to purity.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: In the story you're just telling.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: When John Paul was a young priest, the communists were still in control, of course, of Poland, and so when he used to take those young couples camping, he used to go up in the mountains sometimes and he had to be called uncle because he couldn't wear his priestly clothes in those days.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And he said up there, as he started to get in with these young couples and mentoring them, he said I came to love human love.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I really came to love human love.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: It was so beautiful.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And you saw that connection.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: You know, father, sometimes, when I'm dealing with young people that are and not only young people that are dealing with pornography, middle-aged people, middle-aged guys that their marriage is coming down because of being unchaste or and or dealing with pornography, and at the end of the day, this can really unravel, can't it?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: You start to make these small mistakes in life, you start to put up a barrier between yourself and God, and then, of course, that barrier starts with your wife then too, and with all the other relationships.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: So what you alluded to earlier is so important when we open our hearts up to God, everything else becomes fruitful, doesn't it, father?
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Your relationships, your marriages, if you're married, but all of our relationships and our time to become self-giving right to other people.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: We start to become takers more than givers.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: People, that's it.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: We start to become takers more than givers.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Pornography and sexual sins are primarily about selfishness and turning away from love.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, unpack that a little bit Again.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: People are coming in, father, into the church, and what you just said is so important that John Paul again would say young people, you know that, you know.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: John Paul again would say you know, young people, you know that your life has meaning to the extent that it's given away to others.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that, father?
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, we are made.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: In fact, there's a wonderful quote in Vatican II, which I think was written by Carl Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II, in that our life is built on love, and if we don't experience love, we need to, you know, work on finding that, Because if we don't experience love, we need to experience love and able to live love.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Love is about giving, not about taking, and so what people need to do is, if they're falling into these sins, they need to change their heart.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I tell people in confession the problem is that when you are addicted to this sort of thing, your mind says I don't want to do this, but your heart says no, I got to have it.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: And so the solution is to convert the heart.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And how do we convert the heart?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: This is from John Paul II, from Aristotle and from St Thomas Aquinas.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: You need to change the heart by reminding yourself of the values gained by living chastely, and I, in confession, I give people a little card with a list of the values that they need to read over and over again until they totally, totally embrace the truth about chastity.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: And here are some of the things I say on the list.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Number one sex is something holy.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: It's not a plaything.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: It should never be trivialized.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Number two creating the image and likeness of God.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I can live by reason, not just by urges.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: As the animals do, Persons are to be loved, not merely used as object of enjoyment.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Unchaste activity destroys my most precious friendship, that with God, the source of all happiness.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Unchaste activity brings pleasure but not happiness, and of course, if we're always giving in to our urges, that carries over into the rest of our life, and so we tend to be basically looking to please ourselves and we're not concerned about pleasing other people.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Which is a way to happiness, is the loving, as John Paul II said.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: When you start to realize the power and the beauty of sexuality.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Father, you know Plato, you know you mentioned Aristotle and, of course, aristotle, plato, they understood this even these sexual urges, eros, this erotic, to be a divine spark, something that is not only erotic, not only sensual, but would bring you into what's true, good and beautiful.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And that's really what young guys that we're working with are starting to understand, father.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: We always tell them, you know, christopher West was a big proponent of this.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: You know, don't stuff these you know passions and desires down.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Don't indulge them either, because that's what these poor guys do, right, they stuff them down and then they explode basically right, Then they binge.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: They binge and they go back and forth, and what you're talking about here is that third way, father, is to open up those passions and desires so that God can untwist undistort.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And this is really what affects the human heart, what transforms the human heart, when you open those up and you realize God's taking you into another whole place, a place that you wouldn't even imagine, father, and the only way to do that is to walk into that story, and I think where these young people we're working with are starting to understand there's gotta be something more, father, and they're open to this, they're open to trying something new.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So if some young guy comes to you, father, and he says, hey, you know, I'm just trying to figure this out, blah, blah, blah, you know what's the best way for us to help them come into this story?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: You know you mentioned prayer, the sacraments, etc.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of these guys have not even Father.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: You know they don't have much, any faith.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: You know, shared at home.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they're growing up without fathers.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know these guys have a long ways to go.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: They sense something, though, and they want to come into the story.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: How can we help them, father?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: So everything begins with prayer.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: All right, our life should be based on prayer.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: One of our youth group kids, I quoted St Alphonsus Liguori.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: To him, those who pray are saved, those who do not pray are damned.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And he said are you saying, father, that if I don't pray I'm going to go to hell?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: And I said yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, but don't take it from me.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: St Alphonsus Liguori is a much better authority than I am.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: It's like saying, if you're getting married, if you don't talk to your wife, you're going to be divorced.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a no-brainer, isn't it?
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, everybody knows that.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: So if you don't talk to God, you're going to lose God.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Losing God is very serious.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Even for a short time it's awful to lose God, but in the end we have to be close to God if we hope to live with him in his kingdom.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So it's not supposed to be easy.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Some of the kids tell me Father, prayer is boring, the Mass is boring.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: I said yeah, they are.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Teresa of Avila found them boring.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: She found prayer boring.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: She couldn't stand to go in and pray.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: But then when she did go in and pray with the nuns, she was already a nun by this time when she did go in and pray.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: She felt better after that than when she felt like praying when she went in to pray.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: And of course later on she said she's quoted as saying there's only one way to get to God and that's through prayer.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: And if somebody tells you another way, they are mistaken.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: And she prayed a tremendous amount when she got older and realized the power of prayer.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And I tell young people, if you don't endure a significant amount of boredom, you're probably never going to make it to the kingdom.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I agree with them.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Prayer was kind of boring, but I knew I had to do it.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: The nuns in grammar school convinced us that if you want peace in the world, you better pray the rosary.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: So I started praying the rosary when I was 14.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I wish I had started when I was 7.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: But to pray the rosary is a very powerful thing and to pray it right, not just say a bunch of prayers, but to think about the mystery very carefully and have a booklet or something to help you with the mysteries.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: I wrote a little booklet on the mysteries of the rosary and it's on our website.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Our website is heisncatholicevizentfaithalivecom.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: And you can get all our stuff at a discount and there's no shipping.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: There's no shipping charges.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, beautiful.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll make sure we get that in the show notes.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: You know, Father, when we have this apostolate called Claymore, Miletus Christi Soldiers for Christ and again it's the big sword, what we tell the guys to do, you know, because of what you just said.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: You know they don't understand prayer sometimes.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So we have this very simple three-part steps that they take in the morning.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: That just takes them a few minutes Before they look at that phone.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: We ask them to fall down to their knees and just imagine our Blessed Mother kneeling with them and, just like the Annunciation, be it done to me, according to your word.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And then we remind them that Mary, at the wedding feast at Cana, said do as he tells you, you know.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: And then the second thing they do, Father, is they understand temptation's not a sin, and this is very important and I'm going to ask you to address this, because temptation's not a sin.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Jesus himself was tempted and we get into that, what we talked about already, where you open yourself up.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: You open yourself up.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: It's so important, right To open up your temptations to God himself and it will drive you, it will bring you up into the life of Christ himself.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: And then the third thing is get up off your knees and love the next person.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: You see, whether it's your wife or the cashier down the street right.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So important.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love the rosary.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: John Paul II said it was his favorite prayer.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: St Francis de Sales said the rosary is the best way to pray.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So it's a very, very powerful prayer and we have to warm up to prayer little by little.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I get young people to say well, I'll say two or three mysteries every day, but I want you to do it every day, don't miss.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: And then I said, after a few months, do more and build it up.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: And I encourage young people to work their way up to five missions a day, because that's what our Blessed Mother asked for to pray for world peace.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: So work your way up and get to the point where you're doing five missions every day for world peace.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Now, that's not true, that's not the ultimate in holiness, but it's a great start.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: It's a great start and once you get used to doing something like that, you're open to do more prayer.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: St John Vianney said the more you pray, the more you want to pray, and he didn't say this.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: But I say this the less you pray, the less you want to pray.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: He didn't say this, but I say this the less you pray, the less you want to pray.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you start to find that peace, though, father, after a while, you know, look at it, god's not like a vending machine, you know, we know that.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So you know, when these guys first come down and want to get into prayer, it's not like I put a dollar in and the candy bar comes out right.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: God's going to woo us a little differently all the time, but you're right, prayer comes in.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: When St Teresa of Avila that you mentioned, she was a nun for, I think, 20 years and then, boom, that spark hit her and, man, what a woman was on fire.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: If anybody wants to Google something to see the passion in this woman, google something to see the passion in this woman.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Google the ecstasy of St Teresa of Avila by Bernini.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: That sculpture is just sensual, sensual, sensual, and she talks about that.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: She talks about, you know, she would go into these ecstasies and she said, you know, mostly it was spiritual, but she said my body had a part in that too.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: You know, we're a body and a soul and she would be lifted up.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And you know we can get a little bit of this over time.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Father, you know it's going to be up to different people to get you know, to find their way through here and let God woo them.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: But it's amazing, when you start to get into prayer and you start to understand the Mass, oh, you can go into some beautiful places now.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Mass is so, so powerful and it's more powerful than any of the other sacraments, including receiving Holy Communion.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I had a guy in my first parish who used to come in for 630 Mass.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: He'd come in at 645 in time to receive Communion.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: He received Communion and he would go home and I said I have a way for you to get a lot more grace and a lot more sleep.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: And he said oh, that sounds good.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: What do I do?
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I said I want you to come to Mass one day a week, come to the whole Mass, attend to the whole Mass one day a week and sleep in the rest of the week.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: You get a lot more grace that way, because the Mass is so powerful and the Eucharist is the number one sacrament, but the Mass is way above all the sacraments put together.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that, father.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about John Paul.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: When he's starting to talk about chastity If you remember, father, and you and I didn't discuss this ahead of time but in Love and Responsibility he talks about the four aspects of love, and this is really for our younger audience right now too.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: But even people that haven't heard this before he calls this love as attraction.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: You know, when I see the girl or you see the guy and you're attracted but he just reminded us just very quickly you see the beauty and goodness in another person and this will happen all the time.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: It happened.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I'm married almost 43 years, father, and the other day I was at Costco and I was just going down the aisle looking for, you know, some food that we're going to have, and this woman's coming down the aisle at me and I look up and, oh man, she's beautiful, right, love is attraction.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And John Paul would say but that's not authentic love.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: You haven't given yourself to anybody and I've been at this for a while.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: So now I could look at that woman, father, and I could say thank you, jesus, for the beauty of that woman, because that little spark that touches your heart reminds you.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: This is what God, the intimacy God wants with us.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: This is just a little tiny reflection, and then he would go on and say the next one is love, is desire, where we see the goodness in another person and we want that unity and community with them.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Even our bodies were designed right that were not complete.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Plato called that eros the desire for the good, the beautiful and the true in another person.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Here's the problem, father, and this is where chastity comes in Right here, love has been reduced in today's culture to a feeling, and then down to sex, and we sabotage you said earlier, john Paul talked about the importance of love and we sabotage it right here and we start to use one another.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And, father, this is where chastity really comes in, you know, because we want to get to that third stage, which is to see someone and love as goodwill.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I see the goodness in another person and I desire their goodness, I desire what's good for them, and unless we pass on to that third stage, father, we will start to use one another, whether we realize it or not.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And here's the virtue of chastity, isn't it?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, and you remind me in saying that that what I do when people go to confession and they say, well, I had these impure thoughts.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: And then I ask them, did you keep them or did you push them out?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: And sometimes they say I pushed them out pretty quickly, other times not.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: And I say the way you push them out quickly is to say Jesus, jesus, jesus in your heart and the devil will leave.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: He doesn't like that name.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: And then think of something colorful, like a ball game.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I said to one guy, think about our football team.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: And he said no, father, I can't do that.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: It's too depressing.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: So I said well, think about another football team, but anyway, so I say but I want you to know about my fantasy.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I have a religious fantasy.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: What's your religious fantasy, father?
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: My religious fantasy is that God comes to me in the shape of a beautiful woman Maybe that woman you saw in Costco, whatever in the shape of a beautiful woman, warmly embraces me, chastely embraces me and whispers in my ear we're going to be married forever.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Because we are going to be married to God forever and God is more beautiful than anyone we can ever know.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: So the guys tell me yeah, I think I can do that.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: That would be much better, because when you do that, I tell them you're going to want to pray more.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: You look at the other stuff.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: It's going to make you want to pray less.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So I told our kids in our youth group we were at Steubenville for a conference and I said look, when you see a beautiful woman, say to God nice job, you did a nice job on her, lord, thank you.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the kids, he took it to the next level.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: He went around campus and every time he saw an attractive girl he said God did a nice job on you.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I'm grateful for that.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: The women they didn't know what to say.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: They were kind of laughing, but they kind of enjoyed it because it was all very playful.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: So, we have to connect everything with God.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: And when I see a beautiful woman and the devil puts it into my heart yeah, wouldn't it be nice?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Then I say, no, it wouldn't be nice, it wouldn't be enough, because I have something better that's going to last forever and this world is going to be over quickly and then I'm going to be with God and that beauty and that goodness it lasts forever.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: The beauty of the people in this world.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It doesn't last.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Look at people, a beautiful woman you know, 40 years later, well, she's not so beautiful anymore.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: So nothing in this world lasts.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: She's still good and her goodness is a great victory.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, beauty in this world doesn't last, but in the next world it lasts forever.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: And the nice thing about the next world is, if we suffer here, the suffering here will end, but in the next world, if we don't make it to the kingdom, the suffering will never end.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: So we got a lot to look forward to as Christians.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, we sure do, and I think we're touching again the key to all of this.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: The key is to all this is when the temptations come to open those up to God.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And you know, that spark allow that.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Eros, you know, this is for the ancient Greeks, father, were 400 years before Jesus and they understood this.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: You know, eros is the Greek God of love, you know, and the Romans had Cupid and they knew there was something divine in this.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: When young people start to understand that, that beauty and that ache they feel in their heart, you know, even if they want to get married, even if I see this person and I want to marry them right, which is not a bad thing, but still there's going to be disappointments at the end.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: And unless you open that spark, unless you open that to God, you know this isn't brain surgery, is it, father?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: It's the two great commandments.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: You know I cannot give what I don't have, so I got to receive love in order to be a person of love, don't I?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what we want to be a person that's able to.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: And we have to understand what that word love means In the Christian context.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: It means a giving of oneself for the good of the beloved, without conditions.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: That's the way God loves us.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: No matter what we do, god wants our good and he's going to try to make things happen for our good and that's why we got to trust him.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Our Lord told St Maria Faustina I love it when people trust me and I hate it when people don't trust me.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: So what does that mean to trust God?
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: It means we believe, as it says in Romans 8, 28,.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: All things work out unto good for those who love God.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: And if we love God, everything that happens is going to be for our good.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And we have to trust that and just say I dropped this, I lost that or I was in an accident, whatever, but I'm sure you're going to bring good out of it, god, because I know you love me.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just like with my brother that was sexually abused and died at a young age.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: You know, god took that evil and turned it into good.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You know he was the only one of us, father, obviously all this, the five boys he was the only one that had come back into the church.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So here's one that was sexually abused, got into drugs.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, when you're dying, father, and you know something, you know you see the inevitable coming and he went back into the church.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: But the point was he brought us back into the church, put us on that pathway to come back into the church, god taking that evil that was done in the world and twisting it and using it for good, and he put us on a couple of us, on a totally different path.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Father, it's really a beautiful thing.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It's a mystery in many ways, but it's a love story, isn't it when you were talking about God loving.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: If anybody ever wants to know what that looks like, just look at Jesus on the cross, huh.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Father, you know, if you ever want to know how much God loves you, look at Christ on the cross, huh.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: And people need to get very familiar with the divine mercy devotion.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Father John Paul.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: II was big on that.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Our Lord said if you promote the mercy of God and divine mercy, you're going to get tremendous graces, tremendous graces.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: So everybody should try to read the.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Diary.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Diary of St Maria Fastina.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: There's also a nice biography on her Mercy in my Soul or something so we need to plug into that.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we do.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: God is telling us.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: That's something special and he actually said that the priests that promote the divine mercy, people are going to listen to them and he's going to anoint the words of those priests that speak about the divine mercy.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: So I try to speak about it a lot because I want that anointing.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Well, father, thank you for bringing it up.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: You can see right over my shoulder.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Here is the image of the divine mercy.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Of course, it says, jesus, I trust in you, and you have the water and the blood coming out, and it's so important for us to remember that.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: You know, the water is baptism and confession, it's the washing, and in John Paul's words, father, it would be getting ready for the nuptial bath huh, and then, of course, the blood is the Eucharist.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: This is his body given to us.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: You just mentioned mass, and so I got to take the nuptial bath and come into the wedding and really I become one flesh with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, right there at the mass.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Father, I was there this morning.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are huge gifts that are poured out to us.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So I'll just mention one thing to you, father, that I think you'll like, now that you say that too, with this apostle that we have called Claymore.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't mention this, but when you're down on your knees, there's one thing right after you say temptation's not a sin and you offer up your temptations to Jesus Christ, is we listen to a little snippet of the Divine Mercy.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It's an app.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: It's a Divine Mercy app, and every day there's just about a two or three minute, not even three minutes.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Two minutes on the Divine Mercy and a little prayer, you say, and that's part of our apostolate, father.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: So thank you again, because sometimes I forget to remind the guys to make sure they're using that app and they're listening to that snippet.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Right now it was a conference going on.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: The snippets the last few days were on spiritual warfare, father, talking about exactly what we're talking about here today.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: People need to realize there's a very special offer that our Lord gave and that is that those people who venerate the image of divine mercy will not perish.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: That's a wonderful promise.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Divine mercy will not perish.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: That's a wonderful promise.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Now I presume they have to keep kissing it, you know, every day.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I presume if you kiss it once and throw it away, it probably won't work.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: But to continue to venerate that image and I tell people to kiss it every day.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: And we give out little business cards of divine mercy with that promise on the back.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful, father, and you know, when you read the diary and I just warn people, when you start the first few pages, sometimes you have to get into it.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a process, but once you do it really will change your heart.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: But I remember this, father, that Jesus was talking to Sister Faustina and just talking about how much he appreciates her love for him, because he said there's so many cold hearts out there that just really cause him pain.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And you realize, father, that Jesus' heart that was pierced by this lance, with the blood and water coming out.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: This is a human heart, right, it's, and water coming out.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: This is a human heart, right, it's.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: It's divine and human, but it was a human heart.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: He feels this, doesn't he, father?
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: He wants our love.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: This is the age of love.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: After this age comes the age of justice.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm not looking forward to that.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I'd rather have the mercy.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, father.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: We're starting to wind down here, father.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Any last words for these young people that we're dealing with?
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: And, of course, our audience, father, is not just the young people.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It's just that we're very excited about the young people that have been joining us.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Any additional words of encouragement for them, father?
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Well, just keep in mind that God is merciful.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: No matter what we've done, he'll always take us back if we try.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: I had one boy that was struggling with chastity and I said just never give up.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: The difference between a saint and a sinner is a saint is a sinner who never stopped trying.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: We've got to keep trying no, and a sinner who never stop trying yes.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: We got to keep trying, no matter where we are, keep trying.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Never give up.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Hey Father, can you give us a blessing on our way out here today?
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, the Almighty God bless you and your show and all the people that listen to your show.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Draw them close to him and keep them close to him, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Amen, thank you so much, father.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: We'll make sure that we get your link in the show notes.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And where should they buy this book at?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: On our website cfalivecom.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, very good.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: It's discounted there.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: All right, and no shipping.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: You said Shipping is always free.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Any size, order any size.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, very good, and we'd be looking forward, father, to have you back on again to talk about marriage, anything you can share with John Paul II and marriage, father, that's right up our alley.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: You're a pleasure, thanks for being on the show today, bless, thank you hey, thanks everyone.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us today.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Talk to you again soon.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Bye-bye.