Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#527 The Plan of Life, Prayer, and the DNC In Chicago
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As the DNC gets underway in my home town of Chicago promising free abortions and vasectomies, along with an 18-foot-tall inflatable IUD named "Freeda Womb" we come face to face with the Culture of Death.
How does one navigate the intricate spiritual battlefield between good and evil in today's society?
We begin with the story of the rich young man from the Gospels, who struggled to relinquish his earthly possessions in pursuit of eternal life.
Transitioning to a modern-day narrative, Jack shares his conversation with a young doctor disillusioned by the profit-driven nature of modern medicine, who redirected her path to become a life coach for healthcare professionals experiencing burnout. These stories illuminate the eternal quest for meaning and purpose beyond material wealth and professional success, urging us to choose life over fleeting earthly gains.
Additionally, we explore Dr. Gerald May's transformative journey from burnout to grace, emphasizing that our deepest yearning is for a connection with God. This episode promises a compelling discussion on finding true contentment and making lasting contributions to others through a spiritual understanding.
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To Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. Glad you're joining me today. We're living in some interesting times, some disturbing times in so many ways. I'm originally from Chicago. I live out in the far west suburbs now, thankfully because the DNC just got underway and Planned Parenthood, I saw, is advertising outside of the DNC. The convention in Chicago Pay as you go, donor only you get it free. If you want vasectomies and abortion services outside the event, they have a big blow up IUD there somewhere near the entrance and so access, of course, to abortions are front and center in this year's DNC is, from what I understand, kamala Harris of course loves to promote abortion.
Speaker 1:John Paul would call this the party of the culture of death, and it's becoming clear every day that there's that battle being raged that I speak about so often between our Lord and Satan and in the spiritual realm is intensifying here on earth, between good and evil, between truth and lies, and people are choosing sides. It's the clearest thing. It's amazing what's happening today. I've never seen it this clear. You know, people are vocally, loudly, sometimes, choosing sides. And may I suggest you choose life, choose the culture of life because it has eternal consequences. Our choices here, don't we? To do that, we have to draw nearer and nearer to Jesus Christ. When you choose life, you just feel this in your heart that you need a Redeemer, don't you?
Speaker 1:With that in mind, I want to share a recent conversation I had with a young woman. But to open it, I want to share the story of the rich young man, or at least part of it, from either. It's both in Matthew, matthew's gospel and also in Mark's gospel, where Jesus speaks to the rich young man. A young man seeking approaches Jesus and he says good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus replies with a question why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone. Then he goes on you know the commandments Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.
Speaker 1:Then the conversation goes on. It doesn't end there. Remember Jesus is always about the human heart. He's always looking for your heart. For the young man declares this Teacher, all these things I have observed since my youth. Then writes the evangelist Matthew and or Mark, who are writing this Jesus looked upon the young man and loved him and said to him you lack one thing. Go, sell what you have, give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And then come and follow me Once again, and it's so interesting, this Jesus is after your heart. He doesn't impose, he doesn't judge the young man. He does not share an opinion, a worldview, propaganda, ideology. Jesus knows something at the level of the young man's heart what do you seek? Come and see, follow me. He asks us all. What do you seek? Come and see, follow me. You will find what your heart desires.
Speaker 1:At this point, though, the atmosphere of the meeting between the young man and Jesus changes. The evangelist writes that, at that saying, his countenance fell and he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. He's attached to this earthly life, gk Chesterton would say about Christianity. He says it's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting in people's lives. It has been found difficult and left untried. And that's what happens here. He goes oh, I've got so much stuff, but we're trying to stay attached to this earthly, finite life, don't we, when infinite life is offered to us, this life goes by so quickly. I call this the missing link. You know when you disengage like a cut flower, from God himself and what God is revealing to us. Don't we recognize the battle going on in this young man's heart? He has many possessions, yet he hears at the same time, an echo in the depths of his heart for something more. He has an echo in his heart for that missing link. This meeting between Jesus and the young man has a universal and a timeless character. It comes all the way through time and each of us, each you and I, we are potentially the one that Jesus is speaking to. What is the meaning and purpose of my life? I will not possess the treasure of youth much longer. Life passes quickly. Is it to have the latest phone, to get a car? To find a career, to get to college, to make money? Is that all there is? Is that enough?
Speaker 1:I want to tell you a story that happened to me recently with a young woman. Now she wanted to talk to me. She was hopeful that her latest endeavor as a life coach for physicians and nurses who were burnt out, in disillusion with modern medicine, would prove to be fruitful and rewarding for both her and her clients. Though she was only in her mid-30s, this young woman already a well-respected and accomplished doctor herself was stepping away from the occupation that had been her lifelong dream. Somewhere she found, somewhere along the way. Modern medicine had evolved, along with its cousin Big Pharma, into big medicine, big business. It had become more about money, procedure and protocol than serving and caring for the health and healing of people. This reality struck her and those driven by the desire to serve very hard. Fighting the system and advocating for the patients had caused burnout and frustration among them, and perhaps she could serve those physicians and those nurses, and, indirectly, their patients, by becoming their life coach and helping them get through these times.
Speaker 1:As a young doctor shared a new plan, my lack of enthusiasm upon hearing it must have been evident. While I made a half-hearted attempt to sound encouraging, the reality was I had already seen this movie too many times in my life People with good hearts and intentions running around in circles trying to help one another, but ultimately their efforts are frustrated and burnout, along with their unfulfilled dreams, continue as little true satisfaction or solutions are actually found. What's wrong, she asked. You don't seem overly thrilled with my plan. What are you thinking? Be honest, yes, she made a mistake there. She said, be honest. I said this you're not going to find the answers you seek without the missing link. I replied and I had just read from scripture some wisdom literature. So I repeated to her this.
Speaker 1:In the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, the book of Ecclesiastes, begins like this Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, hastens the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes round to the north. Round and round goes the wind and on its circuits the wind returns. Remember Jesus said this you know neither where the wind comes from or where it's going. He said remember what Jesus said Look for the signs of the times, see what's going around you. This is what this is and this is what in the Old Testament. This is what the wisdom literature is doing.
Speaker 1:These men and women are looking for the signs of the times and they're realizing, whoa, there's more to this story. I got to lift up my head. I have to look around, and then revelation. And then their faith comes into play and it opens them to a larger story right To make sense of all of this, but without it, the Ecclesiastes goes down. Ecclesiastes goes down, ecclesiastes shares. Without all, these things are full of weariness. A man cannot utter it. Without revelation, without understanding the signs of the times, without really understanding the human heart, we just get full of weariness. This is what this young doctor is describing. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
Speaker 1:John Paul II, unpacking this literature from the Old Testament in Fides and Ratio, faith and Reason, says this For the Old Testament, knowledge is not simply a matter of careful observation of the human being, of the world and of history, but supposes as well an indispensable link with faith and what has been revealed. These are the challenges which the chosen people had to confront and which they had to respond. Pondering this as his situation, biblical man discovered that he could understand himself only being in relation with himself, with people, with the world and with God. See, it's a complete package we're walking into. This is the awe and wonder of the story that we're walking into. When we meet God, when we get into faith with God, we start to see the world differently. This is the weeds and the wheat separating. This is what the story I told you in the beginning with the DNC.
Speaker 1:Why don't they see that killing children in the womb? Is there something evil about that? They don't see it. It's about this life, only right. So this opening to the mystery, john Paul says, which came to him through revelation, was for him, in the end, the source of true knowledge. It was this which allowed his reason to enter the realm of the infinite, where an understanding for which, until then, he had not dared to hope for, became a possibility. Ooh, something opened in his heart. I shared this with the young woman. You may be of lasting value to those who come to you as a life coach, but only if you come to the understanding that the people who come to you have human hearts that desire something more than this world can give them.
Speaker 1:They're looking for that missing link. It's a desire of the heart for infinite life and infinite love. And once discovered, we have a desire to share what we have freely received with others. Truly, it's not brain surgery. The two great commandments right. Be filled with divine life and love and then go out into the world and become life and love. This is our whole, main purpose of our lives. Yet one must be filled with divine life and love, a free gift, before it can be shared with others. We cannot give this gift if we do not first possess it. That missing link is God, the source of the gift.
Speaker 1:Dr Gerald May was a practicing psychiatrist who was also burnt out as he grew increasingly frustrated with his inability to do more for patients, his own tank running on empty for too long compelled him to turn to God and a portal to grace was opened. Grace, he wrote, grace being the participation in the life of God. Of course, grace, he wrote, was able to flow into this emptiness he felt, and something new was able to take root and grow. Dr May opened his book Addiction and Grace this way.
Speaker 1:After 20 years of listening to the yearning of people's hearts, I am convinced that all human beings have an innate desire, an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. Some of us have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we're completely unaware of it, or we may experience it in different ways, as a longing for wholeness, a longing for completion or fulfillment. Regardless of how we describe it. It's a longing for love. It is a hunger to love and be loved and move closer to the source of all this love. This yearning is the essence of the human spirit. It's the origin of our highest hopes and our most noble dreams. Let me say that again, this is the origin of our highest hopes and our most noble dreams the search to go into, to connect to, the source of infinite life and love.
Speaker 1:In his life's work of serving others, dr May began to pray. His prayer of life brought much fruit as he connected to the source of all healing and love. The great physician and his practice, founded on serving others, came alive as he prayed. He discovered a connection to the eternal wellspring and found that he could give himself away as a gift and service to others without running on empty, for his own tank was always being filled. It was grace that ultimately made the difference, first in his life and then in the life of those he served.
Speaker 1:Prayer is as natural to the human person as is breathing, eating, sleeping and loving. For the philosopher, the poet and every human person, prayer is a connection to the awe and wonder, to all that is true, all that is good, all that is beautiful in our life. Prayer opens the individual person, body and soul, to the infusion of grace, the gift of divine life and love, which leads to the potential for human flourishing the potential only. But this potential becomes efficacious, becomes real, it becomes active when one then decides to act upon the gift received and do what Become a gift for others, to serve others. This manifestation of love in this world builds up the city of God within our world. Here it's the body of Christ and so fulfills the very meaning and purpose of our lives. This is the true Christian vocation, regardless of your occupation, to be a person of love. On the other hand, the default position of the person who does not pray, who consciously or unconsciously rejects the divine gift, is a body and a soul close to this infusion of grace. One cannot give again what one has not first received.
Speaker 1:Lacking grace, which is again the potential, lacking grace, the potential for human flourishing is diminished by sin and death. Living in disconnection like a cut flower, the human person begins to grasp for life in a futile attempt to replace infinite grace with the finite things of this world. Human beings become ravenous creatures, lustful creatures, selfish creatures, as all attempts to build a city upon the foundation of sin and death, the culture of death, fail to satisfy the deepest desires of the human heart. Isn't this what I described at the DNC deepest desires of the human heart? Isn't this what I described at the DNC? Right Providing abortions, giving out IUDs, vasectomies. We're closing to this grace, this openness of life, in an attempt to selfishly take for ourselves, to use other people. Isn't it amazing that we are created to love others and to use the things of this world? But we flipped it around and we love the things of this world, our phones, our vasectomies, our abortions, and we're using people. We flipped the whole thing on its head. It's the culture of death. So the human heart was made for more. That's why we pray. So infuse daily prayer into your occupation and your plans and you'll discover the Christian vocation that will then begin to bear much fruit, eternal fruit.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you so much for being with me. You know what? Before I close, I want to ask you a favor. For many, many years, the Become who you Are podcast has been audio only, and you can get it on any podcast or music app. Recently, we opened up to the video podcast on Rumble, and so I ask you to please share this link. Please follow us on the show. We have to start to open this thing up to others. We need as many voices as possible coming together and sharing this culture of life, you know, especially with young people, so that they hear the truth and love and they learn to love others in the truth. Thanks for joining me. Glory be to God. Talk to you again soon, everybody. Bye-bye.