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
# 547 Rediscovering Awe and Wonder: The Transformative Power of Saint John Paul II's "Theology of the Body"
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Join us for a thought-provoking journey as we explore the intricate tapestry of human experience and divine connection through the inspiring insights of St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
We reflect on personal anecdotes that bring to life the transformative power of spiritual rebirth through baptism and the nurturing role of faith, drawing lessons from Christ's teachings on marriage and self-giving as blueprints for enduring connections.
The discussion turns to the challenges faced by Generation Z in forming genuine relationships amidst a culture that can feel empty. We also invite listeners to rediscover awe and wonder in their lives, stepping away from technology to engage with life's inherent beauty. Linda and I encourage everyone to embrace their identity and purpose, finding inspiration in their journey and the teachings of John Paul II.
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Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Rigg, your host. Hey, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 1:St Catherine of Siena said that if you become who you are, that you would literally set the world on fire. And St Athanasius, an early church father and a doctor of the church, said the son of God became man so that we might become God. You know I make a wild guess at this, but I bet you, most of us, are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to. Yet Saint John Paul II said there's an echo of the story of this divine life that we're created for, inscribed in each human heart, in your human heart. And if you put on the proper lens if I put on the proper lens we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment. See, that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology of the body. It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today.
Speaker 1:Who am I? What's my purpose? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness here on earth? How do I find love that satisfies forever? Hey, glad you're with me. I'll be Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast. We're back with Linda Piper after a little bit of a break. Linda, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing good, jack, I really have. We needed the break, but I have missed our weekly get-togethers here to discuss these wonderful audiences. I'm glad to be back.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. So I've been traveling, linda's been traveling, and we're going to pick up on John Paul II's Theology of the Body. This is number 99. It was given on October 27, 1982. We're going to be talking about this, but don't be afraid of numbers and where we're at If you've never listened to or even known about Theology of the Body before.
Speaker 1:What we're really talking about is Jesus himself takes on a body and he walks through the main door at a particular place and a particular time in history. Jesus actually takes on a human flesh, human body, and walks in the main door. Why does he do that, linda? He does it. I'll answer my own question and then you can add to that, please. He takes, john Paul would say, in a sense, all of our humanity, all of our bodies. So if we think about Jesus taking on a body, he's taking about all of our body and he's uniting it with his divinity.
Speaker 1:If you think about that, this and I'll just give the overall theme of today this is the sacrament, the primordial sacrament. In the very beginning, before sin comes into the world, god infuses Adam and Eve with His divine nature, and then they're the Imago Dei. They make that divine nature present visible and efficacious meaning, full of grace, and they're there to bring love and truth into the world, goodness into the world. They're supposed to see the beauty and then add to all the beauty of creation. So we're intimate with God right from the very beginning. Sin, of course, separates that. We exhale, right, we exhale that divine life and love, and so we become children of the wrath, linda. I mean. Cain murders Abel right off the bat. Adam and Eve put loincloths on and they hide from God.
Speaker 1:We see a disruption in all of that, and St Paul speaks about it so often. He says we're waiting for the redemption of the body, of the human body, of course, but in a way that affects all of creation. You see the brokenness in creation, with storms and tornadoes, all of these things. There's been a disruption, even in nature. This is the power of this, and so that's what Christ does. He takes on a body, reunites it with his divinity in one person and then he climbs the marriage bed of the cross and he pours that out to us. Why does he do that, linda? He does that and establishes his church so that we can go into the story again, receive him in baptism and the Eucharist be washed of our sins, be reunited with God like a cleansing, getting ready for our marriage and then receive him in the Eucharist. I mean, this is the awe and wonder of what God has revealed to us, and to step into this is what we're going to do today, linda, aren't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, jack, I need a replay on what you just said. That was so awesome. To summarize, really, the big story that we're looking at in Theology of the Body and the body being the key the body is what makes visible the invisible.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Christ took on that body, making visible for us the invisible, that mystery of God and that desire and that love for intimacy with us that he infused in Adam and Eve, and that was the plan that we would share in that divine life. But you know what? That plan did not change even after the fall. We still are tasked with bringing God's love and beauty into the world, even after the fall and even after the difficulties that that tendency to sin creates for us.
Speaker 2:And in this audience, the Pope, what jumped out at me in the very first paragraph in his explanation of how does that happen?
Speaker 2:In his explanation of how does that happen you said it here where Christ and his church, that is the sacrament of redemption and that the power of it comes from our Redeemer's spousal love.
Speaker 2:And as we talked a little bit before going on, it struck me that we have this adjective spousal instead of just saying the Redeemer's love, and we're kind of used to that, we're kind of used to hearing, you know, christ's love for us point here of stressing that it's the Redeemer's spousal love through which the power of the sacraments comes to us and that ability to participate in that divine life. And so a broad theme, then, of theology of the body is this spousal love of Christ for us meaning essentially he gives himself to us through his body establishing the church, and that that body is his gift of his very self to us and to me. That brings it back to that awe and wonder of the God that we have who would do this for us. So not to be afraid of kind of the big ideas of what theology of the body is about, it's like this is how our call to holiness is actualized.
Speaker 1:When you receive him right, when you receive this into your own body, you become a person of love. This is the big difference, I think, if you really look out into the world. In fact, I remember the early apostles. You know St Paul writing about this and the other apostles. You would know them by their love.
Speaker 1:What the pagans saw in the early Christians was love. You know, it was uncommon for people to worry about other people outside their immediate zone. Right, jesus speaks about the good shepherd. They got a man laying off the side, beaten by Robert, robbed and beaten and dying on the side. And so, the good Samaritan, we are to pick up and love our neighbor. Nobody was doing that, of course, and when the Christians came in and they're filled with this divine life and love, they become persons of love. This is the whole essence of who we are created in love, by love and for love.
Speaker 1:When we think about marriage and the family, that's a love story, isn't it? You are exchanging love, you're becoming a gift of oneself and you see this fruit come out of that in the visible sign of a child, and that's what the Trinity is all about. And so, anyways, we become persons of love. And then the other thing that you said was we make this visible in our body. And look at the disconnect, linda, when we're starting to talk about these gender ideologies. When we're talking to young people about how anxious and depressed they are, how they're damaging their bodies through, you know, food distortions like anorexia. When you have these gender ideologies like trans movements and queering of a person, you know where we're on puberty blockers and all these types of things. Right, you think about abortion, where we actually take the life of a child out. All of these are the anti-signs. So if the human being becomes a sign of love right, that's what we're called to do.
Speaker 1:What happens if we would breathe that out again, like Adam and Eve did? All of a sudden, we would have a disconnect between our bodies and our souls, the whole reason to make God visible. Now we don't know what it's about. Gaudium et spes has that beautiful quote in number 36, when God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible. We no longer know who we are, which are persons of love, to love people in the truth. So that's such a visible sign. We see that today, isn't it that when we breathe out and we no longer are filled with this divine life and love. We don't only not become persons of love in the world, but we lose our own identity. We don't know who we are. It's fascinating that you can see it so clearly in today's times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd like to go back to that idea of the disconnect of the body and soul, which is at the root of it. If we are disconnected from that, it's that idea that I have a body versus I am a body. What do we understand? You are your body, you don't just have a body and you is someplace out there, whatever you would think of who you is, and that is really the root of so many of the misunderstandings about you know all of the issues of our sexuality, because obviously our bodies are the sign of our sexuality as well, and so we can see it has played out in all these different ways in our culture.
Speaker 2:This is so important. Another point, jack is Jack is being signs of love. I think the other place we've gone off the rails in our culture is not really understanding what authentic love is. And if I'm going to be a sign of love, it doesn't mean that I just accept everything and am tolerant of everything because I love you. And I'm sure the key with the early Christians, as they were noted for their love, was not only did they do all the physical things feeding others and caring for them in those ways but didn't they teach them the faith? Didn't they teach them immediately that I am this way because I got it from Jesus Christ right.
Speaker 2:So that's another to me a key point on this whole issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's why John Paul would say in here we speak of the awe and wonder that Christ's act of redemption is the root of the church, the root of this visible sign of the church, just the same thing as you just said. My heart and the reason I can become a person of love is because I've been infused with this divine life again. And where did I do that? It comes to the church, it comes to the bride of Christ. When Jesus says on the cross you alluded to, this is my body, right? So this is my body given for you. And so then he looks down and he says his final words I thirst, in John's gospel, I thirst, I thirst for you, I thirst for my bride, I thirst for my people to come into my heart again. And then he looks at his blessed mother and he doesn't call her mother, he calls her woman now, and now she becomes the symbol of the church, that the woman that we all take that, and it's very difficult sometimes initially for us to get our mind around it as a man now to say now I take a posture of a woman. Well, why do I do that? Because I received the love of the bridegroom in a sacramental way, right. So I'm receiving Christ in the womb of the church. I become a new person, a new creation. So how do I become a new creation?
Speaker 1:You know Jesus says you have to be born again in the Spirit, water and the Spirit. Well, where do I do that? I sit in the womb of the Church and it's the baptism that washes over me, that brings me into it. When you go into a church, you see, at Easter Sunday, you see the big candle gets plunged into the water that we're going to be using to bless people with. All year it gets plunged into so you have a tub. A lot of times it looks like kind of a well, almost in a lot of churches and they plunge this Easter candle in there. This is the actual bridegroom impregnating. This is how literally we take these sacramental signs. It plunges and brings this ruah, this divine life and love back into this water. And then we're baptized and brought into the church through our baptism. You know, it's amazing power, isn't it, that we're brought into the person of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:I think that image of the church as mother and the womb for men yeah, mother and the womb For men, yeah, thinking of yourselves as bride is difficult, because we think of bride as woman, but, male or female, all of us were in the wombs of our mothers, you know. So that is really where the thought needs to be, that we all started in the wombs of our mothers and so, spiritually, likewise in the church, we all start there through baptism, so it can become pretty yeah, and just stay there for a second.
Speaker 1:I mean, that baby then is born and we have a new birth, and that's who we are. We're a new creation. So that womb, we're a new creation and then fed by who, fed by the church, in the sacraments and in the Eucharist especially.
Speaker 2:Isn't that powerful? Huh yeah. And John Paul really stresses this right in this audience when he brings us back to the words in Ephesians 5.25,. I'll read this, where we read about Christ who loved the church and gave himself for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water, accompanied by the word so again, this baptismal imagery here, so that the sacrament of baptism is is a key sacrament for us to begin to think. This is how it all begins for us. So we're born spiritually this way. And I kind of had another thought. I'll let you go because I lost it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you think now of our own marriages, of our own families, of our own brokenness. You see around us, like you know how do I live this out families of our own brokenness. You see around us, like you know how do I live this out? Because John Paul points out again that in Matthew 19, jesus is talking about marriage and an indissolubility of marriage that you can't. You know, once you're married you're an image of God, you're imaging reflecting God. So of course, god would never divorce us. We could walk away from God, but God will not walk away from us. And Jesus is saying the same thing. He's looking at this as the primordial sacrament, because he points to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And he says in the beginning it was not so. It's because of the hardness of your heart that you want to divorce your wives, leave your families, move on to another person, say, because what you're seeking, linda, is no longer the infinite person. You know, when I walk away from my wife and my kids, say and start another family. Look, I was very close a couple times, so I know this very well. It was Christ who came back into my life, into my heart, and said no, no, no. You have to hang with me on the cross for a while. Here. You have to become a self-giving person. You can't be looking to grass. And, yes, jack, you even have to love people when they don't always love you back. And this is what Christ does on the cross he loved us even when we didn't love him back. So this is a real love story.
Speaker 1:So marriage, then, jesus is saying, is rooted and John Paul points this out in the sacrament of creation, that this primordial sign of marriage in the beginning was the whole sign there was no sin in the world. That was the sign of God's love, was marriage in the family, the primordial sacrament reflecting Trinitarian love, but in a created version of this. This is what we're supposed to do to bring God's love into this world from the very beginning and bring culture, bring what's true, good and beautiful in culture, in our music, in our arts, in literature, in our buildings that we create, in the way we treat our neighbors right. And so what you can see is a breakdown, a decline of all of these things in our culture, the breakdown of the culture itself. And pornography say abortions.
Speaker 1:We're actually at that imago Dei, that image and likeness of God, and if there's an enemy out there that wanted to destroy the image of God in the world. He would attack the human person first. Right, because the human person is that divine sign Now coming out of the womb of the church itself so I can be filled with this divine life and love. You see why churches are burning all over the world, that the actual visible sign of a church. We have these beautiful churches all over Canada especially, and in Europe being burnt to the ground and you see really the demonic coming out and attacking ferociously really who we are and I think we have to be cognizant of that because it is not easy to live this out today. But I think it's clear what's going on in these attacks.
Speaker 2:You know, jack, the image came to me too as we think of the idea of the indissolubility of marriage, that God is not going to leave us and that's why marriage is that primordial sacrament. It's a tall order for us to understand first of all, even intellectually, the idea of when we say that, when we take our vows till death, do us part, that that means indissolubility, that it cannot be broken. And the rate of divorce and the way marriage has been attacked in our culture is almost an image to me, like burning the churches, like we're burning marriage down right.
Speaker 2:Not literally with flames, but in some ways almost Well, if you think about it, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've rendered marriage meaningless. Now it's not even between a man and a woman anymore. It's not open to life, because you only can be open to life between a man and a woman. Right, it's the only way the third is going to happen. So yeah, you're literally destroying the imago Dei, the actual marriage itself, which is rooted in the church.
Speaker 1:If I want my marriage and my family to flourish, I have to be connected very intimately with the church, because that's where I'm going to be filled, that's where I'm going to receive Christ, that's where the visible sign comes from, and we are the organic building blocks of that church. So it's not like the church sits way out there. I say yes, I'm baptized in the church, I become part of the building blocks of that church. It's not a building, it has a building, and that's the visible sign. But, just like my body, it actually exists as a visible sign of God's love in the world. Well, how does it do that? We're embodied souls. Our soul, connected to God himself, dwells within us and is infused and manifested through our bodies in the created world. And so it's a mystery, but we know it already it's called love, loving him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I'm thinking of the sacrament of marriage. My oldest grandson is getting married in December, so you know it's kind of on the mind.
Speaker 1:But yes.
Speaker 2:So, so think, Jack, when the grace is infused in us. So why does the church say that marriage ceremony needs to happen in the physical body of the church, right In the church? Well, first of all, we have the sign that this new creation is happening in the womb of the church. The two become one, and when the ceremony is over and the priest I guess usually it's the priest saying I present to you, Mr and Mrs Smith right.
Speaker 2:They turn around and the sign there, here is this new creation. And the sign there, here is this new creation no longer two but one, as they have taken the grace that's been infused through the sacrament, made the promises through the vows, and now will set off to bring that love out into the world. And so people love weddings, right, jack? Why do we love weddings? Because I think we recognize there that echo of that primordial sacrament still within us, and the whole ceremony just triggers something in us that says, yes, this is what it's all about. In us that says yes, this is what it's all about.
Speaker 1:And we have totally destroyed it really in our culture? Yeah, in a lot of ways we certainly have. But when people get it, when young people get it and we're fortunate enough at the John Paul II Renewal Center to be working with it's the minority, I'm sure, but people that get it and these young families and young marriages, and it's really something to behold. I mean my heart aches to your point when I see that and I think about how badly I messed that up in my own life. But I'll tell you something to your point about your grandson.
Speaker 1:My son had come back, so he was baptized Methodist. I mean long story, but anyways, he went through RCIA, became Catholic right after college when he got married and he was at the altar with his wife, who was also Catholic, and they knew what we're talking about today, at least at some level. They had been to my talk, in fact for pre-Cana. They came to my presentation, which was so cool, and so they understood, when they were getting married and exchanging their vows with Christ on the cross, who was looking down on them, that they were exchanging their vows at the foot of the cross, with Christ exchanging his vows with them and with the whole church, and so they understood that they were stepping into through their marriage, stepping into the sign of Christ's love for the church, but doing it.
Speaker 1:You know, when we say sign, this is a very efficacious, this is a very real thing. So, while all of creation is a sign the sun, it's real, the sun is real, but it's also a sign reflecting the bridegroom and his love for his bride. The clouds, the stars I mean these are all reflections of some part of the awe and wonder of God himself, the idea of the big bang that we're exploding out into eternal love All of these things are a sign. So when we say a sign of a man and a woman, we're the crown of creation. That sign is the pinnacle of all the signs, because this shows and reflects directly the type of intimacy God wants with us and with one another.
Speaker 1:That, in any eternal life that will come out of this marriage, is an eternal being that cannot be snuffed out through abortion. When you start to think about that anti-sign, that child who is conceived in the womb now is an eternal being. You can destroy his body, but his soul will live on, or her soul, of course, will live on. You will meet that person in eternal life. They will be there. Can you imagine the millions and now billions of people, of young people that were extinguished at life, that will be in heaven, that you will see, like all these people and you go?
Speaker 1:oh I don't I kind of recognize that person, but I don't know who they are and that's your son or daughter, you know. You know if you of recognize that person, but I don't know who they are and that's your son or daughter, you know if you're lucky enough to make it up there, right? Yes, if any of us are lucky enough to make it there.
Speaker 2:That thought gives me hope from miscarriages you know, which my daughter had two, my daughter-in-law had one. You know and I think I have these other grandchildren that through, whatever the problem was, you know that I will get to meet. I've spoken of this before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have one there too, you know, I look forward to meeting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that'll be nice. The idea of when we see that bride and groom, you know, at the start of the marriage, it's very special. And if that husband and wife, infused with that grace, really begin to live this out, that together they are on this journey towards their eternal destiny, as we all are. But together they're doing it in a special way, giving of themselves completely to each other in every way imaginable. And we focus on the intimacy of marriage sexually, but we give ourselves in so many more ways beyond that, in so many more ways beyond that. That sum of all those things we're doing as gift of self is like a spark where when I see a couple who's living that way, you see something special, almost like a glow, maybe a light coming from that couple and it kind of permeates. When they are open to life and they start having a family, you see it again in a new way. And then when you see an older couple like you and I are at this point, we're still there together, right, and hopefully we're still showing the fruits of that, having taken on the challenge of all the issues and still giving ourselves to the other.
Speaker 2:I'd like to just bring this up briefly. I stumbled upon this the other day through the Catholic News Agency, an article called Radiant Love how California Catholics Are Celebrating Marriage and Family, and they have taken on. Archbishop Cordy Leone has taken on a new initiative called Radiant Love and the goal is inviting all the married couples to reflect on how their communion of husband and wife is the icon of the Eucharist and the supernatural union of humanity with divinity. And I thought it sounds like some places are really taking, you know, the theology of theology of the body and finding ways to embody it into some real ways of getting out there. And what struck me, and the reason I bring it up, is titling it Radiant Love. That's that glow, that's that special something that comes out because it's grace flowing out from us.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think what you're seeing is a push against the brokenness. You know, it's very interesting when I speak to young people. I just did a young person's retreat this last weekend and you know who gets it. You know the women there, the young women 19 to 39, I think was the group that they invited, and it was a good turnout and the young women really feel an emptiness, you know, with this pornographic culture and trying to find someone. And they expressed it to me, you know, individually, after my talk. You know we have time to, so it's a series of talks when you're doing a retreat and so there's some time in between, and I invited them. I said if you have, you know I'll be around. So I said I want to hear your story. If you can, can give it to me in a couple of minutes. Right, like why you're here, et cetera, et cetera. And so they really poured it out.
Speaker 1:But the young guys, the young guys, I think, are really feeling it. We have this Generation Z, let's call it. They're starting to really wake up and say something's wrong. I don't know exactly how to fix this, but they're very open when you challenge them to something different right To be a man first of all, and everything that we're talking about here is that. In a nutshell, it's that self-giving love. To stop looking inwardly, just at yourself and what you need, what you grasp when you see a woman, whatever you want, right, take, take, take, take, take, look inwardly and invite Christ into that inner heart so that you can turn outward and express that glow that you're talking about to the people around you.
Speaker 1:And I challenged them on break once. I said so. I did it with a sister, a nun, a young nun, and so she gave her talk and afterwards we had a Q&A and I went up for the Q&A and somebody started to ask me a couple different questions and I said this to them. I said look, you guys are going to get a 15, 20-minute break here. Here's your homework. I said you're going to go right outside there, right outside this. We were in the church, right outside the church. There's an area there that they could gather. I said I want every single young man that's single here, and most of them were single, but not all. There were some couples there, but I said I'm talking to the single men here. I said I want to challenge you to be a man. I told them what I thought about that and I said you have to initiate the gift of love, just like Christ did. So I'm not asking you to go out and date somebody or marry somebody, but I do want you to go out.
Speaker 1:And you go out and the first girl that you see, that you catch your eye, go, talk to her and say my name's Jack, and you know where are you from. I see your name tag. You're Christine. Christine, where are you from? And here's the other question how did you end up here today? And when she's done answering, I want her to ask you how did you end up here today? And when she's done answering, I want her to ask you how did you end up here today? And that's it. Just banter a little bit, get to know one another. And I said now you can only spend five minutes the most.
Speaker 1:Because I said then you need to go to another girl, because I don't want you to try to pick out one and say, yeah, that's the one I need to marry, or whatever. I said that's not what this is about. I want you to just start speaking to one another. I said you guys are probably the cream of the crop here. Everybody else is, you know, you know, in the pornographic culture, and they're using one another. You guys are at least here, seeking something more. Now go express this and test it out. See if you can look into a woman's eyes and speak to her without wanting to grasp, Right.
Speaker 1:And I said then you got to go talk to another one, you know, and that's it. It's. You don't have to take them home with you. In fact, I don't want you to take them home, I don't want you to. I mean to meet your mom and dad, right? This is just a quick hello. How are you?
Speaker 1:And I said I because I've been speaking to the girls here and they're talking about you guys not ever coming up and speaking to them. And I said the last thing I said is, if you're married, if you're a woman that's married, just say hey, thank you for, thank you for acknowledging me, but I'm married or I'm engaged, so go talk to somebody else. You know what I mean. So give them the okay to go find somebody else. And I said whatever happens happens. Let's pray on that. And so that's the beauty of this, linda to be able to just become persons of love, not to put expectations on each other so much. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in this crazy culture we're feeling guilt, lust, selfishness or just you know, we don't know. Just be filled with divine life and love and then just try baby steps and be kind to other people, talk to other people and don't be afraid of them or the other sex you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what a great activity. To me that sounds just like that first baby step of gift of self right. It's just a baby step. Learn how to do that Beautiful.
Speaker 1:And you think about the women too. And I said to them too, linda, and I said don't you, just because a guy smiled at you, think that you're supposed to get married either? Because I said that's the other flip side of this. Right Now somebody was finally kind to them and said something nice to them and they think I got to get married. And then you put too much on on on the man too fast. So that's why I said you're going to have to pray and just enjoy each other for a few minutes, and if something else would happen after that, then then you know, you go out for coffee or whatever. But I mean, both sides have this tendency to to grasp right and and so they just so much brokenness. I'd like to end with john paul references romans 8 in here. So I, I, and then I'll give you the last word, linda.
Speaker 1:Let me just read this, and I'm going to go probably about verse 19, because this is John Paul is talking about all of creation. So is St Paul here. So John Paul II and St Paul, all of creation is a sign. That's what we said, right? You know most of the issues, linda, today, most of the pain and suffering, most of the brokenness. Most of the social issues would disappear if we just turned back to these teachings. We'd still have some natural disasters. People would say well, poverty, whatever. But that's because all of creation is groaning because of our sin, that we were really the crown of creation and when we came down we're broken. We affected in some way all of creation.
Speaker 1:It says here, for creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope, because the creation itself, creation itself, will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God when we are redeemed. It has something to do with all of creation. And then it goes on on 22. We know that the whole of creation has been groaning with labor, pains together until now, and not only the creation but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and we groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. So we're waiting for the final stage of that last, that second coming redemption of the body.
Speaker 1:But eternity doesn't mean tomorrow, eternity means forever. We are already in this process. When we come into the church, when we come into Christ, our bodies are being redeemed. Right now we're not fully redeemed. We get it. We get it, but that's where we're heading, that's where we're going and that's why, when you mentioned earlier, we're getting older ourselves. Yet we've been on this journey long enough. That there are, you know, there are steps we continually take to become closer. How many of the mystics and the saints that I'm getting to know more and more and more about as I have less responsibility for my own children. I have lots of grandchildren, but at the end of the day, I'm not there with them all the time. So we have time now to be with them and also to come into even a deeper intimacy as we go into the sunset here with Christ himself. So it's really a beautiful spot to be in, if you understand what we're talking about today, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're headed to a wedding.
Speaker 1:Jack right the marriage feast of the Lamb, we're headed to a wedding, jack right, the marriage.
Speaker 2:feast of the Lamb, yeah, yeah, and it is cosmic in nature all of creation. It takes my breath away sometimes when I think of the connection that we actually have with all of creation and what God's planned for us as the pinnacle of creation. So I pray reparation for how we have really messed it up and hope that some of these discussions that we have will help people see that redemption that we're all seeking is available to us. We just have to open our hearts to it and be open, and all of these things will be added onto us right. We will really start seeing our culture change, and I love when you talk about the young people who are getting it and who are on that way, because they're going to be the ones to bring us back. So I pray for them too and really thank you for your good work with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's the most beautiful thing. I mean, the most beautiful, gratifying thing is what you just described, right, when you could see young hearts, that all of a sudden the light bulb comes on. I would like to just say that you know. To sum this all up, you have to. You know all of philosophy. Aristotle, thought begins with wonder, awe and wonder. I mean, this is 400 years before Jesus, right, he said all of philosophy starts with awe and wonder. That's what we're talking about, linda. We have to open our eyes to the awe and wonder of what's around us and get those silly little screens out of our faces every day for a period of time and just open ourselves up to awe and wonder. Huh, hey, linda, thank you so?
Speaker 1:much for being back. I look forward to proceeding here. We're going on to some beautiful teachings of John Paul II coming up that are very, very, very relevant for today, just to help young people get their identity, meaning and purpose again and to step into this story, you know. So, hey, god bless you, thank you, thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Bye-bye.