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
#559 The Power of Prayer, President Trump, Gen Z, Spiritual Warfare and “The Contraceptive Mentality”
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Linda Pieper joins Jack to catch up on the major issues of the day seen through the lens of St. Pope John Paul ll's Theology of the Body.
No one in modern times understood the human heart better than John Paul II!
Resource: Men and Women He Created Them, A Theology of the Body, #102.
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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 this 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. I'm excited to be back with my good friend, linda Piper, all the way from Pennsylvania. Linda, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm fine all the way here in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you guys, finally you did what you were supposed to do. You pulled out a win for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's very exciting and, and I think you know, probably 2020. He won there too. Unfortunately, we don't have to go there, but but anyways, hey, I think it all worked out for the best right here and he's back in if we can keep him safe, you know. You know, up until january 20th, I think it is. I think I think that we're all feeling that we've been given a little reprieve, a little window to speak the truth. We never said Donald Trump is Jesus Christ. We don't expect him to be the Redeemer. We have a Redeemer, but I think that he's surrounded by good people and I believe somehow he's being used by God and we'll see huh, we'll see, but he's got good people and I feel hopeful. But how about you? What are you feeling?
Speaker 2:I'm feeling very hopeful and, as we talked earlier, I do believe that God is blessing the efforts of all those of us who are continuing to speak to life, marriage, family, because that's really where it's at, and I think God has given us another chance because if the outcome had been different, we would be battling it in a way that we had never seen before. At least now I think we can regroup. I do believe Jack and I have visions, with the incense in church rising, that many, many, many, many prayers went up to God to please help us. But now we have to do our part, right, yeah, we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is you're exactly right on and that's exactly everybody I'm talking to feels exactly the same that it was through prayers that God has given us hope and lifted our country. If you look at a map of our country, it's all red. There are really even no blue states, there are only blue cities. If you look at even the map of Illinois, which is, I always say, we're in the belly of the beast here and we are. I mean, you have the most corrupt government, or at least one of the most corrupt state governments. There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1:I mean, killing children is our specialty here. We're the most corrupt government, or at least one of the most corrupt state governments, there's no doubt about it. I mean, you know, killing children is our specialty here. Bringing these ideologies, gender ideologies, into our school systems and robbing the innocence of children, robbing their moral imaginations this is all nefarious and it's been done on purpose. And I say all that because if you look at Illinois and the people that voted red, it's 90% of the state and again it becomes just a blue city. Chicago, and some of the people that have come out of Chicago now have leaked into the suburbs and you're starting to fight there.
Speaker 2:I mean we're fighting it all the way out where I am and I'm pretty far from the city Right and I'm glad you brought that up because I too saw that map and even in California the blue is along the coastline and there's many red further east in California.
Speaker 2:So again, another area of hope that there are really many people who understand what we need to do in our country to get back to God and to the way we're supposed to be living. And you know it's like, ok, then we have to focus on what is it that the people in the blue cities need to understand that they're still really not getting you know, because the line has been drawn very solidly now, and so my hope, with our podcast and others that you're doing and all the work the John Paul II Renewal Center is doing, will help strengthen all of those who know this is the way we need to go with marriage and family, with our children, in particular, jack. We've got to save the babies and we have to get back to that innocence of childhood that should be there.
Speaker 1:I don't think people realize, linda, I don't think people realize the importance of marriage and the family in the sacramental order. That's really what John Paul is focusing here. This is that's really what John Paul is focusing here. This is number 102. So John Paul II for those of you who aren't in tune he put this body of work together when he became pope. He brought this from Poland, man and woman. He created them. He saw everything that we're talking about a long time ago. He said what the communists could not do in Poland when he grew up, which is destroy marriage and the family, destroy God totally. They did it on the surface, but that just went underground. And when the communists came back out and were defeated in 1989, wasn't so long ago we saw that surface again, that faith surface again. Now it's being pushed back again. You know every generation has to fight this and this is why I think it's very pushed back again. You know every generation has to fight this and this is why I think it's very exciting. This is number 102. Then John Paul II calls it the spousal and redemptive meaning of love. He presented this in St Peter's Square, which is a general audience where he presented all of these on December 15th 1982. My hope really, linda.
Speaker 1:In this episode and going forward, we're really focused on and we have been for many, many years marriage and the family, like you said, and the younger people below that, people that aspire to love, to actually find love, and this is what Generation Z is starting to, especially the men. It's not that the women were excluded, but we saw this in voting for Trump. They surprised everybody beyond expectations. Everybody thought all of the young people are so indoctrinated. Their hearts have been so twisted, not only by the schools and social media, but by their parents and the generations, all the way going back to us, that have not brought the faith down to those young people. Many of them were not baptized, many of them have not been brought into the church and still, still, we start to see them turn and vote for Donald Trump in numbers that nobody expected.
Speaker 1:Women also I think it was a 7% rise for young women voting in this election for him, but it was a 15% rise in young men. I think the Generation Z men are sensing something's wrong. There's something really wrong. They're not as emotionally wrapped up in all these ideologies as women can get, just because they're more emotional. And the Generation Z men that I'm talking to and it's not all of them, of course, but more than you think are stepping back and looking at this more from an analytical type of a lens and saying something's wrong, something's wrong, something's got to change. And they came out and voted for Trump.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, Jack, a part of it is because we have gotten so far off the rails in so many ways in the culture that the young people are saying is this it Is this what life is supposed to be, and that echo that we've talked about in their heart, I think is ringing a little bit louder. There's something more.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, let's talk about that echo. So what John Paul talked about so much I'm glad you brought that up is there's an echo, a reality of this love and life in our hearts. We were destined for authentic love and God is love. It's amazing, it's fascinating. When you take God out of a culture, it's because you took God out of your own heart, so ultimately it starts in our own hearts. That's where that echo is and that's what you know people say. Well, generation z you know, we had interviews it's the economy, uh, it's the hopelessness. Well, yeah, all of those things matter.
Speaker 1:When you take god out of a culture, the corruption gets so pervasive. We we have, you know, no morals and right. We live in a world of moral relativism where everybody just takes what they can. It's grasping and taking, trying to feel that echo that they hear, without opening themselves to the infinite. So they're grasping and taking. Well, they're taking those kids' futures, linda. They're stripping them of all the wealth, all the chances that we have. You know, god provides for us in different ways when we're moral and religious people, like John Adams said, one of our founding fathers, when you take morality out, which is, you know what the young people have been, it's been pushed on them to do. Then what happens? Everything becomes corrupt and all that wealth goes to just the very top and everybody else is just looked at as an object to use. And that's the way they realize. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and all these people are just using them as pawns in some game of what it's disgusting, actually, of what you know it was disgusting, actually.
Speaker 2:And when you talk, jack, about taking morality out, I think to some ears morality sounds like oh rules, you know you're telling me what I can and cannot do, when the truth is that the morality we're talking about here is the truth. You know, god is truth, god is love. So when we take God out, we've taken out truth and we've taken out love. And in some ways I look at all the ramifications. You know homelessness, abortion we can list, you know, a gazillion of things are really all the bad fruits of that action of taking God out.
Speaker 1:And so let's get back to the basics. What we're talking about here. Where this starts is the individual human heart, and then it goes into love. And how do you? But you have to be filled. You cannot give what you don't have. And so what happens is right.
Speaker 1:There's a breakdown in marriage and family, which all of these poor kids are suffering from in some way or another. And these ideologies so many of them come from broken homes. You know, there was a woman ranting this is a millennial woman, you know ranting about her kids. She had a daughter that was 17 years old and she said my Trump is not going to take away my daughter's IUD. And somebody said well, how old is she? And she's 17 years old. So she's a 17 year old girl living at home and her mother is worried that Trump is going to come in and take away her IUD. And you have to ask the question going to come in and take away her IUD? And you have to ask the question why does her mother have this poor girl, you know, with an IUD? You know what is she doing, you know. I mean, can you imagine the twisting and distortion in that poor young girl that's got an IUD? You know that's going around sleeping, I assume, right with men. And because abortion has been taken out, she thinks again in her mind that Trump is going to rob her daughter of an IUD and abortion.
Speaker 1:And of course abortion came, linda, because it's a backup to contraception. This all comes down to redefining marriage, redefining the family, and it all comes down to I hate to say this, linda it all comes down to contraception. It started in the 1930s. Up until the 1930s, every society really, but certainly every Christian society, was against contraception because they understood that it would release lust and somehow start to permeate negativity and sin into marriage, the family, civilization, culture. I don't know how they all knew that ahead of time, but there was various stout people that said this is going to be a big mistake. Even TS Eliot, the poet, said it's not going to happen right away, but you're going to see this in some time that this whole thing will take down the whole civilization. How did they see this? It was amazing that they had the foresight.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, maybe part of it, jack, is if we're thinking about contraception as being against life. What the Pope did right here in 102 is linking the spousal and redemptive meaning of love all the way back to the mystery of creation. And he says we link that mystery of creation, which is life and us procreating, right With the mystery of redemption, because it's through the Redeemer that he restored for us our meaning again of being male and female, our sexuality, and giving us the Holy Spirit to help us overcome that concupiscence, that lust that we have sunken into. So I think if you go all the way to the depths of what contraception is and its bad fruit, we find ourselves right back here where the Pope is in this audience today.
Speaker 2:And you had mentioned Gen Z and I'm thinking you know, when you see the depths of the corruption and all the bad fruit from the way things have been in the thinking, like this mother had in her head, you get to the point where you're at that bottom line, rock bottom, where you say what is this about? What is life about? And it draws us right back to the whole meaning of existence that the Pope talks about here. It is about life and love, right. So I think, the linkage of our misunderstandings of what contraception and the problems it would cause, our misunderstandings of what contraception and the problems it would cause, because many people think it's going to be a good thing not only to delay pregnancy in a marriage but to keep you know that babies won't be pregnant, even conceived, and yet we found the exact opposite has in fact happened. So you see that when we go all the way back to that misunderstanding that we had about life from the beginning, here's where we are.
Speaker 1:If you're hearing this for the first time about contraception, you go. What does contraception have to do with love and life? It has everything. It's never been so clear as it is today, when you have these ideologies pushing anti-love and anti-life and you have women these young women, screaming since Kamala Harris did not get elected and somehow correlating that with being forced to have babies, and you just wonder. So they're lined up to get their tubes tied, linda, they're cutting off their hair and they're claiming they're not going to have sex with men anymore. So if you listen to them, they're not going to have sex with men who are basically strangers, because that's exactly what it is. I'm not going to go out on a date and have sex anymore With who? Because I don't want to get married. That's what they're saying. I don't want to get married. I'm getting my tubes tied. I don't want to take a chance because he's going to steal my contraception. And what happens if it fails? He's going to make me have a baby. And this is like so disgusting. You just go. You know a whole generation has been failed.
Speaker 1:Father Calvin Robinson was watching some of these clips and he said these liberal women seem to think that their choice is whether to abort their baby or not. They should have been taught that their choice is whether to have sex or not. He said wait for marriage, ladies. Find love right, then there's no need to choose to kill your baby. And that is foreign to them to even hear that. You know, it's one thing to choose to have sexual relationships outside of marriage, outside of authentic love, but it's another thing to never even have heard of it. See, that's the injustice, linda, and that's why I really want to reach out to Generation Z just to proclaim the truth to them. Then they can have a choice.
Speaker 1:Right now, many of them don't have a choice because they never heard the truth in the first place. So all they have is a bunch of bad choices. And you see the insanity that happens, right? It's insanity that happens when God is taken out of that link between a marriage and procreation. And then the last thing, linda, is just gender. Look how gender has been confused. Gender comes from the etymology of generation, right? Yes, genitalia, if you unpack that a little bit, linda, because if gender no longer means generation of life, look what you do when you abuse the language, right?
Speaker 2:Seeking power and moving away from marriage.
Speaker 1:It's amazing.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, you end up with it's meaningless, and that's how we find ourselves traveling down that road, that a man can become a woman or a woman can become a man, because gender has lost its meaning.
Speaker 1:And how did it lose its meaning? Through contraception.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Contraception said right that sexual act is no longer meaningful, no longer leads to life. And look what happens, Linda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that sexual act is full of meaning, jack, as we proceed with some audiences that are yet coming up and understand the language of the body. It's full of meaning and we've lost that too. The younger people have not heard that. And one other thought that occurred to me I want to get this in is that, when it comes to the babies and the choice of getting rid of the babies, the idea that babies, children, are a gift from God is totally gone right.
Speaker 1:I remember, linda, that's so important to say. I remember when my wife came back from the doctor for our first baby and told me that I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, it's so thrilling. Just remember it. Thinking, oh my gosh, this, you know it's, it's so thrilling. And then the first time I heard I, I felt that baby kick in my wife's womb, right, I mean, you know. And then to think that these women just think it's okay to take that one that's kicking and just take it out and kill it, and and we've become barbaric, haven't we?
Speaker 2:l Linda, yeah, I had that thought earlier that it's a new level of barbarism that we've sunk into so many of us. But, jack, you know there are those that are still fighting and still understand, and I think you know. Going back to the gift idea, god is the giver of gifts and he's allowed us to participate in the procreation of life. You know, without life, what do you have? Nothing. And you see, if and I think maybe that Gen Z is awakening to that how are they?
Speaker 1:awakening though. You know, isn't it amazing, the awe and wonder of that echo. Can you speak to that a little bit, because otherwise, if there's no echo in a human all of the evil that's been being pushed down on them amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I lost you for a few seconds in there, but Gen Z is described as which group, the birth year, yeah, you think about maybe 12 years old, up until like 27, 28, somewhere around there Right.
Speaker 1:So so these are high school, college and and and beyond, starting even even below high school, so 12, 13 years old. So yeah, starting even below high school, so 12, 13 years old.
Speaker 2:Okay, so most of my grandchildren, I think, and yours as well, would be in that generation.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean, I have some younger than that. I think they're calling them Alpha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but Gen.
Speaker 1:Z are the ones that were voting. You know right for the first time. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, many of them. You know right for the first time. Yes, many of them. So I think what they've witnessed, even in this last campaign, and the degree of the name-calling, the denigration, really, of human dignity, has reached a point where they know this is not the way we're supposed to be to one another, and so I think their hearts are searching for so much of this in the adults. You know what is the way to be, and I think the good part is that the parents are awakening as well.
Speaker 1:You know, even with the idea of trying to take phones out of the schools. Now, you know, even with the idea of, you know, I hope so, linda, I hope so, yeah, well trying to take phones out of the schools.
Speaker 2:Now you know, to me that's an awakening that we're coming to realize the detriment that that has been to the children in many ways. And when you mentioned like age 12, going down at that generation, I think the statistics on when they're first exposed to pornography is about that age 11 or 12.
Speaker 1:Well, even younger. Now they say 8 to 11. How disgusting is that? Right so that's generation alpha, even the younger ones.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so yeah. I think that awakening is happening. I think the election is proof that many of the older generation are saying you know, enough is enough with where we've gone. We've got to do something. And, as you said earlier, donald Trump is not a redeemer, he is not a savior, but he at least is proposing many things that one could call Christian morality. He is bringing us back to some common sense and that whole idea, jack, of working towards the common good. We've got to get back to that.
Speaker 2:I know in Human Life International, father Bouquet has his recent article right after the election that he is entitled the fight for life is more urgent after the election, and it truly is, because now we have that window of opportunity, through God's blessings, to work even harder. But he points out that the government has to invest in the family. You know that. I think Donald Trump understands that. I think there's been enough said about his family.
Speaker 2:Has he made mistakes? And many of them we all have? Why go down that road? Because we're all sinners. And yet it seems as though he, like many of us, have tuned into. True, but we have been redeemed. Am I availing myself of that mystery of redemption and using the graces available to me to now start being more vocal, more verbal, about the things that we have to do to get back to helping our families, and I was liking the idea that he is very strong about how government needs to invest in our families and in our children. So there's much to be done and the basic understanding of what our audience 102 is talking about is that we've got to understand that spousal meaning of the body and its masculinity and femininity. Start there and that will take us through, you know, all these distortions that we've had.
Speaker 1:The young people need to just follow Jesus. Again back to the beginning.
Speaker 2:You know, this is the primordial sacrament.
Speaker 1:This is what is the primordial sacrament, you know, before sin came in the world. Just read Genesis 1, genesis 2, and you find out again. Here's just a quick Genesis. So Jesus in Matthew 19, and also in Mark's gospel, leads us back to the beginning. He says have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female? And so he says for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. So there are no longer two but one. This casual sex is so ridiculous. And then you release lust, the threefold concupiscence that you alluded to. You release that when you do. That's a power, because you have this eros, this power of love given to you by God. This is a sacred power to generate life. When a man and a woman come together, they are no longer two but one. Jesus says and so let what God has joined together, what God has joined together, what God has joined together, let no man separate, no man put asunder. So divorce in the beginning was unheard of right.
Speaker 1:The primordial sacrament means there was no sin. The sacrament was a visible sign of God's love in the world through the union of a man and a woman through the union of a man and a woman, right away in Genesis 1.28,. You had this blessing already, right, this already you know. We bestowed the blessing of fertility, you know. And so the two become one, become three, and this is a reflection of Trinitarian love. This is so sacred that this is the primordial sacrament. There is no better sacrament than this, the only sacrament. Then we didn't need baptism, you didn't need confession, you didn't need the Eucharist, because we're already joined wholly with God. When sin comes into the world, jesus comes back in. To restore what? To restore this, and you see this in Ephesians 5, don't you, linda?
Speaker 2:Yes, and sin did enter the world and so we lost much of what were the graces, that divine connection that we had. But that's where the story of redemption now brings us back and we need to be aware that the Holy Spirit did pour out the grace through Christ's death and resurrection. You said we have to go back to Christ, we have to understand that's how we got redeemed and that's where the grace comes from. Without availing ourselves of that grace, that's where the grace comes from, you know, without availing ourselves of that grace. That's where the concupiscence and the distortion comes in. But that grace will help us understand the great dignity of the body. And, just like you said, it was just an awesome gift to be a part of being able to procreate that gift of fertility, which is where we get that. The babies are a gift because they're the result of that fertility and that one flesh union. So, boom, there you have it right. It comes right back together.
Speaker 1:You know, sister Lucia Fatima expressed this so well. She wrote to Cardinal Cafara and then to share with John Paul II, when they were establishing the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family, to push back against these ideologies already, and the sexual revolution that had started in the 30s, first with contraception, ramped up to speed 30 years later, in the 60s, and then continues to twist and distort. And so for people just to remember what the threefold concupiscence is when sin comes into the world concupiscence of the eyes, the flesh and the pride of life and you say, okay, the eyes, right, I see the materialistic world and I just grasp to try to fill right the flesh, and it's released Again when you start to lust, when you move out of marriage, when you take this sacrament out and you start to lust through pornography and casual sex. It's such a distortion, such a power that it's like you let the genie out of the bottle and it's very hard to stuff that back in. You see this with addictions to pornography and all kinds of the bottle, and it's very hard to stuff that back in. You see this with addictions to pornography and all kinds of different things. And then the pride of life, linda, and you just see that men and women have become so proud. They're so proud that they reject God, reject grace, and they're free to do that.
Speaker 1:But you see the insanity, linda. I mean, if there's one good thing, excuse me about what's going on with this Trump derangement syndrome you see actual insanity, mental illness being portrayed right in front of you and you go, oh my God, these are human beings crying because they cannot. They think that Donald Trump's going to not allow them to murder their own children, and Donald Trump, first of all, never said that it's back into the States. But besides that, can you imagine, can you imagine a mother crying because her daughter can't? Her teenage daughter, who lives at home, is probably a junior in high school cannot just have casual sex with the boys in her school. I mean, what have we come down to? I mean it's amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, and that lack of understanding too, of what you know. Our sexuality is about what it's for and when it's appropriate. We talked before about sin, so you once again identified lust, the threefold concupiscence, all of that falling under the category of sin, and we said it darkens the mind. It has darkened minds, Jack, to the level of insanity. Okay, you know we're not kidding when we say you know that people can't rationalize anymore and the mind is so dark, and then you do slip into that insanity.
Speaker 1:I smile because you're you know, keep going, but I'm smiling only because it's so insane.
Speaker 2:Crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1:It got circus out there sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I heard a comment somewhere in all the things that were said about the fear Okay, with Trump, here we go. We're going to slip back into Ephesians 5 again, and I thought, oh, that was kind of hysterical, because here we have been talking about Ephesians 5, verse 22 in particular Wives, be submissive to your husbands and it was like there was this great big panic. You know, trump is going to make that happen too. I'm like, oh, my goodness, we really have misunderstood to the degree that we can't even rationalize with a sound mind. You know what it might mean. And again, be submissive to your husbands, allow them to love you as Christ loves the church. That's what we go on to learn that that really means. And yet, in marriage, for that to happen, it requires a great deal of sacrifice. Marriage, for that to happen, it requires a great deal of sacrifice, and I think as a culture, we've kind of lost that concept too. You know, because it's all about me and what I want and so on, and Sister Lucia again said.
Speaker 1:Our Blessed Mother in the Vision said that this is the last great battle that we're in. This is what she wrote to Cardinal Kaffar and John Paul. The last great battle will be over marriage and the family. And this is what's playing out right now. So can you imagine that we're in? We don't know when the end time's going to come. We know when Jesus came it was already the beginning of the end times for us. And how that plays out, who knows? But you're right, you know God has given us a chance here, hasn't he? Just to all embrace a universal call to holiness, all of us get a reprieve.
Speaker 1:And now we need to stand up and say, okay, time is ticking down, it can be changed. We might only have a few years, or who knows? You know, I mean we're very close to World War III here. I mean when moral evil, when a political class has become so corrupt we are pushing pornography, abortion, contraception all over the world. So think about this. This is the United States of America. Who you think is the good guy? We have turned into the bad guy, not only what we're doing to our kids, but to kids all over the world. And because of this moral corruption. We're on the verge of World War III, with maybe three or four different countries on three or four different fronts. It's really a time where hell could be literally unleashed on the world.
Speaker 1:And so, let's just, you know, for people again tuning in to say how can that happen with their body? This is just nature's laws, natural law and revelation working together. My wife and I have whole systems that work independently. I don't need my wife to digest my food, my heart to tick for my nervous system, my cardiovascular system, my muscular system, you know one after another. The only system that is different and we need both is the reproductive system and the only organ that's different in our body right, I mean, I have two lungs, she has two lungs. I have a stomach, she has. I mean, I have two lungs, she has two lungs. I have a stomach, she has a stomach. I have 10 fingers, she has 10 fingers. I have two eyes, she has two eyes. The only organ that's different is the sexual organ, because it's made to generate. Gender comes again to generate. When we no longer see that and understand that, everything degenerates and it goes downhill. And this has been going on for a long time, linda. So amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with those two systems comes the whole idea of the complementarity. Didn't happen by accident.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You know it didn't evolve that way. It is God's plan. The Pope ends this audience in his paragraph eight. I just want to read a couple of sentences here because it pulls it together.
Speaker 2:He goes man, who is from the beginning male and female, must seek the meaning of his existence and the meaning of his humanity by reaching all the way to the mystery of creation through the reality of redemption. That's a mouthful, but it sums up what we have been talking about there. He finds also the essential answer to the question about the meaning of the human body and about the meaning of masculinity and femininity of the human person. That paragraph goes on, but he ends with marriage, as a sacrament, remains a living and life-giving part of the whole salvific process. So that's why, when we attack marriage, we have attacked our very salvation, we've attacked it all, and so he reminds us of that, and marriage, of course, is the sign that he has given us over and over.
Speaker 1:And where are?
Speaker 2:we headed Jack.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, eternity starts right now, doesn't it? You know we keep thinking eternity means tomorrow. No, eternity means forever. You know John Paul also speaks at the end here that this marriage, this sacrament coming from the primordial sacrament, this is where we all came from. We all came from a union of man and woman. So we have to, in this temporal space not only is the sacrament important from a sacramental standpoint of being a visible sign of Trinitarian love in the world. We actually came from that right, that union of a man and a woman. This gives us eternal life. Now, marriage, there is going to be no marriage like this in heaven. That's a sign. That sign drops off. It's not the delete button, as Christopher West would often say, it's the complete button, because we are destined to share an eternal exchange of love with the Trinity itself. Well, this is embraced today, because if I don't fill myself with Trinitarian love, I cannot give what I don't have.
Speaker 1:In the beginning it was like that. And so what happens? Well, christ comes in, and in Ephesians 5, we're linking these two bookends together of Christ coming back to restore, like you said, restore redemption of our bodies and in a sense, jesus takes on a body right and in a sense meaning he takes on all of our bodies, our humanity. He again unifies that, brings that together with his divinity and unites it again as it was in the beginning, the way it was supposed to be.
Speaker 1:St Paul was so excited because he says now we have a redeemer that gives us. It's even better than if sin never happened now because we see this, we see God face-to-face come into the story. What a beautiful thing, linda. And if you don't think it's real, just allow yourself to get on your knees and open up to him. When you feel that pressure of the threefold concupiscence, when you feel anxiety, depression, this nuts and insanity, go into prayer because you have to walk into through that narrow gate, like Jesus said. And when you do, you'll experience this. Linda, this is so beautiful that we can experience this today in the quietness of a chapel, praying, reciting scripture, sitting and meditating on it.
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a beautiful thing and those are the highlights for me. But when Christ redeemed us as you went through the beautiful story, it was not without pain, suffering and sacrifice, suffering and sacrifice. And therein, on our day-to-day practical element, is if we reject all of that, we cannot be redeemed, because that's the path we have to walk on.
Speaker 1:What a great point. I remember coming back into the church, linda, the fiercest battle I've ever and I'm a fighter. I was a kid, I mean not just a street fighter, but actually fought in tournaments and stuff and yet the fiercest battle by far was the battle on the battlefield of the heart. John Paul would say, between love and lust, between self-giving love, sacrificial love, carrying the cross right, hanging on the cross with Jesus Christ and becoming that sacrifice you mentioned wives. Be submissive to their husbands. This is what this is. Be submissive to this love that a man is to sacrifice himself for. This is not some weird thing where we tell our wives to put on, you know, cover their faces and follow behind me. No, no, no. This is self-giving.
Speaker 1:What we're talking about as Catholics and as Christians is men pouring themselves out saying not only do I love you, do I want to have your hand in marriage, but I'll take responsibility to make sure that if you have a baby, that I'm there to protect you, to provide for you. Right, it takes a family. It really does. This is Jesus hanging on the cross. If you ever want to get a picture of what self-sacrificial love is, husbands, love your wives, as Ephesians 5, as Christ loves the church. Well, how did he love the church? You just described it, linda. Well, how did he love the church? You?
Speaker 2:just described it, linda. This is my body, given for you, right, and so we as followers have to get it and have to walk down that same path. For me, with my husband, this is my body, given for you, likewise for him. We have the children as a fruit of that, and we both give for them, goes on to the grandchildren. It's the generations, right, jack? It's just something we've got to grasp and I hope that our listeners, through all this study with Pope John Paul, have begun to see the beauty of it. When we really allow ourselves to let it sink in, you know what life is about, and life and love, and that God, the giver of gifts, is where we need to go. You have a good way of summarizing it. I get lost in kind, of the beauty and the feeling of it all that, if we did it right, just how great it could be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, what you're saying is important and we need to walk into that hope right and give that hope, linda, that you just expressed to Generation Z I think you know as I go out here as I get older, I just want to leave our legacy with the John Paul II Renewal Center the things that we talk about, to open up this mystery to these young people again, because the generations that came before them were not very kind to them. It hasn't passed down much to them and they're sensing something and hopefully, like you said, their parents are waking up too. I have more faith in the young people than I do in the older ones as far as changing we can all change and we're all called to a universal call to holiness.
Speaker 1:But if those young men can see that, then the young women can see that they're being more particular. And I had a young guy, linda, look, we're running out of time here. But I had a young guy, linda, look at we're running out of time here. But I had a young generation z guy. He was 20 years old, he's in in college in kentucky actually, and I said to him, I said so. I said you know, we're having lunch together. And I said so, any cute girls on campus? And he goes, yes, he goes, copy paste, copy paste. And I go what do you mean? Copy paste, copy paste. And he goes, they're all the same, they're all the same, jack.
Speaker 1:He said they just want to go out and get high, get drunk, and they want to have sex. And I said, well, it's. It used to be like a guy's perfect night out, right, some girl that wants. And he goes, not for me, not for me and not for my friends, he said. And he goes, look at, we're not perfect. But he said we're all looking for that one special girl. And he said you know, the girl that wants to have sex with you had sex with 20 other guys already.
Speaker 1:I don't know what she's bringing in, but she's not bringing in anything healthy. It's not only, you know, a night out. It's what's good for us, what's good for the human soul. I want to find authentic love. That's what I mean when I say they're starting to wake up, Linda.
Speaker 2:Awesome. That's so encouraging, and we have to continue to help them to understand that they will find it. Pray for that girl girl that's out there because God has his plan for them. Don't give up Right. Yeah, you know, and there are young women you could speak to who would feel the same.
Speaker 1:For sure, for sure, in fact, linda, think about this Last parting thought for you. So we have Title IX, right, title IX was to protect women in these colleges and schools in general. Right, so that they had an equal playing field as far as sports and other things. Right. So now, with this gender stuff happening, right Now they have men not only competing with them, but winning these tournaments allowed to go into their locker rooms, into their own locker rooms, into their own spaces. Tournaments allowed to go into their locker rooms, into their own locker rooms, into their own spaces.
Speaker 1:And you think, where are the feminists that were radical feminists I'm talking about, that were pushing for all of this right, pushing for Title IX? Now you get it, and they're allowing men to take over Title IX. Now you know the reason that the feminists can't say anything Because they've been telling us all this time that gender doesn't mean anything, that it's meaningless. So when they hear that a man is walking into a woman's locker room, they can't say anything. Now, and why? Because I've been telling all this time that we're all the same, that there is no gender difference.
Speaker 1:And now you know who's standing up for those women. Who's standing up for those women. It's Christian women that are standing up. There's Christian men who are standing up for these women, right, amazing. And those young girls are standing up for themselves. They're saying nobody in these experts, right, these gender schools, these crazy and sane things, nobody's sticking up for us. But it's our Christian heritage that says no, no, no. There is a such thing as gender and it's for generating life and there's a difference and it's a complimentary thing, right? Isn't that beautiful right?
Speaker 2:it is beautiful. It goes right back to that echo in the beginning male and female, and so the gender is not meaningless. And they know it, they know it deep down, they know it, and so now they're starting to act on it, those who who understand it. So it is beautiful beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, god bless you, linda. Thanks for being with me. Thanks everybody. Thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you again soon.