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
#588 "Gift of Self": Gen Z is seeking "something more" and God has the Plan! From Lust to Love and Spiritual Awakening
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Imagine Gen Z, who have been lied to about so many things. They are standing at the crossroads of love and lust, battling today's cultural challenges and we are excited and honored to journey with them.
That's the journey we embark on in today's episode, exploring the profound "gift of self" in relationships, especially marriage. I share my experiences with engaged couples and intriguing conversations with Gen Z, revealing the struggles they face amidst moral relativism and a culture that often misrepresents love, reducing it to an emotion or feeling, and than further reducing love to sex.
Through personal narratives, including my own marital struggles and a poignant spiritual awakening following my brother's passing, we uncover the transformative power of love. These moments remind us of the larger story we are part of, encouraging a deeper understanding of God's plan and the role of love in our lives. We reflect on how life experiences mold our expectations and perceptions of love and marriage, highlighting the profound impact of recognizing divine moments.
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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. I'm glad you're with me. I'm going to talk a little bit about gift of self. Gift of self is a presentation I do for engaged couples for the Diocese of Rockford and I want to talk a little bit about that because there's so much confusion about why I should get married in the church and I'm talking to all kinds of people about destination weddings and all kinds and natural family planning, the use of contraception and what is blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:I want to help out a little bit and I love talking to Gen Z. That's my favorite thing to do nowadays is talking to Gen Z, gen Z, all the Gen Z. But I really have these great conversations with Gen Z men and Gen Z is going about 14, 15 years old all the way up until 27, say, maybe even 28. I push it a little bit to the 30s, early 30s for the younger millennials. I love those conversations because they're waking up. In this toxic, crazy culture you think it's gone. There's no way that anybody can wake up. These poor kids have been young people, have been brought up in this toxic stew. But I walked in and I walk into these talks for engaged couples with that sword and the same thing I do with young men and I walk in and I have this big sword it's actually bigger than it looks behind me there and it's heavy. It's called the Claymore sword, it's the Scottish sword and I have a series we started on Claymore for young men to bring them in spiritual formation and to tell them the big story that we came into. So I want to talk to engaged couples about that, because we came into a very toxic culture. But yet they're getting married in the church. They're not going to a destination wedding. Some of them don't know why. Some of them aren't even Catholic, right, but they're marrying someone that's Catholic, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1:So the Claymore sword started when I was doing a high school retreat and I was talking to, so I got talked into going and and then I started to love him after that, just going back a few years now and so I walked in with the Claymore sword talking to sophomore boys, had to get the okay to walk into with the with the sword in school Right now. Now maybe, you know, after COVID they probably wouldn't let me in there anymore. But anyways, I had the boys for two sessions and we had a ball and I had a couple of young guys with me too. Somebody else had the girls. And then we would break into small groups and the small groups were a lot of fun opening things up and my topics were how would a young man treat a young lady if he really loved her? And part of that was what does it mean to be a man? And we had a great sessions. And so afterwards we're in the cafeteria.
Speaker 1:After those two sessions we're going to do two more co-ed sessions with the boys and the girls in the afternoons and a counselor came up to me that was in charge. She said, jack, we got to change up the agenda. I go why we got it all worked out. She said well, the girls told the boys what you told the boys about what it means to be a man, but especially how a young man would treat a woman if he really loved her. And the girls want you to tell them what you told the boys.
Speaker 1:I said, okay, as I was in on this presentation with the girls not holding nothing back, trying to be cognizant of their feminine hearts a little bit a young girl started to cry and afterwards I asked the counselor, of course I said you know, go ahead and say young girl, why she started to cry. And the counselor came back and she said Jack. She said I don't have a father in my home. That was the first man that ever stood up and told me what love was and how a young man would treat me if he really loved me. And it was so beautiful that I started to cry. She said I knew that as my relationship with these boys that I had been with got more physical, I felt an emptiness. But I was told, basically, the lie. Love has been reduced down to a feeling, to an emotion, and further reduced down to sex. And I fell for the lie, but I knew that I wasn't finding what I was looking for and I didn't know what that was. And then he told me, and I fell for the lie, but I knew that I wasn't finding what I was looking for and I didn't know what that was. And then he told me, and I knew it was true.
Speaker 1:You know how many of these young girls you know dressed up as princesses when they were, when they were young, huh, dreaming about the knight in shining armor coming to get them and we realized the core thing of these young men is still alive and well, that life is to be an adventure. We know it's going to be a battle, but we find out. It's the battle on the heart of the human heart, the battlefield of the human heart between love and lust, between a self-giving person and a self-grasping, between love and pornography. And that's fought on the battlefield of the heart first, and it has to be fought with grace. You won't win that battle by yourself. You know the forces are against us and the young people get that right. They grew up in a very toxic time and it's not their fault, you know. I wonder how many of them actually know that.
Speaker 1:So I tell them I said look, the stats show, at least from a year and a half, two years ago, that 70% of all young people are moral, are socialists. 70%, 90% would consider themselves moral relativists. There is no truth. And you know the marketers, the professional marketers, know them better than they know themselves. They got them wrapped up in porn and all these got to buy this and got to buy that, et cetera, et cetera. And then you know what, somehow they're waking up and they're going enough is enough.
Speaker 1:We've been lied to and now you know they understand socialism, marx, this neo-Marxist culture. It's a bunch of people, old people, that lust for money, power, sex, and they're driving these ideologies and they're even twisting and distorting and brainwashing these young teachers. And they're even twisting and distorting and brainwashing these young teachers and they're stealing, they're robbing the innocence of you guys, they're obliterating your moral imagination, so twisting and turning it. So, then again, love reduced down to a feeling and then down to sex, and then it's nothing, it's meaningless, it's just about a hedonistic pleasure with no meaning or purpose. The same thing with marriage, and that means your body. Body doesn't mean anything and it's a lie.
Speaker 1:And and these people that are telling you these lies, they're a bunch of dysfunctional people with dysfunctional relationships, usually with no children, or if they have any children, they bought them. You know, it's in surrogacy and stuff. I mean I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. So, so disheartening, so dark actually, for these young children, right, these young babies, but anyways, love then in their lives and these older people's lives, uh, becomes dislike for one another in these relationships, and then it even turns into hatred. This beauty, this power that you feel when, when you, you say, oh, she's the one or he's the one, you feel this power. Why does that power turn into dislike so much in these marriages? Why does it even turn into hatred and messy divorces, right? Well then, the interesting thing with gen z, they're seeing this confusion. It got so crazy that they go nope, it's got to be something more right. So that's what we do, we. We bring them into the story, this bigger story.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember talking to a co-ed group and there was a young woman sitting, not right in the front but a couple of rows back, and I saw her when I was talking about Jesus Christ and said something else and she was, like you know, rolled her eyes, and I said what are you thinking back there, you know, taking a chance? And she said I don't really believe in God. And I said really, why? I said because I don't see him where, where is he? Where is he right? And I said well, I said he was here. I said do you know? No, no, serious, when we're talking about jesus christ here on earth, right? I said well, he walked the earth. No serious historian would deny that jesus walked the earth, that he changed the world time is literally split in half, right Before Christ and Anno Domanio, the year of the Lord, and then after Christ. I mean he's changed time. So something was special about him. Now, whether he's God or not might be your question, but he was real, concrete person, right and so. But I don't see him today.
Speaker 1:Right, I said there's a lot of things you don't see. I said let me ask you do you see the air that you're breathing? Are you breathing air? I don't know. How are you going to prove it? Right? How about gravity? Right? Something's holding you in your seat. Where's gravity? Tell me where it is. Can you see it? No, I said there's things happening all around you. Are you sitting still? And she goes duh. I said no, you're not. I said this whole earth is spinning on its axis at 1,100 miles an hour. Why do you think you're sitting still? And that's not all. We're revolving around a nuclear fireball 93 million miles away, at 67,000 miles an hour, while we're spinning. And guess what? Young lady, while you're sitting there, right, snorting over there.
Speaker 1:I said we can measure, science can now measure that there was a time before time existed, that we have the Big Bang. It's the scientific theory, right, it's the, it's the scientific theory right of when the world began. Is the big bang. Do you know that right now, it started to explode out then and it's been exploding ever since, about 440 000 miles an hour out the whole universe, while you're, while you're spinning on your axis, revolving around a nuclear fireball, the whole thing is exploding out and and you are sitting there thinking I could see everything. No, there's much that you can't see, young lady, but there's something that you really can't see that we all desire and we all want, and that's love. Nothing compares to love when you see another person and, ooh, I see the boy and I see the boy, I see the girl. What's happening there? Right, what is happening there? Something's happening to you. You don't see it. Really, you feel something. But what is that? What is love, young lady? And I said did you create the universe? She said no. I said anybody in this room create the universe? No, anybody here.
Speaker 1:Write the big story that you came into? No, no, huh. So what you're telling me is you came into a story and, as crazy and as toxic as it looks, it's a love story. And you know that in your heart, because there's an echo in your heart for something more. And it's not only for something more, it is for love, for love.
Speaker 1:How many people, when I'm speaking to engaged couples, huh, how many of you, if you're listening, how many of you dreamt of a average marriage? Ooh, I want an average marriage. Just give me an average marriage. No, you dreamt since you were a young girl especially the girls, right, the women about something beautiful, something special, right? But what happens to these marriages when you don't understand the story? You don't understand where we came from, you don't understand where we're going, you don't understand the big story that you were exploded into, that had a beginning and has an end. Boom up in this life. I said have an end and it's going someplace.
Speaker 1:What is it? It's a love story. Do you know how that works? No, so that's like a movie. You got through 40 minutes late. You ever get to a movie really late. You haven't seen the beginning, you don't know how it's going to end. Yet you came into the theater with your popcorn and you're trying to figure it out, and then you give up on trying to figure it out. You just do whatever you want to do and you wonder why you don't get the movie. That's how life can be like that.
Speaker 1:You know, before you met, I ask young people huh, before you met, what were you looking for? Take it back. So I've been married for quite a while myself, but I can still remember a time, of course, before I met my wife. What was I seeking? What was I looking for? Friendship, someone to spend time with. Right, I was looking for love. At the end of the day, I was looking for love.
Speaker 1:So what is love? Right, throw some love up here to me. You guys. Throw some love up. You know how do you do that. You know people reaching their. How do you do that? How do you express love to another person? Through your body, the way, the words you say yeah. Through your bodily actions, yeah. But what is love? Throw it up here. And I got, say, I got a whiteboard behind me. I'll put the formula up there and then, if your love ever gets twisted into dislike or hatred for one another, you know you could look up at the formula. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the formula I got.
Speaker 1:To get back to the formula, right, what happened to me personally? I was married for about 10 years and with three little kids. We had four, but we lost one, three little kids and something was happening to my marriage. It was falling apart, our marriage right, and it didn't look good. And I remember getting down on my knees Now I had been away from the church for 20 years. I was a non-practicing Catholic when I got married. My wife was a non-practicing Methodist when she got married and I said, god, do you have a plan? And I think God smiled at me, right, he said yeah, jack, I have a plan. You're not following it very well. I literally prayed for that. God, give me some insight into this, because whatever I'm doing is not working and I don't know how to get this back.
Speaker 1:I got up off my knees and I got a call almost right away from Orlando, florida. It was my mom and I'm the oldest of five boys and the fourth brother down, danny, was dying of AIDS at that time and he had gone into drug rehab in Orlando, florida and then got into a homosexual lifestyle out there through the therapist when he was about 25. By the time he was 29,. He was dying of AIDS. We had gone back and forth to see him a couple of different times. I got up off my knees and I get a call and the hospice nurse said this is probably his last day. Can you make it here, you guys, or at least you know, right? And I said hey, thank you Jesus, thank you God. This is how you answer my question. Do you have a plan, right? Well, it was the plan.
Speaker 1:I got there and I'm not going to go through this right now, but in that experience of him dying, he's the only one that had come back into the Catholic Church at that time. He had been molested, actually in the church when he was between 11 and 9 and, say, 11 or 12 years old, but he never told anybody. Got into drugs later on, really bothered him, got, like I said, into a homosexual lifestyle and as he was dying, you know, he was in a coma, basically, and while we were there whispering in his room, he started to come up. We saw him battling up to the surface I'm just giving you the cliff notes on this and he started to open up his eyes and I said, danny, you can hear us, can't you? And I touched his arm and he said let's pray. I said, danny, his mouth was really dry. I said, danny, did you say let's pray? And he said pray to God.
Speaker 1:And in that prayer, in that time, we tried to pray with him. He didn't try to pray with us, he was too weak. He just came to the surface, gave us a message and then, boom, that was it. I felt the presence of God. I mean an encounter. I remember Pope Benedict XVI said you know, our faith is never going to be an ethical decision or some lofty philosophical idea that you'd argue somebody into or out of. And I'm looking at this young lady again, right, and I said it's always going to be an encounter with an event. It's going to be an encounter with the person, and that encounter will give you a new horizon and a decisive direction for your life. I had that encounter there. And then I had it again two days later at his memorial masses.
Speaker 1:I was going to receive the Eucharist and I realized that Jesus was in that Eucharist. His presence was there and the encounter. It blew my mind right. So this brought me back into the church. I went to confession, I got cleaned up. That's what this is the divine mercy. You've seen that picture before. This is divine mercy.
Speaker 1:The Sister Faustina was to have painted. Jesus himself told her to do that. That's when Jesus got hit with the lance, right, basically a big sword lance into the heart, and then water and blood came out. The water is the nuptial bath baptism and then confession to get you ready for the nuptials, for the wedding feast. And then the red, of course, is the Eucharist to become one flesh with God himself, right? Well, this is the sign of marriage. This is the sign of reflection of marriage. God's not a sexual being, but he created our sexuality and marriage to be a tiny reflection of Trinitarian love in the world.
Speaker 1:I remember coming back, looking for a way to express that to my wife right, I'm coming back, I feel this, but my wife doesn't like me or the Catholic church. And I remember getting back down on my knees in the chapel and saying, okay, I'm getting it, god, but what are you going to do about her? What are you going to do about my wife? I'm not going to do it. I heard so clearly right, you're going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I heard so clearly right, you're going to do it. And I looked up at St Joseph and again, I'm just going to give you the cliff notes on this I realized, ooh, how did he do that?
Speaker 1:Right, he was marrying this beautiful Jewish girl and he never really even consummated. How, how, how did you do that? How? How did you fall in love? I need to do that right, because our relationship, our intimacy, was totally gone, absent at that time, and I was angry. I was tempted by different women that I worked with and stuff. I mean the temptations were brutal, that sword, I mean I dealt with that sword and that battlefield of the heart for many years. Actually it was the toughest battle I ever fought and I was a fighter as a kid. I mean fought in tournaments and stuff like that too, you know. But anyway, St Joseph came into my life and, praying through him, I know he brought the graces and helped me get through this thing.
Speaker 1:When I came back into the church, I was introduced to John Paul II and John Paul II said Christ and the church have answers to those questions that you're asking. Jack, who am I? First of all? What's the meaning and purpose of my life? Why were we created, male and female? How do I find happiness here on earth? How do I find love that satisfies forever, where love doesn't turn into dislike and a hatred? How do I find that love that arrows that power of love back. He unpacked what's called theology of the body. It's so beautiful, this teaching right.
Speaker 1:And I came back into the church and I'm reading John, the first chapter of John John's Gospel, and in there John sees Jesus coming down toward the Jordan River, john's baptizing in Bethany, near the Jordan. And he sees Jesus and he goes the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and he does it. And he goes. The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and he does it again. The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Exclamation mark he knows he sees now for the first time who Jesus really is.
Speaker 1:And so two of John the Baptist's disciples we find out it's John the Evangelist and Andrew Peter's brother start to follow Jesus. Jesus turns to them and says what do you seek? What are you looking for? What do you seek? This is what he does to all of us and he did it to me that time, as I'm reading this, when I first came back into the church what do you seek? And I said I want God's plan. He said the disciples said Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? The disciples said Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying, like, yes, I sense you have something there. We want to spend more time with you.
Speaker 1:And Jesus didn't give him some philosophical, some lesson in philosophy or theology, some moral teaching. Go read this or do this. He just said come and see, come and see, encounter me, come and see. So I saw that and I decided to do that. So I started to go to mass more sacraments, more especially mass and the Eucharist.
Speaker 1:But you got to go to confession and then sit in prayer. Prayer is just where you meet those two hearts, right. And so, young lady, looking at that young girl, again, you encounter him. If you're open, you're going to encounter him. When you're ready, you ask, you ask and you're going to encounter him. And so, because what did Jesus know when he says, what do you seek, young lady? He asked you what do you seek? And why does he say that? Because he knows something. He knows there's an echo of this larger story in your heart, because he created you and in the Imago Dei, in the image and likeness of him, he has this love story in his heart, this mercy, this truth, this goodness, and he wants you to have that. That's how you were created in the beginning, before sin. See, this isn't a story about learning more information and Googling it right. This isn't our DNA. The beauty of this is when your heart opens up and you hear the gospel in such a way. You have that aha moment. Right, matthew 19,.
Speaker 1:Jesus, john Paul, has me read this and you can think about this. I'm dealing with this relationship. I'm asking God do you have a plan? And he says read Matthew 19. This is in this theology of the body.
Speaker 1:And the Pharisees came up to Jesus and tested him by asking is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? And he answered have you not read that? He who made them from the beginning? He's pointing back to the beginning. This is the beginning of the story, guys. He made them male and female, and he said for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.
Speaker 1:For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one. So they are no longer two, but they're one. What, therefore, god has joined together? What, therefore, god has joined together? No man should put us under. No man should separate. And they said to him. Well then, why did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce in the Old Testament and put her away? Why did Moses give up and just say, okay, you can divorce your wife? Jesus said ah, because of the hardness of your hearts, moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, the model in the beginning, it was not so. So you see, this battle's been going on for a long time.
Speaker 1:And what does he point to the beginning when he says that that they were created in the Imago Dei? He points back to Genesis, chapter 1. It's the most amazing thing, this is the most important thing that God wants to tell you in the whole Bible that creation is all this awe and wonder, it's beauty all around you, but the crown of creation is this love story, isn't it? This is why Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26 to 28. Two verses, that's it. Let us make man in our image, in the divine image we created them right. Let him have dominion Over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground. God created man in his image, in the divine image he created them.
Speaker 1:How Male and female. He created them, god blessed them and said to them be fertile, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be fertile, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. What is his first commandment? Have sexual union, marital union. I mean, you know, you could say god and sex in the same language if you, if you're, if you realize what you're doing and you know, certainly if you're a catholic.
Speaker 1:God created sex. He thinks it's beautiful. It's us that would twisted it and distorted. So what is god doing? He, he basically, is flipping the selfie. What does that mean? What do we know about God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. The Father pours his love out to the Son. The Son receives that love and it's so beautiful and profound it comes out in the form of a person. We say the person is the Holy Spirit. This is not a sexual thing, again, right, this is a spiritual thing. God doesn't have a created body like us. Huh, he's a spiritual creature. But he creates our sexuality, right, because we're not just we're not just angelic creatures. There's three kinds of creatures. There's the divine creatures father, son and holy spirit. There's angelic beings right, I should call them beings, right, divine beings, not creatures. Divine beings Father, son and Holy Spirit, angelic beings, right, just spirit and human beings. That's us. We are a combination of spirit and body. Right, god takes in Genesis, chapter 2, verse 7, he takes the clay and blows his spirit into us. We have intellect, reason, free will. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 1:So what happens here in Genesis 1? It's like the opening scene from the Lion King. Have you seen that? Right? I mean it's gorgeous. The sun coming up behind the mountains. Everything started to grow, right, multiply, fill the earth right, plants, animals, and then, and then, and then. God seems to draw back into himself. He goes into himself.
Speaker 1:He says now we're ready On the sixth day I got it all set up. I'm gonna flip the selfie. Right, he's taking a selfie of the Trinitarian love story. He's gonna flip it and make a created version of that here in this world. And going to flip it and make a created version of that here in this world. And how does he do that? He creates this male and female and flips it into the world. So what do we see, right?
Speaker 1:I remember after my wife delivered our first child, you know, and I held that child and after a while, after my knees stopped shaking, I sat down and I go. Ooh. Nine months before this, my wife and I the two became one and there was a love bomb explosion that went off in a moment in time, called a baby. Two became three, right. Two became one. One person became three, three persons in one, a tiny created reflection of three persons in one. The Trinity of three persons in one, the Trinity.
Speaker 1:We are to bring the love story, the Trinitarian love story, in our little way, in our little taste of it here on earth. This is what we're created to do. Love only gets into the world if we bring it in. This is the two great commands to be filled with divine life and love and to become that Well, the primordial sacrament, the primordial, the first sacrament, right and the only sacrament at that time was marriage. Marriage being reflective of God, is his love in the world right? God is love.
Speaker 1:We hear that in the first letter of John, chapter eight. Huh, I think it's chapter eight, might be chapter four, chapter eight, first letter of John. It's not that long, you could find it. God is love, not that we love God, but that God loved us first. So a body and a soul in the beginning, before sin, plus grace infused with grace gave us the potential for human freedom, the potential for human flourishing. Right there we're connected already.
Speaker 1:Then he says go out, multiply, fill the earth and subdue, itue it, go into action, bring it into the world. What happens when we blew that out? And you know, we blew that out. Where do we do that? We did it at the tree, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Speaker 1:Right genesis, chapter three the serpent tempts eve. Then he says did god tell you you can't eat of any of the trees of this garden? She says no, god didn't say that. God just said you can't eat of the tree in the middle of the garden. The rest of these it's all yours. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and if you eat of that tree you will die.
Speaker 1:Well, what is that tree? Why can't I eat of that tree? Look it, I created this world already. It. Look at, I created this world already. It's already created with meaning and purpose. It's a love story. It's it's got truth, goodness, beauty in it. And you're the crown of creation to bring my love story, my trinitarian love story, into this world, to be infused with my love and my grace. You can't change that, but you're free. You're free not to do that, not to bring love into the world. But if you do that, you will die. You'll bring sin and death in the world and this is what happened.
Speaker 1:Think about this now. We blew this, basically exhaled disgrace. Right, we chose Satan. Right, you can be like gods. We felt they're a lie. You can call evil good and good evil.
Speaker 1:This is moral relativist. 90% are moral relativists. Thank goodness they're waking up because otherwise the nation and the world is done. You know, you can't live like that. It's just chaos, hatred, chaos, violence. Like that. You're filled with Satan.
Speaker 1:You could see these politicians just spewing violence like demons right their eyes, and they're just right, it's really demonic and they really are taking on evil and doing evil in the world. They become evil and you see this all around. Look at the culture of death right the abortion we demand, the right to kill our own children, marriage is meaningless, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You could see we become like cut flowers. So, like cut flowers, the grace is taken away. So, body and the soul without grace. The default state is what? What's your default position? It's sin and death. Look around you, you know, and the little girl wants to raise her eyes again. I said look it, you're going to find out. You don't have to believe me, you just keep on going. And what's going to happen? There's a six-foot hole waiting for all of us, with a white tombstone on it, chisel poised, ready to put your what, your name and your date on it. Nobody gets out of here without this, so you better figure it out at some point, right? And in the meantime, do you become a person of love or do you grasp and you take right?
Speaker 1:Remember what happened when sin came into the world? What did Adam and Eve do? They put fig leaves on, you know, or loincloths. And where did they put them? They put them on their eyes no, on their ears, no, they put them on their sexual parts. Why? What's wrong? You know, I thought you were created good. Now you got to cover yourself up. No, why did they do that? Because when they gave into lust, selfishness turned away from authentic love. The way we looked at one another. We covered ourselves, not because the body wasn't good, but because the body was very good, and it's the way we looked at one another. Lust came in. The battlefield of the heart started right there between love and lust. So this is an old story we're fighting, and when young people are fighting that story, they need to know that they're in a battle.
Speaker 1:I love Elon Musk. I love Elon Musk. Elon Musk has done so much. In fact, I think without Elon, our country would be down tubes If he didn't buy X, if he didn't support Trump. He's doing so much work. He put it all on the line.
Speaker 1:You know he's an amazing guy, but his love life is not so good. Huh, he has a lot of children I think maybe 12 children now, but with three different women at least, and he talked about it some years ago. He said he had a rough childhood and the reason I want to bring him up because he's at the tree too. He's at the tree and he's been given so much and he's seeking the truth. He's seeking the truth. He wants to know he talks about this all the time what is the meaning and purpose of life? Right, and he's a genius, but yet he didn't get the gospel in his heart yet. But yet he didn't get the gospel in his heart yet. You know, we got to pray for him. Everybody here listen to this. Say a prayer for Elon Musk, and I remember to bring him into my rosary later today. I got to try to remember to do this every day and put him on the list because he's so close.
Speaker 1:But he said I had a rough childhood. My parents divorced when I was nine years old and he went to live with his estranged father, who he called a terrible human being. And so, he said, he was very lonely growing up. He never wanted to be alone. He was mercilessly bullied. So he had five sons with his first wife. Can you imagine five sons? Maybe if he'd stayed with her he would have had six or seven more kids or whatever. It would have been this beautiful thing. But then he left those kids. He said his dad was terrible, left them, he would never want to do this. And then he did the same thing. See these patterns. Even if you don't want to do it, when you don't have the grace of Jesus Christ and say yes to him, you don't have the grace. You want to do good and he's done so many good things. But we got to pray that he has the grace.
Speaker 1:He said if I'm not in love, if I'm not with a long-term companion, I cannot be happy. I will never be happy without having someone Going to sleep alone kills me. It's not like I don't know what that feels like being in a big empty house and the footsteps echoing through the hallway, no one there, no one in the pillow next to you. How do you make yourself happy in a situation like that? How do you make yourself happy? See, he always thinks that we make ourselves happy. That's the paradox of happiness, that's the paradox of love. It's not when you grasp and try to make yourself happy. It's when you give yourself away to another person.
Speaker 1:Now, he gives himself away to a lot of different things, but when it comes to love, somehow it's disconnected. That's how I was. I, in my own marriage, I remember that's. I fell down on my knees. I was an entrepreneur, I was building stuff, not another scale of elon musk, but in my own little world, right, and it was like two disconnected stories. But they're not disconnected. They're telling one story. But what holds this all together is jesus christ and what he did on the cross, right, it's a beautiful, powerful story. And so we go on like this and so, elon, I pray, let's pray for him. But I want to go into Genesis 2. Genesis 2 will actually even tell us even more about this because, remember, jesus pointed to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 when he spoke in Matthew 19.
Speaker 1:In Genesis 2, think about this as three original experiences original solitude, original unity and original nakedness without shame. And this is so beautiful, so powerful. And so this is Elon again. So say Elon, or say any of us, or Adam, adam, mankind, that's what Adam means, mankind. It didn't matter in the very beginning, because when God created Adam, there was no Eve at first. It didn't matter, right, I mean it didn't matter. I was just a human being, because there was no sexuality yet, so no way to share this yet. So it could have been any one of us, but God invites us into the story. So listen for those three things original solitude, original unity, original nakedness without sin. Right, the Lord God.
Speaker 1:Genesis 2, I'm going to start at verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. Remember this is Genesis 2, before sin. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying you may eat freely of every tree in the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that you eat of it, you shall die. Then the Lord God said it's not good that a man should be alone. So now everything was good, right, I created this good, this good. This is the first time that God pulls back and he says now it's not good that man should be alone for the first time, so I'm going to make a helper fit for him. So, out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the year.
Speaker 1:This is the opening scene for the Lion King, right? He's filling this all in second day, third day. And then he said and he brought all these animals then to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every creature, that's what his name would be. So God himself says I want you to name the animals, elon, right? So Elon could have thought he was a scientist, he was put here to discover all this stuff. That's what he does. And then God says okay, it's all yours, just don't eat from that one tree. Then he says no, no, no, come here, I've got something else for you, elon, I want to show you something else. And he says I want you to name all the animals as he was. There's no helper fit for him. He sees all the animals with helpers.
Speaker 1:So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept he took one of his ribs, closed it up in its place with flesh, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man. And when Elon or any of us and this is an adam, of course wakes up, he's like he sees her. You got to see this primordial force, with the fog coming up like a mist and he's rubbing his eyes and he's been exploring and it's been an incredible adventure. And now, boom, oh, he looks up. What? Who does he see walking through the past? You know, out of the forest, a woman. Oh, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. He says he knows right away. Oh, this is something different. This is another person. This could be the helper fit for me.
Speaker 1:Huh, a soulmate. What has she got on? Nothing, and there's no shame, no using somebody. See, he sees right away, he sees your body, not as an object to use, but as someone to love. This is what christ gives us again, right when he comes back into the story. And she said therefore, a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they both become one flesh, right, right, and the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed. They were naked and not ashamed. What a beautiful story.
Speaker 1:Huh Called into this story, into the story, and to be filled with divine life and love. And who gives us this? I'm gonna finish with this how do you do that? How do I come back into that love story? Because we did come into a fallen world. Elon me, you, everybody. We're all fallen, we all have our faults. We need a savior, we need a redeemer, certainly a body and a soul. Our default position is really sin and death, but we have a savior Jesus.
Speaker 1:Remember, in the last supper. In fact, I'm going to read this to you. This is from Luke. In Luke, this is the last supper. So this is Jesus and he wants to bring this power of his, this love story, down to us from generation to generation. And this is Jesus. Institutes the Eucharist. This is this again Baptism, water for confession, nuptial bath, getting ready for a wedding, which is the Eucharist, the red, and when the hour came, he sat at the table.
Speaker 1:This is the Last Supper with his apostles with him. And he said to them I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you I shall not eat of it until it's fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a chalice and when he gave thanks, he said take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on, I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took the bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise, the chalice after supper, saying this chalice is poured out for you. This is the new covenant in my blood.
Speaker 1:When you think covenant in the Old Testament, covenant is what Is like a marriage. It's more than a legal contract, it's something between persons very deep and it's a relationship. And so he's the new covenant, he's the new relationship. The bride you know Jesus. He's looking for his bride. Well, we're his bride. Right, jesus? The bridegroom crimes, the marriage bed of the Lamb to pour himself out for you and I, right, to give himself. This is my body, given for you. Well, this is what a man offers to his wife. This is my body, given for you. We're a reflection of Trinitarian love.
Speaker 1:Jesus comes on and takes our flesh on, walks into the story and gives us this as the bridegroom pours himself out to us, and in that pouring out we receive him and we receive that grace. And then Jesus goes what he goes into the remember. After he comes back from the dead, the Jews, the apostles, are hiding in the upper room for fear of the Jews right, fear of getting killed. Jesus comes right in, he doesn't even open the door, he comes right in. He's got a transfigured body now. And so he comes in and they see him and right away he knows they're going to be nervous, even ashamed now, because they all left except for John. And what does he say? Look, I'm just going off the top of my head, but peace, be with you. And then he repeats it my peace, be with you. I'm giving you my peace again. And then he breathed on them, received the spirit. It's only the second time you hear that. You heard it in Genesis, chapter two.
Speaker 1:God takes the clay and breathes himself into it Again. Intellect, reason, free will, different than all the rest of the creatures. This is what Adam learned, as he's naming all the animals. There's no helper fit for me. I'm different than all of creation. I'm different than all the bodies. I'm looking for a person to be with right Elon, to be a reflection of Trinitarian love. But in order to sustain that, I have to be connected, as it was in the beginning.
Speaker 1:Sin has disconnected us like a cut flower, and so we fall into love. But we're like cut flowers. It looks good for a little while, you put it on the table, the flowers in a vase, but after a little while they start to what? Love turns into dislike, sometimes even into hatred. It's like a rocket that runs out of rocket fuel, or it crashes here and it crashes there. What's the answer? This is my body given for you, right, and these masses, right, have been brought down for 2,000 years all over the world. This is my body given for you.
Speaker 1:So I look back at that girl who said you can't see it, but she doesn't go to church, because if you go to church, you see it all around the stained glass, the crucifix. You see on the altar, what's happening, right, that we're representing that one-time historical event. We enter into that one-time historical event. We make that one-time historical event present in this world. This is what Jesus said I will never leave you. And he gave us the Eucharist so I can see him, I can taste him. But the biggest thing is I encountered him and I knew this after my brother died. I had that encounter. It was amazing, amazing encounter and I knew he was real in the Eucharist. It's one of the biggest. I mean, how could you have anything bigger than that to think the God of the universe actually comes to us? Well, anyways, I started to be filled with this. I started to turn around and just be kinder and loving to my wife, even when she didn't love me back. But I had the power to do this now through the Eucharist, through the sacraments, through prayer.
Speaker 1:It took a long time to get our marriage back on track. My wife's not a practicing Catholic. If she was, she could have went to the sacraments. It would have been faster, I know it would have been, but she wasn't. So her heart was just hard and I really learned a lot about myself and about God and about the depth that the relationship wants, god wants. So he showed me in my pain and in her pain too. She was suffering too, but I wasn't going to be a part of bringing her any more of that pain. That's what I would pray for.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be a person of love in her life. I saw her one day, like in a vision almost, but I saw her and I had this picture of her as a little girl in her princess outfit coming out. She was a farm girl coming out in her farm with her little carriage and dreaming that some knight in shining armor was going to take the sword and protect her. And the first thing you have to protect her from is yourself, your own lust, your own selfishness. And I fought on that battlefield of the heart and it was the most brutal time. I mean, it was amazingly brutal.
Speaker 1:But God is there for us to fill us up and give us the grace. You'd never make it and you're not supposed to make it by yourself. God would give you the grace. St Joseph, our blessed mother, the angels and the saints, john Paul II with his theology of the body, all pouring themselves into you. And then you know it's real. Then you know because you encounter it and you become a person of love and you look around at all the dysfunction and you just want to tell people you don't have to live like that right. Hey, god bless you. Great to be with you. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.