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
#587 Claymore Interim Update--The Battle We Are In: Spiritual Formation, Reading Scripture and More!
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This is a supplement and interim update: How to face the overwhelming moral complexities of our time. Join Jack and navigate this challenging landscape, drawing inspiration from the prophecy of the "last great battle" over marriage and family as articulated by Sister Lucia of Fatima. This isn't about conflict with individuals but rather a stand against the manifestations of evil. This battle, primarily fought through the power of prayer, the sacraments, and aligning with Jesus’ teachings, we aim to build the "City Of God" and inspire you to pursue righteousness and eternal life.
Amidst a backdrop of corruption and crumbling societal values, we examine the middle class and the working poor's struggle in a culture dominated by the lies and distortions of powerful entities.
Figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump are highlighted for their roles in challenging government overreach and the deep state, amid concerns about excessive taxation, government spending, and failing public education.
Moving to the next step in your "Spiritual Formation" the meditative practice of Lectio Divina, and developing a deeper relationship with scripture, and the building of a supportive faith community. You will need courage and your intellect as you prepare for spiritual battles and find the path to peace and joy amidst life’s present chaos.
1. Spiritual Formation:
a. 3 Simple Morning Solution to combat evil! Knees before looking at the phone!
1. Kneel with Our Blessed Mother, your mother! "Let it be done to me according to your word" (See Luke 1:34-38)
2. Temptation is not a sin: Use every temptation as an invitation to pray! Divine Mercy reading (Download app)
3. Charity, Love the next person you see...action!
b. Daily 15-30 minutes Prayer with Scripture (Lectio Divina: read, meditate, pray, contemplation-silence) Daily Readings can be found: Magnificat Subscription (on-line only $19.99 Year!) or a complete prayer app Hallow or for free at USCCB Bishops.
c. Mass-Eucharist
d. Confession
e. Daily Rosary or Chaplet of Divine Mercy (Hallow app includes the Rosary, Divine Mercy app the Chaplet)
(The Video-Podcast of this Episode will be made available on Rumble. For past episodes on Video visit our Rumble Channel and don't forget to subscribe!)
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Catch up with the latest on our website: jp2renew.org and Sign up for our Newsletter!!
Contact Jack: info@jp2renew.org
Read Jack's Blog: https://jp2renew.org/
Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Rieger, your host. This is a supplement to Claymore, our series that we're doing every Friday for Gen Z men and or women. I mean they can join too. You know we're happy to have them, but this is really focused on men and discipling other men. It's quite a battle and I just thought you know what I need to speak to in between, because, speaking to a lot of people the last couple of weeks doing a lot of presentations, and young men are waking up and they're looking around and there's just like this hydra of evil coming at them. If you're new to this fight, I just want to give you a little bit of an overview again, so don't get discouraged. This is a real battle. That's why it's Claymore, that's why it's a sword. This is a battle.
Speaker 1:So many people thought they came into this world in a neutral zone. You know that it's all up to us. You know, and whatever I take or whatever I can get, and I got to focus on this money or whatever, they didn't realize that objective truth, objective morality, there's a right way and a wrong way to live. This is all in the human heart. We're entering into a last great battle. Objective morality there's a right way and a wrong way to live. This is all in the human heart. We're entering into a last great battle.
Speaker 1:John Paul saw this, sister Lucia sees this. You know Jesus himself talks about it. He's not going to tell you exactly when the end is coming, when his second coming is going to be arrived, but we know it's winding down. We know history is winding down. It actually has been ever since Jesus was on the cross. This right here whoops, I got to go backwards with the video but that's the divine mercy, where you see the rays coming out of Jesus. That's from Sister Faustina with the divine mercy. That's part of your prayers that you're doing as part of Claymore. So I'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 1:But the white is water. It's for baptism and confession, to get us ready for the nuptial bath, to get ready to really bring Jesus into our hearts, which is the red, which is the Eucharist we get through prayer and the sacraments, especially the Mass and the Eucharist at the Mass. Anyways, in the beginning, before sin happened. And we've gone through this, but I'm going to continue to bring it. So don't worry if some of this goes over your head.
Speaker 1:I've been talking about this for a long time. I saw all this coming, we all saw. Many of us not all of us, but many of us saw all this coming, especially just before COVID. And when COVID came out, you really saw the hydra evil come in. If you go back to my early podcast, I saw this happening right away, this really attack, and you can feel like, ooh, something is really really different here. It's not an external enemy that's coming, it's internal, it's attacking the human person. And just to give you an idea, the last great battle Sister Lucia would say and Sister Lucia just died in 2005, so not that long ago.
Speaker 1:She was the last and the main visionary that was alive, that saw Our Lady of Fatima and she said that the last great battle is happening now and it's over marriage and the family. It's over that very essence of who we are as human beings and this love story that we were to be entering into. And it's all about destruction when you look out and you see these crazy Democrats and all these people pushing for abortion and the trans rights, to destroy our children, the educational system that's broken down, the evil that's coming even against DOGE Department of Governmental Efficiency, just to knock down the taxes, so that this burden of debt isn't on all of you, young people, and the taxes don't get to the point where you do nothing but pay taxes. Nobody cares about you. The only ones that care about you are Donald Trump's really movement and his MAG movement, who you actually woke up and voted for. See, this is what surprised everybody. They thought it was done right. Just a reminder, though the enemy they're not the enemy. You know these crazy Democrats and even these people pushing abortion rights and want to destroy humanity. The enemy is the enemy. Satan is the enemy.
Speaker 1:The last great battle between our Lord and Satan is over marriage and the family. This is fought out by human beings that either cooperate with evil or cooperate with God. Either you're building the city of God, which is all that's true, good and beautiful, especially the beauty of love, the beauty of good music, art, the flourishing of families, this peace that you find in your own heart. I mean this is it and our eternal life. You know this is a temporal space. It goes very, very quickly, right, and so we're going to be off onto our next great adventure, hopefully with God right. Eternity doesn't mean tomorrow. Like you know, we're going to wait for heaven to figure it out. No, eternity means forever. You can see right now that you're in a battle. You didn't come into a neutral zone. It never has been that way, ever since the fall in Genesis 3, our first parents fall and ever since that we've been fighting sin. Jesus comes into the world that says, hey, I came in to redeem this, to give you a new reset, to blow life back into you, and so it all comes down. To which side of the fence do we go on? Do we try to build the city of God or the cult of death? This is really a death cult, and I'll get into that in just a second. And you saw, really, they didn't want Trump to come back in because it was over, and it pretty much was over around the world.
Speaker 1:If the United States falls now, don't think about the United States, the most homogenous country in the world. This is not by accident. This is by design. Our founding father set up a really good base for us. All men are created equal. We get this right. We all had these opportunities. This is the freest country in the world. It was Every single race. Every single nation, everything's nationality lives here in the United States. We have everybody here. So how do we survive? How do we survive?
Speaker 1:We've been fighting racism, all these gender ideologies, all this stuff that wants to divide, divide, divide, divide, and there actually are evil people cooperating that are actually racist, are actually confused about their gender. But the people that really want to destroy you are the ones that would destroy the baby in the womb and then, if the baby makes it out, what do they do? They're attacking it right away with puberty blockers to render them sterile. Again, you get back to Satan. What does Satan want? He wants the destruction of human beings. See, he can't destroy God, so he's going to destroy us. Made in the image and likeness of God, meant to be filled with divine life and bring it into the world. That's the essence of the battle that we're in. Well, what Satan, I don't think even was counting on was for.
Speaker 1:Young people is indoctrinated in this toxic culture that you guys have been growing up in, to say, nope, I got a human heart, and that human heart always seeks the truth. What is the truth about things? What is good? And your will, when it's properly working, is a motor to the good. This is what brings you peace and joy and happiness. This brings our dreams of family right. The attack is right there on that.
Speaker 1:When you see this insanity going out, right, when you see Doge, elon Musk and Trump being attacked because they're trying to reduce this government. It's just this hydra we call it the deep state where they want to control everything. And here's the essence. That hydra has to suck. It's got its tentacles in the middle class, in anybody that's working, in the working poor, anybody that's working, because at the end of the day, you can only borrow so much money and print so much money and then inflation starts to go up. And then you got to tax and tax and tax. You got to suck it out of somebody and they're going to suck it out of the people that work. They're not going to suck it out of themselves. The going to suck it out of the people that work. They're not going to suck it out of themselves. The rich people, the people that have all the control, all the power you hear all the billionaires, like Elon Musk even.
Speaker 1:But Elon Musk didn't take it from us. Elon Musk created thousands and thousands and thousands of great jobs, well-paying jobs, and nobody has to work for Elon, but a lot of people do, right, so these guys are incentivized. You know, like Elon said, you know my money. The money isn't the counter, it's how much production, how much creativity do you bring in the world, how many people do you employ? Those are the things that you bring into the world. The money just comes. He said after that I'm not concerned about the money, I want to create beautiful things. Sometimes you get rewarded for that right. Well then you see what. You see.
Speaker 1:They wanted to assassinate Trump. They really saw this danger. And then put them lawfare, try to get them hooked up with all these different laws, the injustice going on. So anyways, that's the big picture. So we have to understand that big picture that, at the end of the day, they're taking your future, they're putting us in so much debt. You can't believe this. And so Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana says who believes that American taxpayers would sign up, and he goes through a whole litany. Just let me just hit the couple of the top ones here $2 million for sex changes and LBGTQ advocacy in Guatemala through USAID. This is USAID that Elon Musk and Trump are trying to dismantle because they're just. I mean, it's an amazing amount of waste right $20 million to produce a Sesame Street show in Iraq, $20 million, $8.3 million for equity and inclusion education in Nepal, and it just goes on. Well, this is my money, this is your money. What are they doing? This? And what are they doing at the same time? They're leaving these people in North Carolina. They're leaving them.
Speaker 1:Here's a quick note from somebody who was on X today. Here I am a law-abiding citizen working three jobs. My husband also works. We aren't indulgent in alcohol or drugs. We struggle to make bills. Our energy, our electricity bill went from $120 a month to almost $500 over the last few years and our usage has gone down because we're being more careful. I had stomach cancer about two years ago. My insurance company did not cover much of anything. Then the hurricane took our roof out and our homeowners insurance paid nothing.
Speaker 1:Practically Every organization in America is corrupt towards the most honest, law-abiding citizens. We get zero help, zero. So you pay all these taxes and where's it all going? It's going outside. Why, why? Why? Why, right? She says climate groups allowed to lie about our global warming, created price increases with carbon taxes. The truth is, there's nothing in America that helps Americans. This is on purpose. Suck the American middle class dry, small and medium-sized business owners dry. You saw this during COVID right, close down all the small and medium businesses. Keep the big boxes open. Close down the churches where you go to find God and all these fake vaccines and stuff that just damage so many people. Well, why again? Why take out the small business owners? Because they're independent, because they would speak up against some of this stuff. We want to take them out because the big box stores will pay the politicians who give favorable laws and stuff to the big box stores, and it goes around and around and around.
Speaker 1:In Illinois, where I'm from, this is the belly of the beast. I just was looking at something from today. Spending spikes. Staffing grows at Chicago public schools, even as enrollment shrinks. I'll just give you this. So total spending per student since 2017 is up 84%. 84%. Spending has gone up like this. Total staffing up 22%. It doesn't come from teachers. It comes from the staff, the administration staff, the principals and vice principals and all of the counselors and all the mental health people that have to come in because we created a mental health crisis in our schools, which I won't get into right now, but I talk about that a lot. The enrollment in Chicago public schools has gone down 15%. The test scores, the proficiency scores in math, have gone down 24%. The reading scores have gone down 20% since 2017. And all the expenses go up.
Speaker 1:Right, we're not there to teach, we're there to indoctrinate children into these ideologies, the CRTs, the critical race theory, the critical gender theories, the climate hoaxes all of these things right To get children, to rob them of their innocence, obliterate their moral imaginations and take down that youngest generation they thought they had you guys already. So that's what Claymore is all about. Claymore is about helping us and helping yourselves come back into the story, to build back the city of God. And it's a brutal battle right now, because the generations that came before you let you down. They allowed this stuff to happen to the schools. They allowed these corrupt politicians to come in because they were getting their little bit of give me this, give me this their little pieces of stuff, or got lazy, or just got apathetic. See, they were handed too much to them. They became soft.
Speaker 1:Jesus would call it lukewarm. In the book of Revelation, he says if you're lukewarm, if you don't understand that you're in a battle, I'd rather have you cold against me so you know what side you're on. Or hot for me, right. But if you're lukewarm, I'll spit you out, because lukewarm is that apathy. Lukewarm is just average. And God says you know, I didn't call you, I didn't create you to be average, I called you to come into union and communion with me. If you're not going to do that, you might as well just state it, right? But because you're lukewarm, I'll spew you out of my mouth, right? It's just this mushy thing.
Speaker 1:This is what happened, and it's not our fault totally. This is what happened to the generations that came before you especially. But this is the shepherds, the bishops, the shepherds all the way in the Vatican, with the leadership we have there, which is a anti-leadership, really. And so how do we make it? Why would we come back into the church? Ah, because the church is beautiful. The church's teachings come down to us in beauty and splendor, and don't forget that this is run by God. God sees everything that's going on. I think he allowed Trump to survive. Give us just a window, a little bit of a window, that says give you guys a chance to decide, to come off the bench, decide what side you want to be on and then go from there. All right, so again, I bring up all this stuff and I just want to give you an overview of the battle and then talk to you a little bit.
Speaker 1:We've talked a little bit already about Claymore. If you haven't done this already, go to our website, jp2renew, go under resources, see the Claymore sword like that in red and print out this this is the Claymore battle plan. Miletus Christi soldiers for Christ, because he's going to lead you into this battle for all. That's true, good and beautiful. And so there's two main things. We've been focusing on your own spiritual formation, to get closer to God, to be able to understand the story, so that your heart gets touched by God's grace and you understand this battle. You're going to have to be fortified by God himself. This is the most powerful thing. This isn't about more information. This is the DNA that runs through us. Our hearts are made for this. We know this and this is why we're stepping in.
Speaker 1:The second thing is, and why I'm doing the videos, especially the videos on Friday, is to give you this big story, to show you that this truth is coming down to us, in spite of all these weak shepherds, and I think God is allowing that to happen too because of the apathy of those of us, even in the church, that just went along with all this stuff. So a couple different things. If you go to this, you're going to see again spiritual formation here. I'm going to read you just a little bit of this just to kind of get you started.
Speaker 1:So Claymore starts out like this this is from 2 Timothy. This is kind of the scripture that gives us an overview of this whole thing and where we're at. You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ and what you have heard from me before many witnesses and trust to the faithful men who will be able to teach others also. This is what we're called to do to learn our faith, to get close to God and then disciples others. You see a lot of the ballplayers talking about this right now, even the ballplayers from the Super Bowl, both quarterbacks, you know praising Jesus Christ and saying I'm using this platform to disciple others, to teach others. So it's St Paul in 2 Timothy. He says take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We're going to be in battle of this. This is coming right from Claymore if you print out that battle plan.
Speaker 1:So this movement again, I'm just reading from this, you can read it yourself. It's not for those on college campuses seeking a safe place with cookies and milk. This is a movement of young men with the courage, reason and intellect to do what men of like minds and hearts have done throughout the ages to go out and seek the truth and then battle for all that's good and beautiful, especially the beauty of love, and then to share this treasure with others, to find some brothers and then to help us mentor these young people. We'll get into that later on because we need to help the younger Generation Z, the ones that are still teenagers, because they're in a brutal battle for this. So where do you start?
Speaker 1:Well, it's all defined here. First, the attack is going to be on the individual human heart, so we need to shore that up with spiritual formation. Then he's going to attack marriage and the family. Right, take God out and attack marriage and the family and the children. So we need to see the big story here, how this all fits together. Again, that's, the videos will help you do that. And the third we need to go out. First we find disciples. Like I just said, help individual people along the journey, share this claim or story with them and have them come alongside, watch the videos together, summarize them together, pick some things out to discuss and just get people excited about this and to say, hey, there's a three-part solution. And then later on again, we'll tell you how to do some political things, even run for school boards and local stuff, local stuff, library boards, school boards stand up right in your own area here. And so if you go then to, let's see here the spiritual formation.
Speaker 1:So if you go to page four, if you have that open, there's five aspects altogether. The first one is spiritual formation. This is the foundational piece that you're going to have to get your heart back right. A body and a soul disconnected from grace, from God, is just sin and death. That's what we see all around us. We need to be infused with that grace again connected. Well, that's what spiritual formation does. And then the second one is this doctrinal formation and you start to understand the bigger story.
Speaker 1:Then, if you look at number three which you can do right now or not, but I really want to focus on the first two more but build a domestic church. This is pretty easy. Initially, make sure you have a crucifix in the house. Make sure you have pictures like this somewhere around. Get some beautiful literature. Start to read good books, everything in your house. Build up that domestic church If you've got children praying with them, reading scripture with them. Number four disciple or invite others to this story. And number five we have to go out into the public square. We have to make sure that the laws are fair. We have to make sure that we're bringing Christ into the culture you know music, art and even into our jobs, so that everything starts to be the culture of life again.
Speaker 1:So as I wind down here this was just a supplement piece I want to talk about that spiritual formation. So you see that the first thing in the morning, this is very easy, very quick for you. You're going to go down to your knees before you look at that phone. The only time I look at the phone, which I do in the morning, just to shut off the alarm. If I have an alarm set and usually I'm awake already, but if I'm not, I shut that off but then I fall to my knees and I have our Blessed Mother is right there. You'll see this again in the battle plan. Kneel with our blessed mother and I say let it be done to me according to your word. I'm opening my heart up to Jesus Christ. Our blessed mother will help you do that right. She always leads you to her son. Let it be done to me according to your word. Read that in Luke's gospel, you'll see how they're played out. Number two very, very important for young guys Temptation is not a sin.
Speaker 1:When you start to walk in, see, satan was just letting you go. I mean, the smart thing for Satan to do is, if you're in the grip of porn, addictions and sin and all this kind of stuff, just let you go. You're on your own. Why should he do anything? It's when you stand up against it that you see, ooh, ooh, now the temptations are going to really come at you. Well, temptation's not a sin. Jesus himself was tempted. Use every temptation as an invitation to prayer. So there's a couple things there Divine mercy there's a link there. Divine mercy is so good because this is Sister Faustina. Again, this is that picture back there, right? This is that picture. So if you see this picture with divine mercy, with the blood and water coming out, that's the picture that Sister Faustina had painted. This is what Jesus says in there. He said that he wants to lead us himself into this story. He wants to lead us into this battle.
Speaker 1:He says first, do not fight temptation by yourself, but disclose it to your confessor at once. He's talking about going to confession. And then the temptation will lose its force. If we try to hold it down, if we try to stuff it down, if we try to be good on our own, that temptation will rise up. Right, it's like a starvation diet. You push it down, push it down. Then you finally get hungry and you indulge. Well, jesus always knows. Just expose that to him.
Speaker 1:If you're going to confession, if you're Catholic and you need to go to confession, you need to go to mass. You should be doing that already. Go to your confessor. If you find a good confessor, he'll help you through this. And that's what we're saying here. Give it to your confessor, then the temptation will lose its force.
Speaker 1:Satan is when you start to confess things, when you open it up, god pushes Satan back. He says second, during these ordeals, do not lose your peace. Live in my presence, ask and then ask my mother and the saints for help, ask our blessed mother. That's why we're down on our knees right away and the saints, I got John Paul II behind me. Third, have the certitude that I'm looking at you and supporting you. Know that God is with you. That's that grace again, body, soul plus grace gives you the potential for human flourishing, the potential for human freedom. And then I go out. And this is what I'm doing. When I go to confession, I'm going out. When I'm praying, I'm going out. When I disciple others, I'm going out. I'm bringing this love story into the world. So I'm supporting you. He says.
Speaker 1:Fourth, do not fear either struggles of the soul or any temptations, because I'm supporting you. If only you are willing to fight. You got to be willing to stand up. This is Claymore, because know that victory is always on your side. And fifth, know that by fighting bravely, you give me great glory. When you fight, you're giving God great glory. He sees Jack, he sees you, he sees us fighting and he wants to be there. And he says you're giving me great glory and you get merits for yourself for here and it all through ever, you know, for eternal life. Temptation gives you a chance to show me your fidelity.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, that's why every morning, I have that link there divine mercy reading, right? So every morning, just load that app that I have there, load it on your phone and in the morning there's a daily reading. Just listen to that daily thing from Sister Faustina. You're going to hear her voice. You're going to hear her talk to Jesus. Now, don't forget, when you first come into the story it may not make total sense to you because you're picking it up in the middle, but if you just stay at it, it's very short, won't take you much time. And you have a little reading, you have a little prayer you need to say Just do it, say it, god will start to work on your heart. You may not realize it right away. The other thing there and here's what I want you to do is I want you to download.
Speaker 1:If you go again to Claymore, if you scroll down, you're going to see Lectio Divina there how to pray with scripture. That's very important. So that's number B on here. So that's the next thing I want to add. Right is your daily prayer with scripture. And so read that Lectio Divina. We'll talk a little bit about it later on.
Speaker 1:It's so beautiful and it's reading scripture, not trying to read the whole Bible. I mean because when you read the Bible, you're taking it again, you're taking it out of. It all works together, and so what the Catholic Church does is every day there's masses and it links up the Old Testament with the Psalms, with the New Testament with letters, and it has those daily readings. Well, they all relate to one another. It's like a dance. If you go through three years, you have cycle A, one year, then next year cycle B, next year cycle three, and what'll happen is all the balloons go off. What'll happen then is, after three years, you read the whole Bible. And so that's what you're doing. You are reading the whole Bible, but you're just doing it in a systematic way. That'll make more sense to you over time.
Speaker 1:So what I have there is a couple of different things you can download. I would suggest, if you can afford it, is that Hallow Prayer. For young people I read the Magnificat, but that Hallow it's really good because it's going to give you some bells and whistles that you may like, some reminders. It's going to help you pray the rosary and all those other things later on. So that's what's next. Then, read that daily scripture every day. Okay, so last thing. And then the third thing when you get up off your knees, it's love. You're filled with love. Just go out and love the next person you see, and you'll get a change just from that. Start reading that scripture every day. You could do it in the morning. Sometimes, if I have time, I try to read a little bit of it in the morning, and if I can't do it in the morning then I'll do it later on.
Speaker 1:So, praying with temptations, this is such a good piece, right here, praying with temptations. So get this piece, pray with it. Temptations. Father Brian Browning's a friend of mine. It's so good. We'll go over this sometime.
Speaker 1:But I just want to touch on Lectio Divina right now. So, lectio Divina, I'm going to read the scripture. I'm going to meditate on just a couple phrases, something in there that caught me in that reading. And again, you're walking into the story in the middle. If you haven't read scripture before, you haven't read it for a long time. Don't worry about trying to say, okay, exactly what happens here, you'll get it after a period of time. You're picking it up in the middle of the story, say or some, you know, you just boom, you're here today. But God will always speak to you. Don't forget, when he was speaking to people in parables, he didn't read them the whole Bible, he picked the story out. He gave them that story, you know, and he built on that. That's what you're doing here. So let me just pick out something from the readings from today. So this is just from today.
Speaker 1:While I'm recording this, this morning reading is from the book of Genesis, genesis 1.20. And if you go to the Magnificat, you go to those links that I put in there the USCCB it's free, you don't have to pay anything for that. Go right to there. Or the Halo app, and there's also meditations after and you're going to meet saints and mystics and all kinds of people. The Magnificat I love their meditations later on. And Halo there's a verbal one, an audio one. You can play it in your car while you're driving to work or whatever. So here's just from Genesis. So I'm going to pick out. This is a long reading, but I'm going to just pick out this one part here that I love so much.
Speaker 1:God created man in his image, in the divine image. He created them, male and female. He created them. God blessed them, saying be fertile, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And so here again. You have. Just this is what comes up in my mind then. Right, so I read it. I say okay.
Speaker 1:Well, what did that mean? I'm meditating on the meaning behind that and what do I know? Well, I know theology of the body and so different things. So what do I? God creates us in his image and likeness. What does that mean exactly? Well, god, the Father, pours his love out to the Son. The Son receives that love.
Speaker 1:It's so beautiful and profound. It comes out in the form of a person. We call that person the Holy Trinity, three persons in one. We created us, man and woman, right, so God's not a sexual being, right, but he created our sexuality. Don't forget that. We are part biology, right, the stuff that everything else is made out of. But then God blows his spirit into us. So we're part spiritual, right. We're embodied spirits and our spirits are made visible in this earthly world through our bodies, our body and the soul. Right, and so he creates us, male and female. Why does he do that? Think about this A man offers his love to his wife. His wife receives that love. It's so beautiful and profound that sometimes it comes out in the form of a person. We call that person, a child, a baby, right, there was a time where my wife and I the two became one and there was a love bomb explosion that went off, called a baby. Nine months later, that baby was made visible. The love between my wife and I so the two became one, became three, three persons in one. The love between my wife and I so the two became one, became three, three persons in one. A tiny little created reflection that I can experience, reflecting Trinitarian love in the world. That's how love gets in the world. That's what he means by that.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go down to just this reading from Mark. And this is Jesus. And they come up to Jesus and they tell him that his apostles aren't following all these Jewish rules. Right, and Jesus is a Jew. So they say why? And he says this to them these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. They had all these rules for everything.
Speaker 1:So what is Jesus saying? There, it's so beautiful. He says look, come encounter me, I want a relationship with you. This, there, it's so beautiful. He says look, come encounter me, I want a relationship with you. This is not about rules and regulations, et cetera. That's why, when you offer up your temptations, it's not about the rules, it's about opening yourself up to grace. God will come in.
Speaker 1:Jesus said that in divine mercy reading I just read to you he's going to come in and walk with you. Don't do this alone, he said. Be filled with grace. When you walk into the story like this, you're going to see the difference in your heart. It's going to be a battle. Don't do it alone. Do it with Jesus Christ. Try to find a friend.
Speaker 1:Listen to these videos. Text me if you have questions. Email me if you have questions. Follow us on X, because I put a lot of these charts and graphs and different things on X Some crazy comments I'll make too. I'll put some of the videos up that you may not have seen before, so follow us on X. It's not a big deal. I didn't always pay a lot of attention to X until Elon bought it. I'm trying to post more and more there because people need this daily stuff, right, this daily kind of a feed when you're in this battle, and so I think I get almost all my news now from X. But this battle is heating up and we're going to need all of you, right? Don't get discouraged about this, we'll be okay.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, three simple things in the morning, follow that and then start to read scripture. Now, if you haven't done that already, follow Lectio Divina. You can go again. Go to Claymore, go down, pull off Praying with Temptations, read that in the morning. You can read that in the morning right when you're on your knees. Yet Read it every day for a little while, maybe till you really get it. And then, maybe once a week or once a month, lectio Divina, pull that, print that and you'll be reminded of those ways to pray.
Speaker 1:So, first of all, I'm going to read it, I'm going to pick out a phrase or so, I'm going to meditate on that. What is that saying to me? What does it mean? Maybe at first nothing touches me as much, but usually there'll be a word somewhere in there the Psalms, the first reading, the second reading that Jesus will be speaking to you. This is a very spiritual, divine thing. God wants to communicate with you. Then I'm going to pray on it. Okay, god, or maybe I don't understand this, god, what are you trying to say to me? What am I feeling right? What am I experiencing right now. And God, here I am, I'm opening up my heart again to whatever you're trying to tell me. And then the fourth thing, very, very important just sit in silence. Sit in silence. Don't try to figure it out anymore. Just sit there, because now I ask God to tell me something, and now I got to sit there.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a little difficult in the beginning if you're not used to sitting in silence. Right, because it's awkward at first. That's okay, don't worry about all that stuff. Thoughts come flooding in my mind. How can I be silent? All these thoughts come. That's okay, collect yourself again. At first it's going to be 10 seconds at a time. You're going to be able to be peaceful. But after a little while you're going to start to go below the surface of this craziness. You're going to get out of all this noise, all of this confusion, all of this evil all around us, all this fighting, and say, ooh, I can sit here and I can find peace.
Speaker 1:When Jesus came back up, when he was resurrected, he went and found those apostles and the first thing he said peace, be with you, peace, be with you. The world wants to take away your peace. That's what Jesus just said in that reading right, remember what I just read. Go back and listen to it again. Jesus said don't lose your peace. I want to give you peace. Sometimes.
Speaker 1:That's how you know God's working with you. You find these moments of real profound peace in this crazy world. God's in charge. He just gives us our little battle, but it's a battle for love and it's a battle for us to actually find happiness, peace and joy. So the battle itself is fought first on the battlefield of our heart, between love and lust, and it's a brutal battle, but you know it's the truth. When you know it's the truth and you feel it's the truth, you go yes, but now you need to have this mentor. Jesus is our first mentor. Then you pick out a saint, a confessor, then maybe somebody at church, and then listen to these videos on Friday and then I'll put supplement videos, like I'm doing today, through here.
Speaker 1:So hey, god bless you. Write me. If you need anything else, text us. We're here for you. We got to be here for each other because this is a brutal battle. We're going on Again. The end of time and Jesus' second coming. We're getting closer Again. I'm not trying to tell you when that's going to happen. It could be tomorrow, it could be 100 years. Even Jesus said the time is not for you to know. Just know that it's winding down and we can start to see the activity going in here. So I think we've got to get ready for some crazy stuff going on and you'll be ready right, you won't be lukewarm. Hey, god bless you. Talk to you later, everybody, bye-bye.