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
#607 Praying With Temptation: The 3-Simple Morning Solution To Combat Evil Changes Everything
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The battlefield of the human heart is where our greatest struggles—and our most important victories—take place. In this episode of Claymore, we explore how men can use temptation as an invitation to prayer and turn from a cycle of shame into a pathway to freedom and authentic masculinity.
At the core of this message is that temptation itself is not sin. Using the Claymore Battle Plan as our guide, we unpack how the desires and passions God placed within us aren't meant to be suppressed or indulged, but rather opened up and redirected toward our true destiny. This applies especially to sexual temptation, where we learn to see beauty through God's eyes rather than through the lens of lust.
The journey begins with the simple three-part morning solution that creates a foundation for spiritual victory throughout your day. By kneeling in prayer before checking your phone, consciously transforming temptations into prayer, and committing to authentic love for those you encounter, you begin to reclaim territory in your heart that may have been surrendered to the enemy.
What makes this approach different is its deeply practical nature. We're not offering abstract theology but battle-tested strategies for men who recognize something is fundamentally wrong with our toxic culture and want to stand up against it. The Claymore approach acknowledges our weaknesses while providing concrete tools to access divine grace—the only true source of transformation.
Ready to grab the sword and enter the battle? Visit jp2renew.org, go to resources, and download the Claymore Battle Plan to begin your journey toward freedom, purpose, and authentic manhood today.
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Man up, claymore, happy Friday, hope you're doing well. I'm gonna do today's update, or catch up whatever you want to call it on our Fridays. I'm gonna do it in two parts, so the second part that I'm gonna record later. Watch for that, because it's a true story Sergeant Columban's wartime encounter with the poor friar who prays. It's about Padre Pio. For those of you who don't know Padre Pio, he had this stigma on. It's amazing. It's a true story, coming from my dad, from the war.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, this morning I want to talk about praying with temptation. Praying with temptation is so important. Quick note, just in case you haven't been on here for a while or you're new to the show and you just caught us in between this is Claymore Miletus Christi. These are young men that I've been meeting for a long time now that are waking up and saying you know, something's wrong. They feel this opposing force in the world between truth and lies, between good and evil, between beauty and everything that wants to profane beauty, and they have a sense of this. Something's wrong with that toxic culture and they're standing up. Right. They voted for Donald Trump. Donald Trump's not Jesus, donald Trump's not our savior. But he came into the battle and you saw something in his heart that something has to change and it always starts on a battlefield of the human heart. This is really two opposing forces. Since the beginning of time History, I should say man's history right in the garden of Eden, right at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we're tempted, we turn away from God and we turn toward evil. So this is temptation. This is what I want to talk about today Praying with temptation. It's so important. So I'm going to get to the chase. You know, just go back.
Speaker 1:For those of you who are new, go back into our podcast. Look for Claymore, the introductory episode, some of those first episodes. You'll have the idea. But this Claymore Battle Plan. Go to our website, jp2reneworg. Go to resources at the top, go down and once you're on resources, go down to Claymore. You'll see that sword behind me, that big sword, and it's in red. You can't miss it. Click on that and then go underneath. You can click on the Claymore battle plan.
Speaker 1:This is how a young man gets his heart back. This is how we start to understand what's going on in the culture marriages, family, sexuality, all those things and then what we can do to save our nation. Otherwise we won't have a nation. The good news is we know, as men, that we're made for this. We're made for adventure, battle, beauty, love and all of those things, and that battle starts in the heart. So let me get to the chase Part of this battle plan for Claymore.
Speaker 1:It talks about five aspects to the formation as soldiers of Christ. What does that mean? That means that we have to be able to step into the story, understand what's going on in our heart, understand what's going on in the culture, understand the battles that are going on and make it clear, because once a man understands the battle, then he knows what he's fighting for. And the first thing we got to get back is our own hearts. So if you look at the battle plan if you have this printed out, it would be on page four it's five aspects to Claymore formation as soldiers of Christ. Now, the number one is spiritual formation. This is your own heart. This is to get back your own heart, and you'll read in the battle plan what's going on in the human heart. But let me read you just a little piece of this Spiritual formation, starting here, and there's just these three easy things to do in the morning. I love it and this is what we're going to be talking about today.
Speaker 1:But just a quick overview. Fought on a battlefield of the individual heart, where a fallen world has rendered man, body and soul to the default position of sin and death. We're a body and a soul. You take out grace, you take out God, you take out the source of life and love and you're looking at sin and death. That's just a practical reality. Let's say you say, well, I'm an atheist. Well then you're looking at sin and death. I mean, that's it. There's no answer to that. Of course, that's not enough. The reason you woke up is because, ooh, there's got to be something more to this right.
Speaker 1:So a spiritual formation is the path to redemption and grace, restoring the original formula from the beginning body, soul, filled with divine life and love, filled with what we call grace. Grace is the participation in the life of God himself. It fills us. And how do I know this? Because you walk into the story and you feel the power. See, jesus didn't come in for sin management, he came in with power. You will encounter this. We've talked about this already, so I'm going to keep moving on here.
Speaker 1:So that gives us, then, this grace with body and soul gives us the potential for human freedom from porn and anxiety and all these different things, gives us the potential for human flourishing, to find authentic love in our life, to be a person of love, to be a gift, not just to take and take and take, but to be a person that gives and is a man to protect women, protect children, et cetera. And so this potential then has to be efficacious, to make it efficacious in my free will. I'm given free will, so I have to choose now. So right, body, soul plus grace is the potential for human freedom, the potential for human flourishing. But now I have free will, I have to decide. This is a cool thing. I step up to the plate now as a man and I choose what. I choose the good.
Speaker 1:When your conscience is working right, when you're opening your heart up, you're opening to the good. And then here's what happens I choose the good, I start to do good, I become good, I am good. Ooh, anxiety comes down, you feel a joy and a peace there, right, because only God is good. You're getting that divine grace back into your heart. Or I choose evil. I walk away from the good again. I do evil, I become evil, I am evil. And that's what you see out in the world, this crazy world people that have chosen to come back into redemption, into that grace, and those that have rejected it. And that's what you see all around us and the wars and the pandemics, and the lies and the cheating going on. And this is where Trump comes in, because Trump sees this all coming down. He's not a perfect person, not all coming down. He's not a perfect person. Not a perfect person. He's not Jesus Christ, right, but he has the guts to stand up and push. And that's what we want. We're not perfect people, but we want to play our role in stepping up and doing what, doing the good. So here's what happens.
Speaker 1:Three simple morning solution. I call it Three simple morning solution to combat evil. Look at get down on your knees before you look at that phone. I was looking for my phone just to hold it up for, just for a visual, but anyways, before you look at that phone in the morning and it can be hard to do, you got a habit of getting up. Now I do look at it because the alarm sometimes goes off. Most of the time I'm up way before the alarm right. So that's okay. Turn off the alarm, but then put it back down.
Speaker 1:I go right to my knees and there the first thing I do, I kneel with our blessed mother, your blessed mother, and I say let it be done to me according to your word. This is from Luke's gospel, chapter one, verses 34, 38. This is our blessed mother, a young Jewish girl. You know the. The angel Gabriel comes upon her and says look at, the savior's coming into the world now and he's coming in through your body. He's going to come into a, into a family. And so she says yes, and I won't get further into that, but that's what we want to do. We want to kneel with our Blessed Mother in the morning. Picture her visual kneeling next to you and say Blessed Mother, help me Open up just a small heart for your son. And then let it be done to me according to your word. What are you doing? You're opening up in prayer and saying with our Blessed Mother to help us open up to that grace and receive it.
Speaker 1:Now, the second thing that happens and this is the emphasis today temptation is not a sin. Once you stand up, you know we're tempted anyways, but once you really stand up. You know, gk Chesterton would say you know you, really, if you're just floating downstream, you don't even hardly notice it. It's when you stand up, you try to get your heart back. Then you feel, you feel those forces coming at you, and these temptations will come at you there's no doubt about it, maybe more than you've ever had in your life, because you're really recognizing them, and there's attack. There's a spiritual attack, there's a spiritual component about this, right. So temptation, though, is not a sin. Jesus himself was tempted. This is very important to a man. This might be the most important thing that you'll ever learn in your whole life.
Speaker 1:Why? Because we're full of passions and desires and we're supposed to be See in a horizontal world. Without this grace, right, without this vertical piece, then what do we do? If we try to be good, right, we try to stuff these desires down. We think, oh, I shouldn't have these desires. Or I look at this girl and, oh, I start to lust after her. And so we try to push it down. Or what happens? You push it down long enough, you get hungry, right, it's like the starvation diet, like you haven't eaten for a couple of days. And then what happens? The marketers and everybody, the forces of evil, coming at you and say I know what you're looking for. Watch a little porn. Imagine this girl in your mind and blah, blah. Watching a little porn. Imagine this girl in your mind and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, so you go in this cycle, don't you? You're trying to be good, boom, indulge, try to be good, and it's just a sick repetition. It's these addictions that we get into.
Speaker 1:This is the third way. This is taking that temptation, not stuffing it down. God gave you those passions and desires but to see it in 3D, to open it up. So in 3D, what do we know? We know those desires have been put into our heart by design to lead us to our destiny. Those desires, this power, can be opened up. It will actually lead you where you want to go. So this is the most important thing you can learn. So temptation is not a sin. So we use every invitation as an invitation to prayer.
Speaker 1:Every time I'm tempted, in my head, my mind, I see something, I think even lack of courage. There's times I'm speaking and you get attacked by this or that and you say, oh man, I don't want to go out tonight, I'm tired and I got to go talk again or whatever. You got to have courage and you got to have fortitude, you got to have perseverance. Well, where do you get that from? I don't have that in me. So I open myself up. Even that's a temptation, right? So I say you know, god, give me what I need to get through this day. Give us this day our daily bread.
Speaker 1:But lust lust is something that we all deal with as men, and that's okay, Long as we understand it and long as we want to do something about it. And what do we do about it? We open it up to God because it actually lifts us. It's hard, it's like rocket fuel. It lifts us to the destiny where we need to go. So we want to use that power that God gave us, this passion and desires for femininity, masculinity, our sexual desires, et cetera. That's what I want to focus on today, because that's erosa, and we have to open those up. And once we open up to the source of divine life and love, we're filled. And now we can go around the world and see a woman. Maybe it's the one I'm going to marry, maybe the one I'm married to, or maybe I'm looking right, but even so, we're always going to be lifting our hearts up and filling it with prayer. It's amazing what it'll do to your heart. But this is the battle. That's why I got a sword back there. John Paul would say this is the battlefield of the heart.
Speaker 1:So a friend of mine is a Catholic priest and he wrote, praying with Temptation, this prayer, and I want to just pray this with you and then in the morning you can print this out. Very important Again, if you go to Claymore, same thing. Click on that. You can download the battle plan. If you scroll down a little bit, there's two other links on there. One is Praying with Temptations.
Speaker 1:So we're going to pull that off and look at it and then you can print that off. Maybe you want to say it for a while in the morning. So I'm going to pray it with you. I'm going to pray it with you right now. So let's pretend we're on our knees right now. We've opened our hearts up with our Blessed Mother. Let it be done to me according to your word.
Speaker 1:Then we meditate on these temptations coming at us, maybe that we had yesterday, maybe we're having now, but even in general, and I want to say this prayer in the morning. Now I'm just offering up most of the time. Just ooh, this came into my mind, that came into my mind. Take this from me. That might be enough for you, but it's good to understand what's going on underneath and the actual prayer is really beautiful. So praying with temptations right, this is what you may want to do in the morning for a while. Have this printed right by your bed, and then the third thing, just so you know is to get up and love the next person you see with authentic love, and it's using this divine grace that we're connected to and seeing that person as God sees them.
Speaker 1:It's a battle Won't happen overnight. Are you ready? There are temptations that assail me all the time. I feel like giving up. I'm never going to escape their grip. Have you ever had these thoughts, such as these? As you try to live this out, father asks as you're trying to live out your faith, as you're trying to step into this battle plan, does it seem hopeless at times to escape the grip of temptation? What I'm about to suggest will help in all matters of temptation, but I will specifically address the temptation of lust and two primary considerations. All right, so I'm going to go into that. So, in the name of the Father, son, holy Spirit, amen, take a deep breath. Father, Son, holy Spirit, amen, take a deep breath, just open your hearts up.
Speaker 1:First, temptation is not a sin. Jesus experienced temptations in the desert. Since he is God and all sin is against God, he could never sin. Temptation is not a sin. It's what we do when temptation comes. That is either virtuous or sinful. It can be sinful, however, to put yourself in the near occasion of sin. So be prudent about what you look at online and watch on television, and form healthy and holy boundaries in your relationships.
Speaker 1:Secondly, we must recognize that sexual desires are not bad in themselves. You hear that God created us as sexual beings to stamp into our very bodies the mystery hidden from all eternity in God. He stamped into our bodies, right Creating us male or female, the mystery that God is an eternal exchange of love, father, son and Holy Spirit. He's destined us to share in that exchange. This is where we're going, but eternity doesn't mean tomorrow. Eternity means forever. We're stepping into the story now. The union of man and woman in marriage, where the two become one, is meant to be a sign of the union of God and man. See, these are united. This desire for a man and a woman to become one flesh even is a little taste of God's desire to be one flesh with us. But they work together in this temporal world and forever God's drawing us into his love story so that we can become persons of love. Right.
Speaker 1:Given the importance of the sign of marriage and sex, it's no surprise that this is where we experience the most temptation and confusion in our fallen world, and precisely where the evil one will strike. Be not afraid. That's John Paul's favorite word, right. Be not afraid. Step up into the battle. Grab the claymore sword. Huh, our Lord became one of us through his passion, death and resurrection to offer us the grace of redemption, that grace that I was just talking about earlier, for us body and soul. Huh, it's for us body and soul. Huh, it's for us body and soul. Then we take that grace in, huh. Praying through temptation will help us experience the redemption of our bodies for which we long.
Speaker 1:In the grip of temptation, turn to prayer, very intentional prayer. Let's take, for example you see a person who you find attractive and the temptation of lust arises in you See temptation as a trigger for prayer. When you encounter a temptation. Say, lord, thank you for the beauty of that person. Say the beauty of that woman coming down the aisle toward me. Huh, give me the eyes to see them purely as your son or daughter. Give me and them all the grace we need to know and to love you. You may also find it helpful to pray the Hail Mary, since our Blessed Mother is all pure.
Speaker 1:At some point, whether in the moment or later in your prayer time, invite the Lord into your desires and ask him to redirect them toward union with him. That's their purpose. When we pray with our temptations, they become a source of grace and transformation. They're not our enemy anymore. The enemy is the enemy. He gives you those temptations and I use it against him and for God and for my own heart, huh.
Speaker 1:Does this mean that we will not fall into sin again? Probably not, but don't get discouraged. However. We will fall less over time and our cooperation will set us free from sin. We may struggle with temptation, but it will become a means of grace and purification for us. God works all things to the good for those who love him. Be honest with our Lord. He knows everything.
Speaker 1:Anyways, enter the battle of the heart and place your hope and trust in Jesus. Be patient with yourself. Recognize the temptation, turn it into prayer. Open your heart to the power of redemption that flows from the cross. Jesus hanging on the cross, that's that divine image you see behind me. Now he's not on the cross there, but that's that blood and water coming out as he was at the cross Water for what it's, for baptism, for the nuptial bath, to forgive us of our sins. And then the red is Jesus himself body, blood, soul and divinity that he gives us. This is the source, this is the whole mass right. So, again, be honest with the Lord. He knows us anyway.
Speaker 1:Enter the battle of the heart and place your hope and trust in Jesus. Be patient with yourself. Recognize the temptation, turn it into prayer. Open your heart to the power of redemption that flows from the cross and, through grace, freedom will be yours. Hey, god bless you. Good to be with you guys. Hey, watch for part two, which will be Sergeant Columban's wartime encounter with a poor friar who prays. Thanks everyone. Talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.