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
#614 Early Update For Holy Thursday! Sin, Death, and Salvation: How Christ Destroys the Work of the Devil
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Against all odds, young men across the country are awakening to the sacred residing in their hearts. Jack delivers the Friday Claymore Miletus Christi update on Holy Thursday! Inviting listeners to step back into the most profound story of all time during the holiest weekend of the year.
The battlefield between love and lust, truth and lies, is first fought within each individual human heart. This spiritual warfare represents the fundamental choice we all face: Will we embrace the City of Man, where humans make themselves gods deciding good and evil, or the City of God, where we acknowledge divine truth and seek how we should live? Drawing powerful parallels between ancient Exodus readings and Christ's sacrifice, Jack demonstrates how the unblemished Passover lamb whose bones remained unbroken prefigured Jesus himself.
What makes this cultural moment so perilous is the widespread embrace of moral relativism—essentially modern paganism—that leads inevitably to violence, irrationality, and destruction. When Jesus said "the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the work of the devil," he identified the true nature of our struggle. This isn't merely political division between left and right, but a cosmic battle between Christ and Satan playing out in real time across Western civilization.
Download our Claymore battle plan today and discover how to walk this path with others who share your search for authentic faith and purpose. Remember, "If you seek, you will find. If you knock, it will be opened to you." What forgotten dreams might God be waiting to fulfill in your life?
Visit jp2renew.org, go to resources, and download the Claymore Battle Plan to begin your journey toward freedom, purpose, and authentic manhood today.
Read Jacks article in his Substack
Contact Jack: info@jp2renew.org
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Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. I am doing the Claymore Miletus Christi update for Friday. On Thursday, a little bit early because I want to encourage you and for those of you maybe just tuning in right now, every Friday we do an update called Claymore Miletus Christi. It's really for Gen Z men, but we're also finding women walking into the story and all the people that love them.
Speaker 1:They see something's wrong, right, against all odds. In fact, there's an article that'll be published next week, probably in Crisis Magazine, and I'm going to read part of that to you today. But young men, against all odds, are awakening to the sacred, to their hearts, and they've seen all these things going on and they're saying, okay, what should we do? And they're walking into this faith journey. You know, the human being is a mystery. We're a body and a soul and if you take God out, you know our just, objective truth is there's sin and death. That's our position in life and to conquer that, to conquer that, we see this all around us. To conquer that, you know, we have to be filled with grace. That's the sword in the back, the Claymore sword. The battlefield of love versus lust in a man's heart. In the back the claymore sword, the battlefield of of of love versus lust in a man's heart and a woman's heart, and all of us who see this and the power grab right, the lust for money, power, sex, all these different things this is first fought on the individual human heart. So, anyways, that's what claymore is all about. I won't say any more than that, except I'm doing it day early, because holy thursday is today and this is the most sacred week and this most sacred weekend of the whole year, and Holy Thursday we have the Last Supper. This is Jesus' story. So if you can get to a church tonight, to get to Mass tonight and start to hear that story, start to open your mind up to the mystery of God, in order to really get this you have to participate and you do this in community. So find a mass. I really encourage you to find a mass tonight. Get there and I'm going to read you from Exodus, the reading that will be there tonight, and it walks you into what's going to happen tomorrow at Good Friday, with Jesus himself being the lamb that's being sacrificed, and then you see the resurrection, where Jesus actually gives us the power to overcome sin and death. The only way you know that is to walk into the story. Walk into the story. So I'm doing this a day early. I want to encourage you to get there and participate in the story. So I'm going to read you a little bit about this article, kind of get you into this idea of why these young men's hearts are waking up and, again, all the people that love them. And this is a message for all of us, because, in a way, when you see young men coming back into the store because they sense something's wrong, all of us should our attendance should be going up and saying, yes, the human heart is made for more. Okay, young men, against all odds, are awakening to the sacred in their hearts and in their countries. When this article comes out, I hope you go to my sub stack. I'll put that link into the show notes. Go to my sub stack and this article will be in there and linked to Crisis Magazine.
Speaker 1:Anyways, by the time I was nearing high school in the 1970s, my friend Jimmy Patrick, a young Marine, had already returned from Vietnam missing both of his legs. The sexual revolution of the 1960s was in full swing Abortion had been legalized and the church seemed as confused as I was. At the same time, I became aware of two opposing forces a dark presence in the world and the voice of my own conscience Rebelling against what I could not understand. When I went outside and I saw what was going on something and I didn't work right. This is what young men are realizing today. So I left home, diploma in hand, and I literally took off the day I graduated from high school, searching for the truth. How should I live? What's the meaning and purpose of life? Isn't that what you're searching for?
Speaker 1:So today's young people face a culture an even greater crisis than the one I encountered. It's an era that has largely forgotten God, one of which 90% of young people embrace moral relativism. What is that? Denying of objective truth? When you look back at the pagans, the ancient pagans, this is the same thing. This is just another word for paganism. When you look back at the pagans, the ancient pagans, this is the same thing. This is just another word for paganism. When you say I'm a moral relativist, it's just my truth or your truth.
Speaker 1:Confusion reigns, chaos reigns. You know, when there's no truth, what happens? You know, everything is permitted, and this is what happens today. What happens when everything's permitted? And this is what happens today. What happens when everything's permitted? It goes to the power, always goes to the people that are strongest, the people with money, the people with the arms, the people with the army. And the ancient world was savage, it was tyrannical, it was unjust, it was brutal. And isn't this what we're seeing, coming back into Western and taking down Western civilization, having accepted, then, the destruction of life in the womb, violence. Right, look, when you have an atheistic culture, this was always like this, all through history. And today is brutal. Today, as brutal as it has been at any time in history. Today, as brutal as it has been at any time in history.
Speaker 1:Atheists are always going to be irrational because God gives us the reason and an intellect to be able to understand the truth, what is the truth of things? And then free will so that I can choose the good. This is how we live, this is what you're looking for, you know, and this is the battle of a young man's heart. Or I give in and I reject God and give in to these temptations, I give in to Satan himself, I become irrational. Everything becomes about me, me, me, it doesn't matter, this is the only life we have, let's just take and take and take. But the mind gets twisted and distorted right and it becomes violent. It's always going to be violence, violence against human beings, the destruction of, again, when we've accepted the destruction of life in the womb, it's violent.
Speaker 1:Society now embraces a dangerous gender ideology, one that sterilizes and mutilates its most innocent members, its children. You know, the most innocent and pure right, the ones closest to God, and we're going to go after that Again. The violence of this, what we're doing to them. Worse yet, these horrors are enshrined in law, leaving a lasting stain on our whole nation by rejecting God's plan for human flourishing, especially in the realm of our sexuality. We're witnessing a revolution not only against children, but against marriage and family itself. So we see that attack.
Speaker 1:So how do we refute this? How do we fight this? How do we this? Wars and endless wars and all these things that you and I have been talking about. And right here I'm going to suggest you go back just to our recent podcast. Go back and unpack the ones. Just this week, tom Hampson and I, last Friday, with a beautiful priest, father Wayne, who's talking about coming back into the spiritual life. It's beautiful stuff. You can just go back to some of the other Claymore episodes, but first you're going to go to Mass tonight, right To Holy Thursday, so we're stepping back into the story.
Speaker 1:I want to read from you from Exodus. So if you went to Holy Thursday Mass tonight, one of the readings is going to be from Exodus. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron the land of Egypt, this month shall stand at the head of your calendar. You shall reckon it as the first month of the year. Tell the whole community of Israel on this month, every one of your families must procure for itself a lamb, one for each household.
Speaker 1:Now, listen to this. You're going to get a lamb. This is the sacrificial lamb. And this is the sacrificial lamb why? Why did Jesus come into the world? Jesus came into the world, and this is from 1 John 3.8. The reason the Son of God appears was to destroy the work of the devil.
Speaker 1:When the Israelites were in Egypt, they were enslaved, and this is an enslaved to sin and death that they were being under. And this yoke of slavery Well, this yoke of slavery, god's going to free his people, putting them out of Exodus. So what do they do? They get a lamb and they have to cook that lamb, and it has to be a year old, male and it has to be without blemish, and they shall take its blood and apply it to their doorposts. And so when the avenging angel came in and I'm skipping a lot of this right, but you'll hear it tonight, you know and God sent the plagues right To free his people from slavery. And this is what he does to all of us. This is what that battle on the heart. He wants to free you from slavery, from slavery from other people, but mostly slavery and liberation. The number one is from sin. So they should take its blood, apply it to the doorpost. None of it must be kept for the next morning.
Speaker 1:This is very important right, and this day shall be a memorial feast for you, with all generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord as a perpetual institution. So for seven days you must eat unleavened bread. This is the Eucharist. This will be the Eucharist, unleavened bread, because you don't want any impurities from the yeast in there, right? This will be the Eucharist, unleavened bread, because you don't want any impurities from the yeast in there, right. So this is unleavened bread, the yeast will be God himself that's going to fill you himself. He is the yeast that comes into our hearts, right. So when your children ask you years later what does this rite of yours mean, this Passover feast that we're going to perpetuate through history?
Speaker 1:This is the Passover of the sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of Israel when it struck down the Egyptian and he speared our houses. And he says Moses says to the people remember, on this day you came out of Egypt, that place of slavery. On this day you'll explain to your son this is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. And you shall eat this lamb, moses says, and you shall not break any of its bones. It has to be pure, it has to be unbroken, unblemished and unbroken. You can't break any of its bones. This becomes so important because all of this is really a prophecy. It's showing us what's going to come. Now. The lamb actually is God himself, who sends his son. He becomes the sacrifice, he becomes the lamb he is when you walk into an altar at church. He is going to be sacrificed for us, and I just want to.
Speaker 1:You know, this morning I got a email from International Planned Parenthood. I'm on their list, international Planned Parenthood, and you talk about the evil that comes in the world. So they write. What a time to be alive, they say, and caring about the truth. This is their headline. International Planned Parenthood Federation. What a time to be alive as they what? As they kill babies, murder babies. What a time to be alive and caring about the truth as they lie for a living right, they say.
Speaker 1:It's important that we equality, loving fact, embracing science, accepting feminists, find one another, support one another, stick together. For that reason, and so many others, we're glad you're part of this movement, this part of this movement. For what? To kill babies. You know this culture of death. And they twist and distort this into lies, right, and they go on to condemn what's going on in the United States right now, because we're defunding so much of this evil right now. That's been going on.
Speaker 1:And so what does Jesus say about this? This Jesus who's going to sacrifice himself this weekend? He says this to the people. This is from John, chapter 8. He's talking about lies and he's talking about truth here. And Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him if you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Speaker 1:This is why it's so important to read scripture, because when women and men hear this but they're writing this to women, to fellow feminists what a time to be alive and caring about the truth and the truth of science they say Well, the truth of science shows that when you murder a baby, the baby's really dead. And I mean, you know, it's just amazing distortions and twists. But women can read this and anybody can read this and think, well, there's nothing wrong with that. It's killing a baby, killing my child. This is barbaric.
Speaker 1:Again, it goes back to that what I said in the beginning. You know, the ancient pagan world was savage, tyrannical. It was unjust. So once you're talking about it, it's a great time to be alive and care about the truth. What about the baby? What about the child? Nobody cares.
Speaker 1:So this is what Jesus says If you continue in my word, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. You have to be reading scripture, you have to be absorbed into the story of the culture of life. If you don't, your mind will get absorbed with this evil and start to get twisted, you'll become irrational. You'll accept the sins, you'll accept this irrational destruction of a life in the womb, these gender ideologies. You say well, how can I? You know it's impossible Scientifically. Now they mentioned science in this article, but scientifically we know, a man cannot become a woman, a woman cannot become a man. They're so twisted in their thinking, you know, and then becomes violence. It's all about violence, violence in the womb, killing a child, violence by giving a child puberty blockers and mutilating their very bodies. These are innocent young children that I'm talking about and seeing nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:So what does Jesus say? And then the Jews answered Jesus Well, you know, we're free already. We're descendants of Abraham, we haven't been in bondage since. We've been taken out of Egypt, right? How is it that you say we're going to be made free? And Jesus answered them.
Speaker 1:Truly, truly, I say to you everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. This is what I'm talking about Exodus, taking you out of slavery to sin. This is why Jesus came into the world. He said the slave does not continue in the house forever, but the son continues forever. So your sins and you're looking at body and a soul. The default position is sin and death. You want to overcome sin, you want to overcome death and go into eternal life, then you have to embrace the eternal one, the son. If the son makes you free, you will be free. Indeed, I know that you are descendants of Abraham, yet you're trying to kill me because my word finds no place in you.
Speaker 1:I speak of what I've seen with my father and you do what you have because you heard from your father the devil, satan. This is international planned parenthood. When they say it's a great time to be alive and caring about the truth, twisting and distorting, they're worshiping their own father, not God the father, but Satan himself. It's amazing when you study Satan worshiping going on right now and the amount of people that are witches today, and it's really something you know. So here's Jesus' final thing If God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and you will do, and your will is to do, your father's desires.
Speaker 1:He was a murderer, a murderer from the beginning. This is again the irrational. It's always violence, it's always murder. And listen to this. And it has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. Isn't it amazing?
Speaker 1:Think about what I just said from that email from International Planned Parenthood. I get that, I subscribe to that because they sent me it maybe once a week or so, because when I read it through this lens that Jesus is talking about, you can just see the blatant lies and the murder and the violence. And what amazes me is that people succumb to that because there's no truth in him. When he lies, jesus said about Satan, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth? Why do you not believe in me? He who is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is because you are not of God.
Speaker 1:And this is my point in Claymore, miletus Christi, when I say you know, read Scripture every day, because when you're reading Scripture every day, you're hearing the Word and your mind. You know your reason is reasonable. You know your free will is free to choose the good, and this points us to John 19. I just want to read a little bit of that as I probably start to finish up here. And again, you know you think about the irrational attacks going on today.
Speaker 1:And in the midst of this all, what do we do? We have these young people. Instead of subscribing to the spirit, young men across the country are waking up to the sacred and finding God is residing in their hearts. They're rediscovering and discovering that there has always been two fundamental forces or worldviews, two systems that humanity is free to choose from. And I'm reading again from my article the city of man, in which man makes himself God. We will be like God, deciding what is good and what is evil or the city of God himself, where man acknowledges God and goes out to seek the truth and asking how shall I live?
Speaker 1:This is the battle. It's not so complicated. You're either walking toward God this goes all the way back to Genesis 3, choosing God, choosing the good, choosing the truth or you're walking away from it and you're accepting the father of lies who has no truth in him. So what has become increasingly clear is the battle is intensifying. But this is not a battle of left versus right, of Democrat versus Republican, of one race against the other. The real struggle is between Christ and Satan, and then, in our hearts, which one do we choose? It's a spiritual battle, and forces led by Satan seek nothing less than the destruction of humanity.
Speaker 1:So what is the solution to evil? St John answers clearly in the first letter of John, chapter 3, verse 8, if you want to read it. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. So here's Jesus. He walks into the story right, and he's going to be the sacrificial lamb, that lamb that you heard about in Exodus. You can't break its bones, it has to be without blemish. So here comes Jesus. He is going to be the sacrificial lamb. He is the one.
Speaker 1:But even listen to this as the very end as he's hanging on the cross after this, knowing that all was now finished. He's hung on the cross now I'm getting toward the end of the crucifixion, right. He says I thirst, I thirst. He's looking down and he's saying I thirst, I thirst for you, I thirst for everyone, I thirst for freedom for you, liberation for you, and so I'm giving up myself for that. And then he said it is finished. And he bowed down his head and gave up his spirit.
Speaker 1:Well, since it was the day of preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath. So this is that Sabbath, this is the Sabbath day, and so the Jews want to take down the bodies that are hanging there. And so the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away On a crucifix. You had to push up in order to get a breath so you didn't suffocate, and so when they broke your legs, you could no longer push up and you would die very quickly. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of both of the men, first on one side and then in the other side, that were crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs See, he's unbroken right. But one of the soldiers pierced his heart with a spear, his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.
Speaker 1:This is the picture here of the divine mercy that Jesus wants Sister Faustina to do. The blood and the water that came out, the water is baptism and confession, getting ready for the nuptial bath, and then the blood is the Eucharist which, if you go to mass tonight you're going to have the unleavened bread right, that's leavened by Jesus himself that you're going to receive and become one with Jesus. He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true and he knows that he tells the truth that you may also believe. This is St John, who was at the foot of the cross, for these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled. Not a bone of him shall be broken. Amazing, right.
Speaker 1:So all of this, you know the scripture, I know I went through it kind of fast, but this is the sacrificial lamb now that's coming down to us forever. So when my son and now my grandsons and granddaughters ask me, why do you celebrate the faith, why do you go to mass? Because this is what Jesus did for us and this is brought down to history, this one-time historical event is made present. At this point, we walk into a church. This sacrifice, this one-time historical sacrifice, is made present and we enter into it. See, with God, there is no time, we're in time. And then we say yes, we walk into Mass tonight, we listen to all those beautiful readings. We get absorbed in this, we open up our hearts and hopefully we want the confession, you know, so that we can receive the Eucharist right. So we've become one flesh with God who pours himself out to us. It's so good to be during this Holy Week.
Speaker 1:Go to a service tomorrow, you know, hopefully you can find one where they're going to read the Passion. There's no Mass, right, because you young people ask me, why is it Good Friday? Because we're liberated from sin, right, and in this giving up his life for all of us. And then, of course, go to mass on Easter Sunday and he is risen and you listen to those scriptures and you listen to those apostles as they're coming into the story and starting to realize and look back at everything that Jesus said now and says, oh my gosh, we didn't understand what he meant by being risen from the dead. Right. So, again, when you look out at the culture, when you look at it these times today, and people are in despair or in this vague kind of a fog of irrationality and violence that we see all around us as these power grabs come, it won't make sense to you until you understand that the lens you see this through is the lens between good and evil, between Christ and Satan himself. And this is the battle that goes on into your heart. When you're going to mass, when you're receiving the sacraments, when you're in prayer, when you're reading scripture, you're getting, you're moving toward the truth and you start to understand this.
Speaker 1:This is what Claymore Miletus Christi is all about Find some people to walk with. It's very, very important. You know we're, you know Jesus always sent them out, the disciples out, at least two by two, sometimes more right. So we start to build a community of friends and that's what the podcast is for on Friday. So listen to it together to go out and journey. And again, there's many podcasts that we had just recently that are describing these in different angles, different ways that are going to bring you into the truth. So, god bless you Great to be with you. I really pray for you, pray for me. You you know I really pray for you, pray for me.
Speaker 1:We're really in a battle here. It's really a cultural battle, a battle for the human person, a battle between good and evil, and we're seeing this all over the world. This is something that has never happened like this before, where we're seeing this global, really a global attack on children, a global attack on marriage and the family, a global attack on Christ and the church. When you see these attacks, you know they're always against Christians, they're always against Christian nations. It's the Western civilization that's attacked, you know.
Speaker 1:I'll just mention one more thing like these open borders. When, these open borders, where are they happening? At the United States, canada, western Europe? Because again, it's an attack on Christianity. Right To just flood these people in. They have no idea what Christianity is really about or don't accept it. Water down the people that are there and the cultures that are there. They're not flooding African nations and India, china. No, you don't see these people all flooding into these nations. They're flooding into Western civilization.
Speaker 1:It's a direct attack on Christianity and because most of the Western civilization has turned away from Christianity itself or don't have a strong faith themselves, we're defenseless. Then you see Europe, it's falling, it's in decline. The only hope are the young people coming up and saying, hey, no, we get it. We have to stop this. We see our whole way of life, everything that's good, everything that's true, everything that's beautiful being taken down and we're going to fight. And the first fight with that sword is not out there. It's on your own heart, right to say yes to Jesus Christ, because this battle is way bigger than us and we just do our little part by joining Christ on the cross and saying, yes, let it be done to me according to your word. Hey, god bless you. Talk to you again soon, everybody.