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
#624 Satan Doesn't Have His Own Clay: How Reclaiming Your Desires Leads to True Freedom
Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”
Something is stirring among young people today. They feel a growing unease—a sense they've been deceived but can't quite articulate what's wrong. This profound conversation with Mark Schmitt uncovers the root of our cultural malaise and offers a path toward authentic freedom.
We explore what happens when desires created good become twisted and distorted. Mark shares his personal journey from repression... to indulgence... to eventual freedom.
Highlighting the moment everything changed for him he said: "If God is love, and love is self-giving, then the opposite isn't hatred—it's selfishness." This realization transformed his understanding of happiness and purpose.
Here are three thought-provoking questions to discuss:
- How can the distortion of our natural desires lead to cultural and personal confusion, and what does it mean to “untwist” those desires in pursuit of authentic freedom?
- Mark Schmidt suggests that the opposite of love is not hatred but selfishness—how does this insight reshape our understanding of sin, especially in the context of modern struggles like pornography and indulgence?
- What role does radical trust and community play in healing from cultural malaise and reclaiming a sense of purpose, according to the vision laid out by John Paul II and St. Thérèse?
Contact Jack: info@jp2renew.org
Follow Tom Hampson on Substack
Follow us and watch on X: John Paul II Renewal @JP2Renewal
Subscribe to our Newly Resurrected YouTube Channel!
On Rumble: JohnPaulIIRC
If you’re interested in being a sponsor of the Become Who You Are Podcast, please email us at Info@JP2Renew.org
Jack Latest Blog: Living on the Surface, Never Going Deep: Jenny, Jesus, Carl Jung and Bill W
This is a generation that's waking up to the fact that they've been lied to. You know the generations that came before them, especially these politicians that we see today, that are growing richer and richer and richer all the time the longer they're in office. They're plundering the nation's wealth, leaving them in debt and saddled with all these ideologies and twisting and distorting who they are, all for control and power, and they're waking up and saying something's wrong, but they don't know quite what it is. Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul Toobree News Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. I'm so excited to be with a friend of mine, mark Schmidt. Mark, good morning Jack, good morning, great way to start the day here.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's five o'clock in the morning and you know I'm up by five o'clock in the morning, but I'm usually not speaking yet. So I hope I'm thinking well, I've got some good, strong coffee too. You know you're off to work already. And here's something that I was thinking the other day as I'm listening to some people on the left let's call them Democrats. You know they have never had a job. And here you are, mark Schmidt, with Schmidt's Landscaping, landscaping and design company. You got to run that. You're married with three kids and you know you really have to go to work, and yet you're going to take the time to come here and speak to our audience which, by the way, just so you know, are increasingly being made up of young people. And it's very exciting, gen Z. You know high school, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:I've got a call right after this with an 18-year-old that heard about Claymore and wants to talk, and so it's a very exciting time because they've been left behind. You know, I think this Mark, that this is a generation that's waking up to exciting time because they've been left behind. You know, I think, this Mark, that this is a generation that's waking up to the fact that they've been lied to. You know the generations that came before them, especially these politicians that we see today that are growing richer and richer and richer all the time the longer they're in office. They're plundering the nation's wealth, leaving them in debt. It's amazing debt and saddled with all these ideologies and twisting and distorting who they are all for control and power. And they're waking up and saying something's wrong, but they don't know quite what it is. And I remember when you came, you, when you got on fire, you were about their age and and so I want to talk to you a little bit about that. You know what? What got you going? Because we have that universal spark in this and if we just pay attention, get off those.
Speaker 1:I always call them stupid phones, even though I'm on it too, those stupid phones. First thing in the morning, though everybody knows from Claymore, first thing in the morning. Put that phone down If you have to wake up with it, that's one thing. You fall to your knees, you open your heart up to our blessed mother, you realize temptation's not a sin, you open up all the temptations of invitation to prayer and you simply get up and love the next person. You see, it's not brain surgery, but it's a discipline.
Speaker 2:Well, jack, you know I mean first, I just want to say it's a you know, it's a privilege to be here with you this morning and you know, something that I have, you know, reflected on over the years, is just the humbling position that our faith, each and every person, has received their faith from someone else and, and we're, we're we're a faith of discipleship, we're a faith of evangelization, and so, you know, we, we really have to share this story.
Speaker 2:You know this story that we've been given, that, this truth that we have here. Yeah, because you're right, because there's so many people that are, that are lost, that are looking for the truth, we all have this universal spark and we'll, we'll get into that. But I mean you, you were someone that that shared the faith with a mutual friend of ours and he shared it with me and we got, we got connected. But this all starts from someone standing up and speaking the truth, and so it's an honor to be here and just to be able to share what Christ has done in my own life, because it was, it was a radical transformation. Maybe, like many of these young men, I grew up, you know, I would say, nominally Catholic.
Speaker 1:My parents were faithful, but there was a disconnect, the way that it was for my own life and that's, and that's important, what you just said, because I was speaking to priests last yesterday afternoon and you know we're talking about these young people coming in to the church now in bigger numbers and that's the disconnect we all felt, I think, growing up during the sexual revolution and then after the generations that came in afterwards.
Speaker 1:It was a disconnect between your faith and this power, this power that Plato would call eros, but it's the sensuality you know, you see the girl and, oh man, it hits your heart and you disconnect that from God, who gave you that spark as a tiny invitation to his heart. And when you connect those two together and you go, oh God gave me this spark. When I see the beauty of a woman, say, or a mountain landscape, you know, and you say, that tiny spark was given to me by God, who has that same spark to create this and bring us into a story. And so what you're saying, I just don't want the audience to go over that because it's such an important point.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think for a lot of people, maybe their experience because they've been shared of faith but it hasn't gone to their heart they haven't truly lived this out, maybe it hasn't been presented to them in its fullest beauty, truly lived this out, maybe it hasn't been presented to them in its fullest beauty. And so for a lot of people it's really the opposite, where that experience of their faith, maybe at a younger age or maybe even older, is a very kind of repressive, what we'll kind of call that starvation diet, where you feel like you have all these desires but there's no room for them with my faith, there's no room for them with God, yeah they're like something bad, right, and this is something I should be ashamed of.
Speaker 1:Or we don't know. We just don't know how does this fit together, right? But you're exactly right, and the worst thing somebody can do in a church or anywhere else is shame them, right, and say, hey, those passions and desires are bad when they're created, good, they're just twisted. But the other thing that a church can do and I see too many pastors that invite them and just say, hey, all those passions and desires are okay, just the way they are twisted and distorted, and so that's a bad, either one of those is not good, is it?
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I think, for as I look at my own life, like the journey that I was on was in the beginning, we'll kind of use, I think, because what we're going to be talking about today and I wanted to actually share this quote to start with, we've talked about this before, but you know, things that have been on my own heart that I wanted to talk about is just the importance of our desires. You know, the devil does not have his own clay, and so, realizing that these desires are good, these desires are good, and the journey, our own sanctification, is that untwisting of these desires when you say satan doesn't have his own clay, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:that these desires, these longings that we have in our heart for union, for the true, the good, the beautiful, for fulfillment, for a deep happiness of satisfaction, even these sexual desires, these longings when we see beauty, all these different things, all of these things are gifts from God, but they have to be understood through God's lens, through according to his design, and so it's not about repressing or getting rid of these desires, but it's about that untwisting to see them as God sees them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when I think about what you just said, satan doesn't have his own clay. So basically, what you're saying is that God created these desires good and Satan doesn't have his own clay, he didn't create it. All he can do is take those and twist and distort what God already created good, and that's a great point.
Speaker 2:And, as Bishop Fulton Sheen said, you know, if you want to know what is most sacred, look at what is most defiled. And you look at what the devil has tried to do and what he's done in so many ways with the sexual revolution, with these sexual desires, with pornography, with sterilization, contraception, the infidelity in marriages, all these different things. He's taken these beautiful desires and he's twisted them, and we can kind of get into more of that. But I wanted to start with because I think what's important, what I think is a great encouragement that we all need, is that these desires are good. These desires are good foundationally, and so the journey is not about repressing, but it's about getting in touch and seeing them. As I said, seeing them the way God does.
Speaker 2:And I think CS Lewis has this great line where he says this is from his book the Way to Glory. He says it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Speaker 1:Whoa, that's powerful. I remember that. I haven't read that for a long time. I'm glad you brought that up again. You know, open that up just a touch more. That's just powerful. I'm going to put that. I'm going to try to remember to put that in the show notes, man because that's so good.
Speaker 2:Well, something that you know, kind of a principle that John Paul II talks about, is that our subjective experience should confirm the objective reality. You know that these two, this phenomenology, where you know, when we talk about the love of God, when we talk about that he is meant to fulfill our deepest desires, it shouldn't just be some theoretical concept in a classroom, but it should be a real person that we encounter. And so, and thanks be to God, I've been on that journey and experienced that. My subjective experiences confirmed the subjective reality of this amazing adventure that God invites us on, this untwisting of the desires.
Speaker 2:And when you look at that quote from CS Lewis, I look at my own life and I just I resonate so much with that because so much of my life, there was kind of that repression growing up into probably, I would say, about eighth grade, and then things started to shift as I got into high school and those desires became stronger, Mm-hmm, and that's when I felt like the devil kind of got in and started twisting. The culture got in and I think my parents, to no fault of their own, just didn't really maybe have the vocabulary, didn't understand theology of the body, so there wasn't a way to kind of work through these desires, this eros within us right.
Speaker 1:That's another and try not to let me throw you off, but it's just so important when parents are listening to this, grandparents are listening to this not to put all the blame on themselves either, because they really weren't given the vocabulary. You know there was a time we just didn't have this vocabulary. You know, john Paul started to. This was John Paul's legacy. Really. I mean, he gave us so much, it was unbelievable. The more I studied John Paul II, the more I. I mean, he gave us so much, it was unbelievable. The more I studied John Paul II, the more I realized how much he left us.
Speaker 1:But it's theology of the body, especially because he gave us, to your point, words to put into those desires and those experiences we felt in our heart. When you can verbalize what you're feeling and and confess it, now you've become somebody that can really evangelize. And when I say evangelize, I mean, with your desires and what you said earlier, that your subjective experience, my, my own personal experience, and the objective reality of our creation. All of a sudden that becomes the evangelization tool to say you feel like this well, let let me. Let me, let me show you where that's pointing to.
Speaker 1:That was the most exciting thing. I get goosebumps just now when I think about that, mark, because the same thing happened to me and I was older than you when it happened. But it was a profound difference to say you're kidding man. Those desires were created good, and that's the adventure, right? That's the battle. That's the claymore sword, because that's the battle. What you're talking about right now is the battlefield of the heart between love, say, and lust, you know, between becoming a self-giving person, opening those desires and grasping and taking, because I don't realize those are infinite desires. So I'm trying to fill myself up in this finite space infinite desire.
Speaker 2:So I'm trying to fill myself up in this finite space. Well, and that's, and that's kind of where I got on. I started following down that road to high school, starting in high school and really, you know Christopher West talks about this where we have these desires, but the world kind of offers us two different options for these, for this hunger within us. There's that starvation diet, which, which is just that repression, where these are all bad, we have to ignore these, we push them away. And then there is the fast food diet and where you just indulge, indulge, indulge, and kind of a funny story that fits perfectly with this.
Speaker 2:I remember, as I was coming back into the faith, a priest of mine a good friend of mine was a priest said hey, you know, let's fast 24 hours, and I had never fasted before at that point in my life, and so we did it from, I think, like a midnight to midnight and I remember, you know, those last hours were just like the hardest thing I'd ever done and I was, I was dying, I was so hungry and I remember I got in the car and was driving to McDonald's as I was approaching the 24 hours, Like I wanted to be in the drive through as the 24 hours hit and I just ordered an insane amount of food, ate it in the parking lot and I felt so sick. I mean I was. It was so sick.
Speaker 1:That's the worst thing you can do after a fast. Just FYI to people out there.
Speaker 2:Oh it was. It was miserable and I remember thinking like I felt better before I. You know I like this is, this is awful, but that that honestly is is a little vignette of my own life. You know, I felt like I lived this repression, repression. And then all of a sudden there was so much indulgence, there was so much just of that fast food diet of trying to fill the infinite with all of these finite things, and what it left me with was just an immediate kind of oh, this tastes good. And then feeling awful afterwards where I was like this actually doesn't satisfy, this is not real food.
Speaker 2:And it's funny now because now my wife she's a great cook, she makes all this great healthy food and now eating that all the time you could see you're like that actually wasn't real food.
Speaker 1:That's actually not good for me and there's so many parallels Not in those quantities at least let's face that right Right.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of parallels there with the spiritual life. So I was on this journey really all throughout high school, throughout college, after college, and living a very self-indulgent, just selfish life, using and as Christopher West talks about, these sexual desires, these longings. They're the raw materials for love, they're the rocket fuel for the ship. But the problem is is they have to be pointed, they have to be oriented correctly. For a lot of people, what they struggle with, what I struggle with, was this rocket ship was self-inverted, so all that fuel was going back in, turning in on myself as a lot of self, just self-indulgence, and lust. And so I still remember the day you know, through our mutual friends who you were helping come bring into the church. We started because I was away from my Catholic faith at that time and we started to have some conversations and his name.
Speaker 1:Let's put his name out here because I like to someday make sure he's listening to the podcast. So, Dave Tokar, great guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was a major step on the journey for me back to my Catholic faith. You two together were those major catalysts, so thanks be to God for you guys. So Dave and I started kind of talking. Apologetics were those major catalysts. So thanks be to God for you guys. So, Dave, Dave and I started kind of talking apologetics, started talking about the faith, and I started to say I'm like you know, maybe my parents had something here, you know, and I started to feel a pull towards Catholicism again.
Speaker 2:And I remember one Saturday morning I came into the church parking lot I was going to go to a Saturday morning mass for the first time and I saw my parents' car in the parking lot and I wasn't ready to face them in the pews. And so I said, you know what? I'm going to go and pick up that book that Dave has been telling me about Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West. And so that morning you know God's providence, instead of going to mass I ended up going to pick up that book. And I wasn't much of a reader at that point. You know the book's 130 pages, but you know I finished it in one sitting. I could not put it down, wow, the the light switch moment for me and and I say that I don't, I don't and even theology of the body for beginners has got some meat in it.
Speaker 1:So it's not like you know. It's amazing that you could go through that in one sitting, because that's not like reading a comic book yeah, he helped me pick up the parts that I think I I needed.
Speaker 2:You know, I definitely didn't absorb, absorb all of it, but so I'm still absorbing.
Speaker 2:You know parts of those things and I and I don't I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here or over exaggerate, and I'll share with you the insights but when I put that book down, jack, I felt like I was seeing reality for the first time. Everything I felt like I was alive, like everything prior to that, I could see just a shell of a life, the anxiety, the depression, just living like just such an empty life. And so the turning point, what it was for me the main point, that at that age, where my theological understanding was, was what Christopher West started to explain. Was that okay?
Speaker 2:So if God is love, and love is this total self-giving, total outpouring selflessness? He asked this question. You know what is the opposite of love, then? And most people think hatred is the opposite of love. What he says is the opposite of love is actually selfishness, it's lust, and this light bulb went off. Selfishness, it's lust, and this light bulb, yeah, went off. And I realized, if, if god is love and I'm in the, and I and each human being is made in the image and likeness of love, that means my life needs to reflect true, authentic love. And so I start, I to think how have I been living? I have lived a life of utter selfishness. So how could I ever expect to be happy?
Speaker 1:It's objectively impossible, because if If this story is true that you're describing, it would be objectively impossible.
Speaker 2:It would be objectively impossible. Because if it's objectively, true.
Speaker 1:This is again, keep your thought. But this is exactly what these young people that we're meeting are finding out. They've been lied to that they're seeing the world through the wrong lens. They've been given a twisted, distorted lens and said and told that that's normal. They've normalized the fall, they've normalized sin and they can't get out because nobody opened the door. What you're talking about is putting a different lens on, showing them that what Jesus would call that narrow gate. Come through this gate and you will see.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we live in a world today that porn masturbation is self-care. You know these things and perfectly normal.
Speaker 2:That's what we're told normal, just a part of growing up, all these different things. And so, once again, to kind of drill down that point is if, if god is love and love is a total self-giving and that's objectively true, that's the grounding fact of our reality then a life of selfishness is not just a step in the wrong kind of off course, no-transcript. And so for me, that sanctification I'm still on the journey. It was an intellectual light switch that started to change things, but it's been a journey where God, working through that selfishness that it built up. But what John Paul II says is man finds himself by making himself a sincere gift to another. And so the total shift, the way that I saw reality stopped being this self-seeking right, that rocket ship where the fuel is inverted all in on me and now it started to say I need to pour myself out, and that rocket fuel and it's pointed correctly is meant to draw you outside of yourself, not to pull you deeper in. And so the encouragement, and just the simple, the simple truth is we you always say this, jack we need to be filled by God's divine love and we need to pour that out. Life really is that simple in some regards. We have to receive the love of God and we have to make ourselves a gift to every single person that we meet.
Speaker 2:And here's the beautiful adventure piece to this. And I've been on this journey now for maybe nine years now, and I have found this, this subjective and the objective, to be so beautifully. True is I have found myself. The more and more I can cooperate with God's grace and try to love the way that he loves and live this out, the more free I become, and that's what he's offering us. What Christ says is for freedom. I have come to set you free, and I feel like the older I get, the more clear, the more that sinks in. He's offering us freedom. That's what everyone is looking for. They're looking for freedom.
Speaker 1:When you start to think about it. I want to step back just a second again, because these are some profound things that you're stating and when you say and John Paul said so, well right, that this is not just objective. In other words, when you come, say, into the church, you've got a young person comes into the church. If we don't make this link with them, mark, then they have a good chance of burning out. It would be like a rocket. That's the launch pad. Elon Musk is ready to launch a rocket with no flight plan and it's full of fuel, but the fuel's really not very good, but anyways it ignites and it goes right. And well, that's what these young people are feeling. And they come into the church. And if you don't let them know that that spark, that something within them got them to go into that church first, then they're coming into the objective reality of God drawing them in.
Speaker 1:But now it could look like rules. Oh, you're telling me this is the Ten Commandments. Oh, you're telling me I got to learn all this dogma and blah, blah, blah, no, no, no At first. Yeah, those things you have to know. But that's information and that's important information. That's objective reality. God gives us the Ten Commandments, because he said this is who I am right Don't steal, don't lie, don't hurt other people. This is just who I am. You know people look at it like rules, but it's actually freeing.
Speaker 1:But my point is not even that that objective reality is there, but it's your subjective heart. Don't forget your heart. Don't forget that you have internally. You have this desire in your heart that's opening you to this story. And if you do that now you have a flight plan. See, now I walked into the church. I see Christ on the cross. I see he says okay, there's the narrow gate, it's got guardrails called the Ten Commandments and these other things. And I start down this journey that you're talking about and I go ooh, this actually fits right, what I'm experiencing inside. So that's when John Paul said this is not just objective. I want you to stay in touch with your subjective heart, your own experience of life. And then you make that connection and you go, ooh, now I've got the fuel, I've got the good rocket fuel and I've got a direction. So I don't crash here or crash there, or at least not as often.
Speaker 2:So I don't crash here or crash there, or at least not as often, right, and it really is such an amazing adventure. That sounds cliche, but I have experienced that. I've experienced that. There's this great quote from GK Chesterton where he said something like the most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man, an ordinary woman and their ordinary children man, an ordinary woman and their ordinary children. And it's just this truth that even in the ordinary of life, you are on this extraordinary adventure, when you are connected to the story, when you are filled with God's divine love and you are trying to pour that out.
Speaker 2:So, every day, you have the opportunity to your life, to reflect the life of Christ, to make yourself a complete gift to every person. Of course, if you're married your wife, your children but if you're not, if you're single, to your family, to your coworkers, to your friends every single day is an opportunity to empty yourself, to lay down your life for the people around you, and what you find is that you will become more and more free. You know the words of Christ if you lose your life, you find it. This is the paradox of our faith, is the culture tells us to save your life, you have to grasp and hold on and self-indulge. It's about your own pleasure, your own happiness. And Christ is saying no, no, no, empty yourself, give yourself, follow me, follow my example, lay down down your life and then you will find yourself. Yeah and so this is.
Speaker 2:This is the adventure, is that is available to every single person every moment of every day, no matter where you are, no matter what state you're in, and and I, yeah, and I want to just touch base here, because a lot of people are going to be single right at an early age.
Speaker 1:You know, high school, college, they're single and they're going. I really desire to be in a relationship with someone and I can't find anybody. You know, there's a lot of frustrated young people out there, mark, that can't find a girl, they can't find the guy. But that doesn't change anything about what we're saying right now, because if you don't practice those virtues, in other words, if I don't become the right person right, I'll never find the right person. Everybody wants to find the right person. That I talk to. So many people don't understand. You have to become the right person first. I have to become a person of love that you're describing here. Then I become the right person because don't forget that the right person out there, then I become the right person because don't forget that the right person out there also is looking for the right person. And if all I do is grasp and take and I don't understand this she'll never or he'll never be attracted to me, and so we have these broken people coming into broken relationships. So, regardless where your state of life is and sometimes maybe you'll never. You know, god has a plan that you don't get married. I don't know. But the adventure doesn't change. God will give you opportunities. And so today, give us this day our daily bread. And so don't worry so much about tomorrow. I know it's difficult for people but don't worry so much about tomorrow. Become that self-gift today and that adventure will open up. And just the last thing is those three things.
Speaker 1:Remember John Eldridge in Wild at Heart. For these young guys he said in these three core things life is going to be an adventure. Every man knows this, every man knows this. Life is going to be an adventure. It's going to be a battle. That's where Claymore, because every time you're describing this, this battle between love and lust, you know that's a battle on your heart. Every temptation is an invitation to prayer, but if you, if you keep that invitation, that temptation, then you fall right. So if I open it up to prayer, it's different. And then, and then the last one is for beauty. You know, I realized that this journey, this battle, is for beauty, but especially the beauty of love, and especially the beauty of God, who is love. So that's where the flight plan comes in. And then let the rest of it arrive, because he's going to be guiding you Well, jack.
Speaker 2:You touched on, I think, a key part to this adventure you know we've been going through. You know, just last Sunday was the Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and one of the absolute foundational pieces to the spiritual life, to this adventure, is a life of total trust that we are not these self-sufficient, you know projects, where God's just trying to fix us and send us off on our own. The more we grow, the more and more dependent we have to become.
Speaker 1:Wow, God, you know.
Speaker 2:Christ's words himself. Apart from me, you can do nothing. And so there's a lot of challenges right that happen in life. There's a lot of things that we can ask the question you know, god, why is this? Maybe you're not married and you're trying to find the right one. You're saying God why? You know I have these great desires. You haven't fulfilled them, it seems like. Or maybe you're in a hard spot in your marriage or something's going on with your kids. You know, we all have our crosses, but the foundation of all of this, of going through life with peace, is trust. It has to be one of total trust, independence in our Lord and something that you know I wanted to.
Speaker 2:I'm reading right now through St Therese's autobiography and just something that she shared that I thought was so beautiful. She was in the midst of a trial. Now this is St Therese's autobiography and just something that she shared that I thought was so beautiful. She was in the midst of a trial, and Now this is St Therese of Lisieux Lisieux, yep. So this is the story of a soul. This is right.
Speaker 2:At the beginning of her little chapter eight, she said so, she's right about to, she's right about to make one of her professions. And she said, you know, she was suffering complete spiritual dryness, almost as if it were, quite as if I were quite forsaken. And she says, as usual, jesus slept in my little boat and I know that other souls rarely let him sleep peacefully, and he is so wearied by the advances he is making that he hastens to take advantage of the rest I offer him and it's likely that, as far as I'm concerned, he will stay asleep until the great final retreat of eternity. But that doesn't upset me. And I thought, man, what heroic trust she has.
Speaker 2:She has total trust. No matter what the trial is, no matter what desolation or what things she's going through, that Christ is in the boat with her. And if he's in the boat with her, he can draw good from all things, no matter what desolation or what things she's going through. That Christ is in the boat with her and if he's in the boat with her, he can draw good from all things, no matter what we're going through. I think that has to be the foundation through everything that we're going through. So, yes, we're on this great adventure, but it has to be grounded in total trust, total dependence. You know, st Therese says I think her quote is the older I become, the younger I become.
Speaker 1:You know that childlike dependence upon the Lord, no matter what trial you're going through. See, that's so important because you know people will read that you have to become like children. If you want to, you know, make it to heaven. People go. What are you talking about? I want to be like children. I don't have to get a job, I don't have to. No, no, no, no, no. You have to have this trust. I mean, that's the essence of what he's saying. Right, you have to have dependence on your father, who I'm pointing to. You know the father and I are one and you're invited into the story. And he was praying to his father, jesus was, and he said may they become one, as we are one. You know he's bringing you into this story.
Speaker 1:But you're right, you know this journey is not easy because you know our bodies make visible the invisible, spiritual and divine. We were created before sin. And this is kind of my last thought for now, because people will say you know, but I don't always hear God speaking to me. You know, if you really read scripture and you really read the saints and stuff, something else is going to touch your heart. Right, but it's not like you know, it's not like firecrackers going off every day. You know there will be times like that, but a lot of times it's a battle. It's a battle because we're really a sign of contradiction.
Speaker 1:But anyways, in the beginning, before sin if you read Genesis 1, genesis 2, I was supposed to be filled with divine life and love and to become that life and love in the world, and so I was the one that's supposed to bring life and love into the world. That's why it's so important what you said earlier about becoming a person of love, because it's when I act, when I love, when I look at other people and I bring Christ in just through my love. I don't even have to say anything. I help an old person, I mentor a young person. You know, whatever I do, I'm kind to the person at the gas station, I am bringing joy and love in.
Speaker 1:So a lot of times when you're on your knees and it's quiet and you're just resting in God's love, like St Therese was, now we go out, and when we go out and we become that love, that's where we'll find it. You see, we don't always find it on our knees. We're getting the resources, we're being filled and we're connecting with God, just like you said. You know, we were never supposed to be self-sufficient projects. So I'm like a child filled with God. Now I can bring that love like a child into the world. That's so much dang fun. I mean, how could you have any more fun?
Speaker 1:And it's not easy, you know. It's not always easy to be kind to someone that's not kind to you back. But if you are, that anxiety is going to start leaving you those parts, those depressions sometimes, that you feel those negative feelings that you have. Temptation is not a sin. I open myself up when I get discouraged and I have to act. That's my first action to open up to prayer. My second action is to become that person of love. Go out and love somebody. I tell people all the time. You know, quit complaining. Who have you tried to love today? You're so involved in yourself you forgot to be the person of love and then you made that point earlier. That's why I'm created, you know. I'm not created to stew in my selfishness, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think, too, another way that I've heard it described is, man finds himself in the amount in which he gives himself away. So all the areas that you're holding back, that you haven't given away, that you're surrendering to, where there's that selfishness, and inward you know, inward pull All of those areas God wants to free for you, he wants to bring according to his plan, to his design, and so think about that. If you're unsettled, you think what parts of myself am I holding on to? What vices, what selfishness, what lust am I still letting take root in my life? And I think that's a practical of where do you go from here especially maybe some of these young men that are listening is take an audit of your life, look at your life and say where am I allowing the selfishness, the lust to take root and what is still there? And what do I need to invert and point towards the stars right, point towards heaven, the lust to take root, and what is still there? And what do I need to invert and point towards the stars right, point towards heaven, open up to God's plan. And so, if you're not married right, getting rid of all these, all vices if they're present that the culture puts on us as normative of. I mean, there's just so many temptations of just you know what you can scroll and look at on Instagram, snapchat, social media, all these different things that you know back in the day were pornography, which are so normalized now. But just you know we got to avoid the near occasions of sin. So, if it's your computer, if it's your phone, set up the guardrails to protect yourself where you're not participating in this culture of lust.
Speaker 2:Not participating in this culture of lust, but then too, as you mentioned, jack, of making yourself the right person, preparing your heart, that becoming more and more of the selfless person with the girl that you're dating or someone that you're, you know, as you're on this journey trying to find the right spouse, of not participating in that culture of use and lust, the hookup culture, all these different things. Of becoming a man of heroic virtue, someone that has temperance, someone that can say no, waiting, seeing God's design for saving sex for marriage, but just learning to incorporate all that into your life. And I think you know you have so many opportunities each and every day. As you always say, just start loving the person that you meet, but really do that audit of your life of. Where have I, where have I let lust and selfishness take hold in my life? And just take one thing at a time. Start. Start with one thing God, help me free me of. If it's pornography, free me of, you know, doom.
Speaker 2:Scrolling on my phone and looking at all these different girls and different things that are there Maybe it's the shows you're watching on Netflix. Are these things glorifying the sacrament of marriage? Are these things glorifying the hookup culture? And all these different things? Because we don't want to be the slow boiling frog where we're just swimming in this water of just vice and sin, because it deadens us. It deadens us and I tell you this would be a challenge is take 30 days where you get out of that water and then you go back and watch that Netflix show you used to watch It'll, there'll be a greater contract. You'll be like, wow, I can't believe. I thought that was okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, you're exactly right. You put that different lens on, you become a different person. There's no doubt. In fact, I think you know to do that we'll have to talk about that 30-day challenge. Right now I'm going to hold up.
Speaker 1:You know people are saying well, where to get started? Again, everybody that has been on this show before knows this is Claymore. Claymore Miletus Christi, and so this is your blueprint. You can just go to our website info at jp2, the number two, renewedorg. Jp2, the number two renewedorg.
Speaker 1:I'll have it in the show notes, but go to resources. At the top and under resources you'll see the Claymore Sword in red. Download it. It's just a few pages and that'll give you the framework.
Speaker 1:And then journey with another person, journey with another man it's set up just to be a framework and then journey with another person, journey with another man. It's set up just to be a framework. And then there's a lot of material that's behind that, but the framework is very simple and it just gives you that framework to come back into the story, to get your own heart, to understand what marriage and love is all about, and then to go out into the culture. Those three things, and you just take one thing at a time which is starting with your own heart, right, Starting with your own heart, and you'll see that blueprint. But walk with somebody. Walk with somebody and and uh, and share that with the young people that are looking for some framework to start with.
Speaker 1:And and we didn't make it complicated because we want somebody like Mark Schmidt to say hey, you know, let's read Theology of the Body for beginners together. That'll be part of what we do. Or let's read Story of a Soul. So there's all of that flexibility. You know, when it says prayer, you can fill in some of your own stuff there. It doesn't tell you. It's not like you know something that says you have to do this at this time and at two o'clock. Do that, you know. So it gives you a good framework and enough there you can just use that, but certainly as a disciple of and discipling other people together. Two guys, three guys, four guys together. It's a beautiful journey.
Speaker 2:It's a huge, you know, I'll close with this. I mean it's so, it's so important. The reality of the communion of saints, I think is, points us to that God, he of course wants us in union with him, but he wants us to also be in union with one another. And I look at my own life and just the men, the mentors Jack, you're included in that of the impact that they've had. We can't do it alone. You know, the devil wants to sift us and he wants us to be isolated. We got to at least have one other guy in our life that we can be honest with, we can talk through the struggles with, but we can really journey towards this great call of becoming great saints.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so important what you just said because I remember a couple of times I was all wrapped up, I was anxious about some temptations and all bothered and I was telling this guy that was journeying with me early on and he started to laugh and I said what are you laughing for? I'm pouring my heart out there. He goes, jack, he goes. I had that five times this morning, those temptations. I use temptation as an invitation to prayer, so that gave me five little prayers this morning and I know it's a battle, that's what the sword is for. Those temptations will come and that is the time you're standing on the battlefield of the human heart and you become a hero of your own life. And you know what? Just like you said, if I start scrolling, it's too late already.
Speaker 1:As soon as I got a temptation to scroll, I go Satan does it as his own clay. He wants to twist and distort me. I'm going to open myself up. So that's the temptation. Is when I feel that temptation that's a warrior coming at me with another sword is when I feel that temptation, that's a warrior coming at me with another sword. And if I just stop and don't do anything, what do you think is going to happen to that other guy running at me with the sword. I'm going to get skewered. So I got to pick up my own sword while I see him coming and go after him. And if I wait, you know, then it's too late. Then I become a lump. Lump. I become a weak man.
Speaker 2:And we got to remember you know, our life has to be grounded in objective reality those things that the pornography, all these different things, that what they presented, it's always a lie. The devil is always a deceiver. He's always like they objectively can never give you what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:And I think we have to remember that they can never give you what you're looking for, and we, you know there might be a slip up, but just remember, he is a deceiver. He promises you something that he cannot give and then, on the backend, he shames you for doing what he enticed you to do. It's a, it's total destruction, and so it's a shell game, isn't it?
Speaker 1:It's a complete shell game. You're going to lose. It's a Ponzi scheme. Yeah, yeah, True.
Speaker 2:So yeah, just remember that he can never deliver on his promises. It'll never give you what you're looking for, only a life of self-giving love. Will you be free and fully alive? So, jack, it's been a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Mark, great to be with you. Hey, thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us. Bye-bye, and don't forget to download Claymore Miletus Christi. Find somebody to journey with and don't forget that these podcasts that we're doing are for you and someone else also to listen to and then talk about these things. Right, Discuss them with other people and bring you into the journey. All right, God bless you. Talk to you again soon. Bye-bye, everyone.