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
#631 What is Truth? Does it Exist? Can I find it? Did Mary have other children? Deacon Frank Joins Jack
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Something extraordinary is happening in Catholic churches across America and Europe—pews that once sat half-empty are filling with young faces. This isn't a momentary blip but a genuine spiritual awakening among a generation raised in moral relativism who are now seeking objective truth.
When these seekers arrive, they bring questions. One of the most common: "Didn't the Bible say that Jesus had brothers and sisters?
Deacon Frank joins Jack. Click Here to read his articles in the Catholic Exchange
Download the Claymore Battle Plan at jp2renew.org and go to the resources link. Join a movement of young men reclaiming territory for Christ by fostering a culture of authentic love. Your journey begins not with a label, but with the profound truth that you are made for more than this world can offer.
Read Jack's Article: Am I Gay? Discovering Your True Identity in Christ
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Are you still feeling that evil or do we conquer that between the time you wrote it?
Speaker 2:Evil is, you know, working every day. Jack, it is working. What we have to do is recognize it begins with a realization that there is a truth. It's an objective truth. It's outside of us. God has given us a conscience to know the truth, to evaluate the truth that exists outside of us and apply that truth in the everyday circumstances of life.
Speaker 1:Anybody here create the universe? Nobody, I said anybody here. Write the story. The big story we came into gave meaning and purpose to all the things that you see. Ah, nobody. Ah, that means you guys came into a story, didn't you? And I said exactly what you're saying, just in a little different way. And God gave us reason, intellect, free will, a conscience to figure out what is the truth. Right, can you imagine the pride of us, deacon Frank, we're sitting, we're one little dot in the universe and we think I got the answer to this Exactly.
Speaker 1:No wonder I'm depressed and anxious exactly welcome to the become who you are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. Today we're experiencing something that's quasi-unexpected. Here in the United States and across the Atlantic, a Catholic renaissance has taken place, mainly among young people. In France, over 10,000 adults were baptized this Easter, with young people leading the charge. I was just off the phone with someone that wanted me to come down and speak in Tucson, arizona. I'm outside of Chicago, as everybody knows. The woman on the phone said Tucson is very secular, but she said her mass, the mass at her parish, is beginning to fill up with young people. So what's going on here? Is this a passing fad or something that's really bigger than that? And we're sensing that it's bigger than that, especially here in the United States.
Speaker 1:We have an apostolate within our apostolate, called Claymore Miletus Christi, to disciple these young men. When they come back into the church, when they're looking at the church, we ask them what's going on, what moved you? And they said we're seeking the truth, we're tired of moral relativism, we're tired of the evil we see around us and in our own hearts, with pornography, addictions and all kinds of things. And the second thing, once they actually come into the church, they start asking specific questions. One of those questions is the truth concerning Mary's perpetual virginity. Didn't Jesus have brothers and sisters? Didn't Mary have other children? So, have brothers and sisters? Didn't Mary have other children? So those are the two things we're seeing so much this presence of evil in the world, and also some specific questions.
Speaker 1:Well, we're lucky to have Deacon Frank here. Deacon Frank is a permanent deacon in the United States. He's involved in the Eucharistic revival. He's been a deacon for 17 years and we're going to bring him on to help wade through and help these young people that are coming back into the church. Deacon Frank, it's such a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Jack, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 1:These young people, deacon, frank, are looking for models, role models. Not only role models that will show them what having the faith looks like, which is important to them, but also role models that can help them, disciple them, mentor them as they come into the faith. They answer questions, and so that's what we do on a lot of these podcasts. So, you know, we get wonderful people like yourself, deacon, to come in and help us through these things. You know you wrote an article, so I want to talk about two of your articles and I didn't warn you ahead of time, so God bless you.
Speaker 1:If you can remember this, no problem, but this was right before the election, and you wrote about evil and you said woe to those who call evil good and good evil. You talked about all kinds of things we talk about on the show, which are so important, and what these young people see abortion, these LBGTQ issues, the human trafficking, the fentanyl epidemic. You put it all in there the crime we see on our streets, the inflation that's mislabeled, as you put it, as economic growth, indoctrination, which we've seen, this sexual indoctrination especially, but the CRT, the critical gender theories that they're pushing on their kids all the way into kindergarten, you can't make this stuff up. And then in the other article was the Truth Concerning Mary's Perpetual Virginity, both in the Catholic Exchange. Wonderful articles, deacon Frank. So thank you for writing those first of all. Thank you, jack. Are you still feeling that evil or do we conquer that between?
Speaker 2:the time you wrote it. Evil is, you know, working every day Jack, and what we have to do is recognize. It begins with a realization that there is a truth. It's an objective truth. It's outside of us. God has given us a conscience to know the truth, to evaluate the truth that exists outside of us and apply that truth in the everyday circumstances of life.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's what our conscience is, what the culture has done over the last couple hundred years is to deny objective truth and replace it with subjective truth, which you know, I'm sure we've all heard the expression my truth and your truth. There is no my truth and your truth, there's only the truth, right, and that truth is Jesus Christ. Okay, he said I am the way, the truth and the life. Okay, so what we have to do is recognize first where the you know to deal with the problem. You have to identify what the problem is before you can deal with its many symptoms. And the problem is we have denied objective truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Another way you know to say that is and you're right on, of course is that when we're speaking to young people, 90 percent this was the study was done, I think, about five or six years ago. At that time, high school and college students, 90 percent of them would subscribe to moral relativism. Right, there is no truth, Right? I think those numbers are a little lower just because they've seen the moral chaos, as you even wrote in your article, when you know there is a subjective truth. Right, I like blue and you like green and I like fish and you like steak, so there are things like that, but there's an there, there's. So there's subjective truths that we say, but objective truth is something that we live out. We feel this in our heart, you know, and our hearts are made, aren't they, Deacon Frank?
Speaker 1:Absolutely I remember as a young guy thinking what is the truth of this thing? You know, I grew up in a sexual revolution. I remember clearly in my heart thinking I need to know the truth Exactly. And you know, in addition to the article you quoted about— Woe to those who call evil good and good evil yes.
Speaker 2:There's two others that I wrote earlier than that that I think really get to this issue. The first one is what is truth a modern day Tower of Babel story, and the second one is when history became legend and legend became myth, and both of them deal with this same issue. Okay, but only go in more detail. You know, the focus on the article that you're referencing really dealt with the election and how we had a very clear choice to make, and I tried to make that case as clear as possible without being political. But the groundwork for that was done in these other two articles.
Speaker 2:In the first one, which was, was what is truth the modern day Tower of Babel story, I posit that you know, when God basically confused people at Babel right and they couldn't communicate with one another, that a lot of work that Satan would have done to get them to rebel against God went for naught. And you know Satan would have begrudgingly looked at it and said gee, that's something I can learn from meaning confusing language. And that's what they've done by virtue of introducing subjective truth, because if we don't have the same understanding of what words mean, then we're not speaking the same language.
Speaker 1:No, you're exactly right. You know this abuse of language is a big deal right now. That's why you know, that's why this use of these gender terms, gender ideology, the pronouns. You know people think well, what's wrong with just? You know they them and you say well because you're speaking of one person. And when you get into those kinds of things, you know they them and you say well, because you're speaking of one person, right, and when you get into those kind of things, you know, when you say a boy can become a girl, just because I think it in my head, if I can swallow that lie, you know that abusive language, I'll swallow any lie, won't I?
Speaker 2:Right, and it can go even further than that, jack, in that we could use the same words, the exact same words, but have two different meanings to those same words, because of subjective truth. Okay, so what we have to do is recognize that what this denial of objective truth has done is create the belief in a subjective truth, which results in chaos. You know, god gave us objective truth for order, for there to be order in the world. You know, when we look at the world, we look at nature. Everything is order. There is structure and order to the world. Yet when we can't even use the same words and mean the same things, what you're really going for is chaos, and that's really what we suffer in the world today. We suffer a total breakdown of order because we're not seeking the truth, we're seeking our own desires.
Speaker 1:You know what I've realized, and you hit on it just a few minutes ago. When I'm speaking about the truth and somebody asks me what is the truth, you know the truth is not a something. The truth is a somebody. Exactly His name is Jesus Christ. You know, you remember those bands. I don't know if you remember them, deacon Frank, it was many years ago. Those bands, what would Jesus do Exactly? I'll tell you what. That's not a bad thing. We ought to bring those bands back. I think you.
Speaker 2:I think you know, john, I worked for many years. I was an executive director of a law firm and on my desk was a rock, shape of a rock, and on it was those exact same words what would Jesus do? And I would look at that rock occasionally and make sure that I was doing things consistent with what God's truth is.
Speaker 1:Yes, people ask you know, how do I know Jesus exists? And you know all kinds of questions when they're coming back into the church, right, and there's all kinds of ways to talk about that. But truth, I just sometimes I'd say you know, you got to walk into the story and keep looking at Jesus and asking you know, what is the truth of my life? What is the truth? How should I act in this situation? And you'll start to find your way through the closer you get to Christ. It's amazing. I stopped trying to go down different paths and trying to massage this to people. Now I just say it If you're seeking the truth, let me give you an example Go follow that guy on the cross and you know what it works. It really works. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Remember, in reading John's Gospel there's an interaction between Pontius Pilate and Jesus. Yes, and Jesus says whoever seeks the truth will hear my voice. Pontius Pilate said what is truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is truth?
Speaker 2:Pontius Pilate represents our culture today. What is truth? And what we have to do is recognize we don't determine the truth. What we're to do is to use our conscience to apply the universal truth, the objective truth, to the everyday circumstances of life. And what is the truth? It's what Jesus taught us okay, in the Gospels and so forth. He taught us everything we need to know in order to live the life of true discipleship.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're saying that, I just you know. I was speaking to some young people just recently and I asked them. I said you know, I don't really know you. I said anybody here? Just to get to know you a little bit? Anybody here create the universe? Nobody, I said anybody here write the story? The big story we came into gave meaning and purpose to all the things that you see. Ah, nobody. Ah, that means you guys came into a story, didn't you? And I said exactly what you're saying, just in a little different way. And God gave us reason, intellect, free will, a conscience to figure out what is the truth. Right, can you imagine the pride of us, deacon, frank, we're sitting, we're one little dot in the universe and we think I got the answer to this Exactly. No wonder I'm depressed and anxious, exactly.
Speaker 2:You know there were two other articles, jack, that relate to this. It's really both of them deal with science because, you know, god gave us not only our faith, and there's a couple of things that really stood out. I wrote an article back in I think it was December of last year about eight probabilities what's the probability that a person would randomly fulfill eight prophecies that Jesus fulfilled? Now, jesus didn't fulfill eight. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Now. Jesus didn't fulfill eight. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that. Jesus didn't fulfill eight. He fulfilled over 300 prophecies. Okay, and a scientist, a math professor, along with 600 of his students, did a class exercise and the professor's name was Dr Peter Stoner.
Speaker 2:The class exercise took place in the early 1950s and the professor selected eight of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and none of the more difficult ones, like the resurrection from the dead or the ascension into heaven, which are prophecies in the Old Testament that Jesus does fulfill, and the eight. So they went about trying to calculate the probabilities on each of these eight preselected Old Testament prophecies, prophecies. Once they did that, dr Stoner removed the top you know the odds on the extreme the top 10% and bottom 10% to average out the 80%, and then they multiplied the eight calculations for 600 students and came up with an overall probability. What can you imagine? What the odds that someone randomly over the course of history would fulfill those eight predetermined prophecies contained in the Old Testament? I'll tell you the odds one in a hundred quadrillion. One in a hundred quadrillion, that's one with 17 zeros after it.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, right it's amazing. And that's eight, not 300 over 300 do you have one or two uh specific ones?
Speaker 2:one is of the eight you're talking about. Yeah, that he was born, that he would be born in bethlehem. Another, uh, that a precursor would announce.
Speaker 1:Which is really. You know, don't go past that too fast, because they're from Nazareth, and yet he's going to be born in Bethlehem, as the prophecy, and sure enough, he ends up in Bethlehem.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, it is, it absolutely is, and so you know.
Speaker 1:What was the other one? You were going to say that you were going to bring another one up, the other one has to do with the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar with the Sudarium, the Shroud of Turin? Are you familiar with the Shroud?
Speaker 1:of Turin, of course, yes, but for people that aren't, we have some new viewers.
Speaker 2:It's the burial cloth of Jesus, the Shroud of Turin, but the Sudarium of Oviedo is the cloth that covered his head while on the cross, and the Jewish faith was spiritually unclean to look upon a dead person. You would have to go through ceremonial cleansing in the temple in order to so what happened when Jesus died on the cross? They put a cloth over his head and fastened it to his head. Now it's referenced. That was standard practice. That was practice, common practice, would they have?
Speaker 1:done it to all three of the people on the cross, they would have. Yes, they would have.
Speaker 2:Okay, right, but in John's gospel it makes reference to these two cloths.
Speaker 2:You know, when Peter and John arrive at the tomb and Peter goes, in first he sees the cloth and then he makes reference to the burial cloth, not with the cloth, but folded up separately. Separately, yeah, okay. So what would have happened is, when Joseph of Arimat brought Jesus' body to the tomb, they would have taken the cedarium off and separated it, folded it up, apart from where Jesus was laid and the shroud would have covered his body, apart from where Jesus was laid and the shroud would have covered his body. Now, what's really extraordinary is the bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin and the bloodstains on the Sudarium match, and they still exist. These two cloths still exist. One is in Turin, italy, which is the Shroud, and Ovidio is in Spain, and they both exist. What scientists have done is taken the two cloths and matched them up and found 20 points of correlation between the two cloths Unbelievable, huh.
Speaker 2:And they said, in any court of law in the world, no more than 10 points of correlation are required to submit for evidence in that court that corroborate the two cloths, and this has 20. It not only has the same blood, but it has the same. There's two types of blood on the shroud and on the cedarium. One is blood, pure blood. Both have AB positive blood type, which is the same as every single Eucharistic miracle has AB positive blood type, and there's over 150 Eucharistic miracles. The second is there's blood and water.
Speaker 2:And remember Jesus' heart was pierced with a lance. When they would have taken him down from the cross, one of them would have wrapped his body over their shoulder while the other one was prying the nails out of his hands. Right, it would have had to happen or he would have fallen off the cross, okay. So what would have happened is balancing his body on the shoulder, some of that liquid that scientists, doctors, talk about, that form around the heart. When you go through the type of passion that Jesus went through and the scourging and the crucifixion, some of that water would have come out his nose and his mouth when his body was wrapped. Much of it came out the the side, some of what was left in the chest cavity would have come out of his nose and mouth, and they're both on both. Both this blood and water is on both the shroud of tauren and the uh, the sudarium of a vital in the same locations unbelievable.
Speaker 1:You can't make it up. Yeah, no, that no.
Speaker 2:That's science. That's not faith, that's science. When, just going back to the first point, which is the one in 100 quadrillion, dr Peter Stoner said to envision the magnitude of that silver dollars and you laid them out in the physical boundaries of Texas, you would fill Texas completely with a stack two feet high. Wow, you said, if you took one of those silver dollars and marked it with an X on it and then took a man, blindfolded him, put him in the middle of the state and said walk for as far as you want, in any direction, you pick one coin. The odds of one to 100 quadrillion is that you, the man, picks the one coin mark with the X in the entire state, two feet deep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when a young guy walks into the story, I think you know, as he reads Scripture, as what we're seeing, not only is the truth coming out, not only is that resonating with his heart, but it's starting to heal their brains.
Speaker 1:You know, it's amazing. You know, when you're into this toxic culture these young people are living through, deacon Frank, especially with pornography and those kind of things, you know, your neural pathways get rewired and it changes your actual, the way you think and the images you see. When you're reading scripture and you're reading Christ and you're walking into the story, there's a healing process that goes on and it's so beautiful to see. And not only are you receiving the word, which is true, not only are you getting away from this abusive language that we talked about before. I mean, there's a reason that Jesus is called the Word huh, because he brings the Word in and the truth in. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. It's such a beautiful thing when we just walk in the truth, you know, when you push away the lies that we're told. And that's the other thing with these young people they're told so many lies that they're seeking the truth.
Speaker 2:they want to know the truth. I agree, jack, and, and one of the things that people don't they know there's something not right, but they can't put their finger on it yep and I think yes a lot of it is that the culture has promised them happiness through pleasure, through pleasure and pleasure is not the same thing as happiness.
Speaker 2:Happiness is long lasting, you know, when you're happy and God gives us a heart, he wants us to be happy. Pleasure is about selfishness and seeking out pornography and whatever other things that might gratify us, but that's selfish. Happiness, on the other hand, comes from being selfless, giving of self, and when you do something for someone else, you feel good. You know, think of yourself, jack, and the great work you're doing on this podcast, right the series, and working with young men trying to find their way to the truth. You have to be drawing a great amount of happiness and joy from that work. It's an effort on your part, okay, but it's truly happy. You experience a happiness and a joy that you never experience by seeking out pleasure.
Speaker 1:Oh, and John Paul, you know he spoke to young people often. As you know, deacon Frank, he's the one that started the World Youth Days, et cetera. And he would say over and over again, to your point young people, you know that your life has meaning to the extent that it's given away as a gift to others. He said if you want meaning, if you want peace, if you want happiness, give your life away. And you know and you think about here's Jesus on the cross, right, this is my body, given for you, and he pours himself out. You say you know, why would someone do that? Right? You do it out of love, you know, and it's only until you start to give yourself away that you find yourself. You know, and it's only until you start to give yourself a way that you find yourself, you find meaning, because this is the actual objective truth of love. And here's the last thing I'll just say in this segment and throw it back in your court Love today, Deacon Frank, has been reduced down to a feeling and then further reduced down to sex.
Speaker 1:So sex is that pleasure that we're told is going to find happiness, but sexual expression is the two becoming one in true love. And that's where you find real happiness, you know, not in using and abuse. In fact, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is using someone for your own pleasure, and you'll never find what you're looking for there, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely right. You couldn't have said it better, jack. It's about giving of self, and that's really what marriage is about, right, giving yourself to your soulmate, your life partner, if you will, and building a life together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look how many marriages, I think. And look, we get a lot of emails and a lot of people want to meet because I do a lot of talks on marriages and things, right, right, and marriage is in bad shape right now because we forgot what you just said. Both spouses are trying to get you know, find infinite happiness and you know out of a finite person, and they're using each other to try to find something that's not really there. It's not brain surgery, is it, deacon Frank?
Speaker 1:I got to be filled with divine life and love from the one hanging on the cross there in the Trinity, and then I have to become that person of love and as I receive, I have something to give away. We're trying to give something to people that we don't have, and then we're trying to grasp something that they don't have, and this is a futile problem. How many marriages break up because we don't understand that it's over?
Speaker 2:50% now of Catholic marriages that fail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're the same as-.
Speaker 2:Very unfortunate, which is very unfortunate, and what we have to do is recognize what marriage is all about. It's about procreation, it's about raising a family, it's about giving of self. The family is the domestic church.
Speaker 1:It's the domestic church.
Speaker 2:And what we have to do is recognize that we have a role to play in God's plan for our salvation, and all of us have been given unique gifts and different opportunities to touch people, and that's the exciting part of it. I can touch many people by being a deacon in a parish and writing articles and meeting a stranger on the street. There's so many different opportunities that present itself into being the best husband and the best father and the best grandfather that I can be. That's really what it's living a life in Christ.
Speaker 1:And I'll tell you what, and I'm going to make a little plug here for this Claymore sword behind me and I'm going to send you Deacon.
Speaker 1:If you know, and just to remind people that are new to the show that Claymore Miletus Christi is right on our website you go to jp2reneworg, jp2reneworg or go to resources and you can download the outline of that battle plan and what it does Deacon for the people that we're working with is it helps you disciple multiple young people, because what happens is, you know, we only have so much bandwidth, so much time, and so if you meet somebody and I'm speaking to our whole audience here as you meet somebody, don't let them fall through the cracks. These young people. If you let them fall through the cracks, they'll get excited for a while and the world will sweep them away. So when you see that, just look at Claymore, download it. And I asked the other person to download it and the whole outline is there. It's John Paul II's three-part blueprint for taking back the individual human heart, marriage and the family, and then going out into the vineyard and restoring the culture, and it's all there laid out.
Speaker 2:That's building from inside out right. Yes, sir you got to fix yourself first. You can't do it unless you fix yourself Deacon.
Speaker 1:Frank say that again. You got to fix who first. You got to fix yourself first. Yes, you do, and that is right on. If you look at Claymore, miletus Christi, it starts with the individual human heart. Schultz and Eason said that. Do you remember Alexander? Schultz and Eason said he's in a gulag, he comes out and he said I figured out. You know, marxism is wrong because we forgot about original sin and it always starts in the individual human heart. That most of the evil. You and I started talking about evil right in the beginning of the show. Most of the evil. John Paul would say the same thing. Out in the world are men and women cooperating with the evil one. Most of the evil right. Abortion again, all those things that we brought up, the trans things, the human sex trafficking, the fentanyl, that's, human beings that their hearts have been twisted right and distorted Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Now I know you want to go to my article on. Mary's perpetual virginity. I do.
Speaker 1:We're going to run out of time aren't we? So let's do this then. The main point and I want to make sure we cover that first. The main point is how about these brothers and sisters? We hear about Deacon, frank and the gospel. That's the main thing.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things we have to recognize is that Mary's perpetual virginity is a dogma of the Catholic faith, which means it's the highest teaching. Okay, and for Catholic in good standing, all dogmas must be believed. So how does this jive with our reading of sacred scripture? Well, all of the eastern Mediterranean in the fourth century BC and was in existence right up to 600. That was the common language.
Speaker 2:Many of the figures in the New Testament have two different names and that's because they have a Greek name and they have a Hebrew name. Mark's name is Greek, his Hebrew name is John. He's John Mark, but we call him Mark. He's the author of the second gospel and you can look at numerous examples Matthew and Levi, right, same person. Levi is the Hebrew name, matthew is the Greek name.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Koine Greek was the common language spoken amongst the Eastern Mediterranean up until 600 AD. Now this dogma was pronounced at a ecumenical council in 553, at the Second Council of Constantinople. Now, all of the Eastern Catholic bishops that were present would have known Koine Greek. In Koine Greek, the word for brother and sister is adelphoi, and it didn't only mean brother and sister, it meant cousin, it meant sister-in-law, brother-in-law, a whole series of relationships. A good example of this is and it's written in the Gospels, where Jesus is on the cross, and in John's Gospel it makes reference to the fact and below the cross, at the foot of the cross, was his mother and his mother's sister, mary of Clopas. Now, taking that, you say, if they're truly sisters, if Adelphoi only means sisters, then that means St Joachim and St Anne named two of their daughters, mary.
Speaker 1:Yes, what's the logic of that Not going to happen? So?
Speaker 2:it's sister-in-law in that case, right. And the case with the brothers and sisters that are referenced in the Gospels. You know, mark mentions several of them, right, they are cousins and they are children of Mary Clopas and that's in Scripture too, right Deacon Frank? Yes, yes, yes, it makes reference to two of the four that are mentioned as being sons of Mary of Clopas.
Speaker 1:Yes, the other thing is that you mentioned in the article is that Jesus turns to John. He says to John you know, this is your mother now, right? In other words and here's your son that Jesus wouldn't have done that if he had other actual siblings around, right? So you?
Speaker 2:want to just touch on that real quick because I thought that was a great point. You know, jewish tradition was that. You know it was very tribal, very family oriented, right. And so it would have been a tremendous dishonor to his mother, mm-hmm, and to his if he had siblings, his siblings for doing that To give his mother away to somebody.
Speaker 1:That wasn't related Correct, he wouldn't have done that right, correct, correct, yeah, so these are great.
Speaker 2:You made great points in there. The other one that I think is, you know, I love the Old Testament. I grew up, you know, really liking Matthew's gospel because of all of these prophecies that are included in it, and so I started, as I got older, started to read the Old Testament and there's a wealth of information there, and one of the things that the Old Testament does is topology. There's topology is the study of what the Old Testament prophesizes is fulfilled in the New Testament.
Speaker 2:And one of the things is the Ark of the Covenant, and in the Ark of the Covenant there was this there was the box that God asked. You know it was the holiest object that there was kept in the holy of holies and no one could touch it. And you know, it was just extremely holy, it was the presence of God on earth. Extremely holy, it was the presence of God on earth. And Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant because she carried God himself and one prefigures what is ultimately fulfilled, and so the thing that Mary wouldn't be pure and not have any, you know, the Ark of the Covenant. There's an example where someone actually touches the Ark of the Covenant, drops dead, Drops dead.
Speaker 1:You know, it's such a holy image that you just painted that it would almost be in my mind right, and as you're in the church long enough, it would almost be like there's no way that Mary didn't stay pure.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:We would go the other way and you just when I'm speaking to my Protestant friends and evangelical friends, sometimes they have a struggle with this, but I think if they really sat on it, Deacon, like you just brought out with it, you know, looking back at the Old Testament, the New Testament, thinking that this is God himself takes on a body, and look at the Old Testament, the New Testament, thinking that this is God himself takes on a body, and look at the privilege that this woman had. I mean, sometimes I think of our Blessed Mother and I think, you know, God actually took a human being and now she's the Queen of Heaven. There's no way that she didn't stay pure.
Speaker 2:There's no way Before this dogma was pronounced in 553, two of the most famous of the church fathers you know, those are the earliest men that wrote orthodoxy and two that are prominent. One is Jerome, who translated the entire Bible Old and New Testament into one language, the Latin, which was called the Latin Vulgate, as well as St Athanasius who, in 325, was a deacon at the first council of Nicaea with a Nicene Creed, that which we Catholics recite every Sunday.
Speaker 2:He was the author of much of that document. Athanasius and both of them, in their writings, write about Mary's perpetual virginity. Yeah, this was early, early, early, early on, you're talking about two very yeah right, one in the beginning of the fourth century and the other one at the end of the fourth century. And this dogma came into existence in the sixthth century, 553 AD. So I have no doubts of Mary's perpetual virginity. In fact, you know, if you really look for answers and search for the truth, you'll find it.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Mary's perpetual virginity is the truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you brought it up and I'll make sure I link your. You know a number of your articles. I'll link at least a couple of these in the show notes so people have them. The other thing you did is you brought up in the Old Testament there was a precedent for this already that people would actually spouses, would get married, and yet they took a vow of virginity Perpetual virginity.
Speaker 2:And if the husband, did not that person if that woman get married? And yet they took a vow of virginity Perpetual virginity and if?
Speaker 2:the husband did not, that person, that woman, got married. If the husband did not reject it on the day he was told, then it stayed in full force and effect. That's in Numbers, chapter 30. One thing I did want to mention if anyone is interested in reading any of my articles, the link that they can type in is Catholic Exchange, deacon Frank. You can type in Catholic Exchange, deacon Frank. There'll be a link that'll pop up. You can hit that link and all of my 19 articles will appear.
Speaker 1:You're a treasure. Any last parting advice for these young people coming in, I mean, it's exciting to be able to be with them, to walk with them, to talk with them.
Speaker 2:But parting word to these young men and women that are searching for the truth. As I said, Jesus is the truth and he wants us to believe with our whole hearts that he is the one set apart by God to be our redemption, the source of our redemption. And we are called to true discipleship, which means 24-7, being committed to living a life of true discipleship and making a difference in our lives for the betterment of others. The old Baltimore Catechism, which I grew up in you may have grown up with it says why did God create us? That was the very first question, and the answer was to know him, to love him and to serve him so as to be with him in the next life.
Speaker 2:Okay, and that order is very important, you must first know him. You can't love him and serve him unless you first know him, and the best source for knowing him is the scriptures and the church. The second is to serve to love, and that love will come through knowledge. And then, lastly, when you have knowledge and love, the service becomes very easy. Don't put that. That order is very important for anyone listening.
Speaker 1:You can't give what you don't have.
Speaker 2:It's knowledge, love and service. Correct.
Speaker 1:Can't give what you don't have. Hey, God bless you, Deacon thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks for your time.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being with us. Thanks, everyone. Talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.