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
#657 Beyond Feelings: The Transformative Power of Reverence in an Age of Degradation
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Reverence feels like a relic from another time, yet its absence leaves us spiritually and relationally impoverished. Greg Schlueter, author and family movement leader, joins Jack to explore why reverence matters in an age that devalues in human life itself.
The conversation takes us deep into the transformative power of reverence – not as empty ritual, but as the gateway to authentic relationship. "Our bodies, in fact our bodies alone, make visible the invisible, the spiritual and the divine," drawing from Saint John Paul II's profound theology of the body.
When we genuflect, bow our heads, or dress respectfully for sacred spaces, we're not merely performing – we're allowing our physical selves to express spiritual realities.
This crisis of reverence extends far beyond church walls. Our casual approach to commitments – showing up late, dismissing obligations, treating our word as provisional – reflects a deeper spiritual problem. "The enemy strikes at the heart of this by saying commitment is not sacred, it's dismissible," Greg explains. When everyday promises become optional, authentic community crumbles.
Here's Gregs article: The Case for Reverence in an Age of Casualness
Jack's Latest Blog: Stepping Up to True Love: The Fall and the Call to Be a Man of God
Holy Communion, where we are kind of our word, is our word right and the commitments that we're making do matter. Our yes means yes, our no means no. The enemy strikes at the heart of this Jack by saying commitment is not sacred, it's dismissible.
Speaker 2:John Paul said this great thing you know. Our bodies, in fact our bodies alone, make visible the invisible, the spiritual and the divine. Our bodies were created to transfer into the visible reality of this world that mystery hidden from all eternity in God, and be a sign of it. And what is that mystery? God is a trinity. He's an eternal exchange of love. So when we walk into the Mass, into the liturgy, it's not just something we do, it forms us because we're opening ourselves up to that eternal exchange of love. Why? So that I can become that.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. Today's topic is the Case for Reverence in an Age of Casualness. It's the title of a piece written by Greg Schleter. Greg's an author, speaker, movement leader, passionate about restoring faith, family and culture. In addition to directing communication and marketing for the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership, he leads Trinity, a dynamic marriage and family movement. He hosts the popular radio program, a podcast, ignite Radio Live. His recent books are the Magnificent Piglets of Pigletsville we got to hear a little bit about that Twelve Roses and Slaying Giants. Greg, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much, jack. Great to be with you. So before we dig in here, magnificent Piglets of Pigletsville, give us one minute on that, will you.
Speaker 1:Okay. So Animal Farm meets CS Lewis Screwtape Letters, set in 2020, with a political tumult and just praying through all that and saying, you know, I could write articles and blessed by that. But we need to present in the package of beauty, if you will, of a story and so a lot of the reality that we, as Catholics, are called to engage in this marketplace of ideas, of politics. So the cosmology is one of piglets and wolves who dress not in sheep's clothing, but piglets clothing. And, as I say right at the outset of this, usually you see these disclaimers that say characters and figures and circumstances are not necessarily intended. I come right out and say they very much are intended and you've got all the major characters playing out in the political arena, certainly 2023, 24.
Speaker 1:And really the heartbeat of this is we've all been fashioned for a God, we've been fashioned for a destination, to go somewhere, not just everywhere or anywhere, but we're destined for somewhere and that's kind of the guiding thesis of the story. As it unveils, willie is an orphan piglet Many of us might be able to relate to him and he faces, as a paperboy and his perch in Pigletsville. He faces the current of conversation and how easily people are persuaded and how the graduality of we're drawn into, if you will, lies and whispers when we're destined for glory and greatness. How that leads the arc leads into a lot of things we've faced in the last four years.
Speaker 2:And I predict, I actually predict yeah, I mean, I actually predict.
Speaker 1:I will say what happened with the presidency, the prior presidency and even the characters who were involved with that a year prior to. So that should be enough to intrigue people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it should be enough. I'm going to put your information in the show links. There's a couple other things. You got a blog going. You got a couple other things that I didn't mention in the intro, but we'll get all those links. So before you get off today, I'll make sure I get those links. I'm going to get that book. I really liked it. I'm intrigued by that. Of course, I love Animal Farm. I love Orwell. He did a pretty good job. Who published that for you?
Speaker 1:So self-publishing Freshman Project. It was really, as you may know, an act of worship. The root of worship we'll get into this later, but it's applicable is to give worth and it's to acknowledge that. God put this in my heart and, as you know, you rattle off a thesis and you begin cooperating with it and before you know it, it becomes a page, becomes a chapter, becomes an architecture and a whole story, and up at 2 am and filling it out weeks and months after probably was about a three-month process. And so I just felt like you know, I don't have a publisher but I can easily do it through this Kindle Direct Publishing and pretty grateful for the reception. I mean, it's been well-reviewed by people I know and love and I do think you've got to love those CS Lewis. You have to love and appreciate philosophy a little bit and I'd say I really there is a unlike Tolkien and CS Lewis, who avoided the terminology of maybe allegory and they spoke of maybe applicability. I very definitely have a one-on-one correspondence of my characters and the circumstances.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, thank you, you know, just for our. I'll give you a little background now. I wasn't going to do this, but see the sword behind me, greg. Yes, and so that sword is a Claymore sword. It's a big sword, you know, made famous by William Wallace and Braveheart.
Speaker 2:That's an apostle that we have for young men so young, you know, men Gen Z, basically high school all the way we call it, all the way into their early 30s, which extends it out a little bit. But they're seeking the truth and this is why I want to tell you a little bit. They're seeking the truth. All philosophy begins with awe and wonder, opening our minds. And this gets into this article. I think, about reverence. You know, it's an awe and wonder. It's an awe and wonder of what's going on around us. It's the awe and wonder of walking into a church. It's the awe and wonder of seeing the beauty of a woman. And they go, ooh, what was that? And we lost that reverence. And you address all of those in your own way in this article. You started out your piece talking about your dad's unique brand of reverence. What did he teach you? What did you mean by that and how did that fit into the way you were formed as a young guy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, great question. So most of us Catholics, at our best, are good soldiers. We are responding to value and that's a heart of this Von Hildebrand. I've been influenced by his thought philosophy, which really is a response to value. God is the supreme value and we respond to him through all aspects of life and the decisions we're called to make and we ought to. We see the development of a child into adulthood.
Speaker 1:You initially don't know why you're full in your hands or kneeling or whatever, and it becomes just I respond because there's a justice or a connection to the good that I don't need to understand or feel. Let me state that Now. My dad is a good German, solid Catholic man, had this additional quality that I think Catholics may have missed and is very much a part of this, and that is the heart capacity. Right, it's that Matthew 7, 21,. Christ says many will come on my name. Look at all these great things we did. We healed the sick, raised the dead.
Speaker 1:I'll embellish, we pray our rosaries and novenas, and to hear him say depart from me, I never knew you. Well, that's really kind of a you know, kind of a challenging, you know passage for us. You know that I do all these things. But he'll say depart from me, I never. The word to know ginosko is a conjugal kind of knowledge to know God.
Speaker 1:So I don't want to dismiss that and I'll say my dad back to my dad early on, it wasn't just going to Mass and praying rosaries and the beauty of our faith given to us by Christ, it was this sense of attending to it. Here's the word intentionality, and so certainly prayers from the heart to a significant degree he would lead that. But it would stray, as I say in the first paragraph, into public prayer, like the divine office, where we'd be treated to, treated to pauses in the midst of this public prayer of the divine office, to little homilies and insights, which I think actually overall is delightful. But you don't, you know, it may play or prey upon the modern sense that if we don't feel it there's no value.
Speaker 2:So let's just you call it Bernie-izing in there what your dad did, right, he would add his kind of personal what feelings maybe? Into this, you know, or you know, trying to personalize it. You know you mentioned transferring the mundane into the eternal. I wasn't sure how to take that, though I wasn't sure if you were praising him for that or if you thought, you know, dad, maybe there was a time where you shouldn't be interjecting. So give me a little background on that. What was the feeling?
Speaker 1:So this world could stand Catholics in particular, to more fully attend to this relational dynamic. As Pope Benedict XVI's trilogy, jesus of Nazareth, you know, the heart of it is relationship at the heart of ritual, the relationship at the heart of religion, 100%. Many Catholics could benefit from seeing the value of being intentional versus just rattling through things. My dad was particularly attuned to that fact. So I'm kind of affirming, acknowledging, expressing the gratitude for the focus on the intentional, relational part, which is very important. Catechism 2111 and so many words says you know, disciplines without dispositions is superstition. That's important, but there's a little bit of a sense here.
Speaker 2:You better unpack that. We got a lot of young people coming in yeah, and they're going wait, which I think you can just say a little slower for them. Sure, appreciate that. Yeah, because that's important. Yeah, so the disciplines are.
Speaker 2:And say it in a way that if a young person's coming out and now, look, we've got a lot of people that have been around for a long time in our general audience, right, but we've got some young people and we're very excited about them, the connection I think is is and you're making is from the heart to actually what you see right In our, in our bodies, our reverence, the way we act, the way we speak, and that speaks from that heart. So so here I am exposing or manifesting the way I feel about this, but it's not just feelings, it's the reality, right, it's it's of God, and we're connecting, right, we're making that connection. So I just want to slow you down a little bit, because you're saying so many great things and I just want you to make sure it doesn't pass anybody Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:I admit that I'm a fire hose recovering fire hose and I appreciate the slowing down, jack, any time. So I think our parents' generation I'm in my 50s, they're a generation when they're raising kids that was given the what's of the faith, yes, but they were really never pressed with the whys.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I would argue that as we navigated our faith and we were in a generation, I'm going to say, rightfully asking why. Now the little ladies who just were faithful praise God. They were simple, they said yes, but there's a value to asking why. Along comes the Scott, Hans and those who write found in their asking the why's, every question that we could possibly have. And if you out there who are listening, and maybe you're Catholic and you wonder why contraception or the Eucharist and real presence or saints and intercession, bring those questions, because there's good answers. So we're a generation that we're given the whys and the whys are deepened, if you will, by a sense of heart, of intention, of God.
Speaker 1:You're not about me being just a good actor, right, If faith was just about performance being just a good actor, right, If faith was just about performance, the best actor would go to heaven. Right, Because they could perform or conform to external things, obligations. Clearly that's not enough. I want to say that A heart piece again the Gnosko word from Matthew 7, 21, to know God is absolutely important. But equally I think is important is not reducing this relationship to Christ to what I feel, and that's where the church's magnificent comes in articulating truths. You know.
Speaker 2:And just to interject again, you know, getting back to that analogy of an actor, a really fine actor will get into character. A really fine actor isn't just going through the motions, he studies the character, he knows the character and this is what we're talking about. With our faith we come to know Jesus Christ as a person and sometimes it comes very quickly for some people. Sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was a young guy, greg the sacred, I felt the sacred, I really felt the sacred when I was at mass, et cetera. But yeah, the culture would sweep you up and then you start to question things and unfortunately for a lot of us, that heart got disconnected right to get that connection back. That role that we're playing is a sacred role and the character that we're getting into is Christ himself, is coming up so close to Christ, so close to the reality, that we start to take it inside and start to manifest it. So we're acting a part, but we're acting a part talking about philosophy that's bringing out what's true, what's good, what's beautiful, especially the beauty of love, into this world, and that's where the heart and the connection comes from. I know that's kind of a mouthful to throw back at you.
Speaker 1:And this is a bit of a yes, 100%, but this is a bit of a deepening of this modern postulate, this idea. It's correcting the modern postulate that I think, or I feel, therefore I am. That's the modern error. It's a pandemic that is extremely dangerous. The truth is what I feel, right. We see it played out in identity, politics and sexuality. I feel like I'm thus and such, and if you do the sociological, psychological, physical studies on those who follow that course, again I feel therefore I am. You see the bankruptcy, you see the brokenness, you see the raw data of those who, for instance, who are biological males God made them that way and whatever conspires to have them think. It's beyond my pay grade whether nature nurture and all that. I know there's insight there. But to go against what is, you know, like a road with its berms. I can't determine those side, I can crash into it going 80 miles an hour and I'm going to be hurt. As Cecil B DeMille said, you really can't break the moral law, you can only break yourself against it. So the balancing is an articulation that there are lines in the road and they're not ordered toward just being the actor, if you will, and performing. They are truly ordered towards a right relationship. No different between us and God is with us and a spouse and, as you know, a spouse can read right through sincerity those who love us, you know they can read right through that. There's a guideline and it's such a blessing that brings us, as I say, in the article too, there's a sense of an invitation to authentic community here, value of God revealed in other things, not just what I feel or what I think Like. I'm conforming, I need to conform, I need to desire, as the great saints have said, I want to desire what God desires. There's a humility today in saying that versus why I just feel this. I just want to watch this or get my phone out and we've become puppets. Right, we become slaves to whims. Invoke CS Lewis again screw tape letters. We were talking about that earlier. You know your feelings are.
Speaker 1:The Holy Spirit, I would think, is some of the modern concerns and here's with the care I love, the dimension of the Holy Spirit, life in the spirit. Orthodoxy, catechism speaks of this, but it's ordered, rightly, within the bounds that Christ gave. And I'm the dad of a son who's a world-renowned musician. Counting my blessings, he's a solid Catholic guy and Caleb all over the world. We're a family that did praise and worship. We still do. We think that's very important, that relational dimensionality.
Speaker 1:All of that, though, must be rightly ordered to the value given to us by the church, which gives us those berms of the road and, interestingly enough, jack, like as I was articulating this, it's a lot to chew.
Speaker 1:Let me just say what we're talking about is a lot to chew, but the end is intimacy with God, not just a feel floofy who I feel, because guess what?
Speaker 1:That intimacy was playing out in the Garden of Gethsemane. The intimacy was playing out with Christ crying out on the cross. In fact, it was called glory, like we need to be Romans 12, 1 and 2, transformed to conform to God's understanding of what is flourishing, what is intimacy, and it does involve the Paschal mystery, right, it does involve the Paschal mystery. It does involve the mom at 2 am, the dad getting up at 2 am when the baby's crying or sick. That's love, and that's a gift that God gives us, and it's formed. Here's the thing it's formed by liturgy, like liturgy is a gift that we don't determine, but determines us, right, it's the source and summit that ought to forge, rightly, our perception of the rules of the road such that we can have rightly ordered hearts and truly live in the light of a authentic, living, breathing intimacy that doesn't go off the rails and is not reduced to whim, is not reduced to screw tape or wormwood whispering lies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you're talking about liturgy here again for our younger audience you're specifically speaking about the Mass here, right?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:When you're thinking liturgy. So this is public worship for everybody joining us and we're stepping into that arena. So what Greg brings out in his article is that there's a place for prayer, private prayer, individual prayer. Right, we have this plan with Claymore. You get down on your knees in the morning, you open up your heart to God and you start to communicate, you start to lift up your temptations to him, et cetera.
Speaker 2:But now when we're stepping into mass, I say to young people a lot let's just step back and say, hey, we didn't create the universe, we didn't write the big story. We came into a story. So, first of all, individual prayer. We're talking to God. Here's on my heart. But now I think we walk into the mass and we're saying, okay, he's the one that wrote the greater story and we walk in humbly. We do it through our body gestures you mentioned in the article. When you kneel, when you bow, when you do these things, you know you're showing reverence to your body. Say, hey, I walked into the story. I'm meeting the author of the story and he wants to communicate, not only communicate with me. You just mentioned it. He's got the Paschal mystery, he's hanging on the cross, he's pouring himself out to us. Man, there's got to be an awe and wonder there, right, a reverence there, because we have to be open to that and not just a feeling, like you said.
Speaker 2:And here's the last point I'll make. And these young guys joining us know, you know, love in today's culture has been reduced down to a feeling, greg, and then further reduced down to sex. They know now that it can't be just feelings. So they're following you on that, right, we know it's not about feelings. So now, what's the reverence? You know what happens when we're walking into for them. They're walking into a mass right now and maybe they're not feeling it right. So walk them through there. Walk them through why the body language of reverence and the things you get to in the article are so important as a form, huh, as a form and a structure. And we come in and, ooh, we can almost just relax in a way, if we just open ourselves up, can't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And as you described it, like, the liturgy is connected to every aspect of life, and I might even just to peak what you're saying. So romance, dating, sexuality, right, which are participating in the very nature of God, right, he ordered our desires, as John Paul II, in so many words said, the heart of the sexual urge is an urge to a completion that can only be found in God. Like, we're given this urge, that's a good thing. I mean, that's the problem with porn, right, and other things. It's not that the core of it is bad, it's a twisting. The compass is pointed off due north.
Speaker 1:And all of us, you know, when we're by ourselves, we experience the splintering with our consciences given, rightly formed. We experience the splintering when even in our thought world, our emotional world, we're off course. What a gift the conscience is. And so not just in liturgy, which forges us, gives us clarity on the specific ethical, moral aspects of the gospel, edifies us through the grace of the sacraments. Because we can't do it, I think there's a lie too, like I can just, raw, pelagian, right, muster up this strength to live this moral life. No, I need God's grace to anoint my mind and heart in this realm of desires. But it translates also into the kinds of relationships outside of holy communion that are ordered toward holy community. There it is. The measure of our receiving holy communion rightly, authentically, fully is the degree to which we are seeking to foster and living in holy community. So when we, for instance, have I'm going to just get right there invite people to an event on a Friday night and it's 7 pm, and you say, really love it, if you come on time, we've got a series, it's Father Ricardo, we're doing the rescue project and you committed seven weeks, it doesn't mean kind of sort of maybe pencil it in. If you're going to say yes and show up 7-15, no big deal, we get that. There are things that can come up, a broken tire on the way, got it.
Speaker 1:But factored into people's minds is a dismissiveness of order, is a dismissiveness of this order which ties into our participation in the sacred. So the community dimension ought to tap or flow from holy communion, where we are kind of our word is our word right and the commitments that we're making do matter. Our yes means yes, our no means no. The enemy strikes at the heart of this, jack, by saying commitment is not sacred, it's dismissible, it's kind of sort of I remember the good friend of ours, father Ed Losey, in the day now Bishop Losey, friends in Erie, pa said Gregory, the crisis is not with the priesthood or I'm imitating him poorly is not with the priesthood or religious life. We have a crisis in commitment.
Speaker 1:I'm suggesting at a deeper level, it's a crisis of regarding true value in God, revealed through the smallest commitments that God invites us to make. To put it in the positive way to be on time at 7 pm, to respond faithfully, to make commitments, to get up at 2 am, to set aside other things are sacred participations in the life of God. That liturgy, right liturgy, good liturgy teaches us Not a function of if I feel it kind of sort of and again evangelical, let's not get rid of that word. It is a Catholic understanding. But the liturgy, specifically at its core, is given to us to either respond or reject, to bow down, whether we understand it or not, like it or not. Why so? That it forms us to be humbly availed to the value that is in our midst. We've missed this central insight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to piggyback on that. You write that liturgy isn't something we do, it's something that forms us. And again, I think we need to sit on that. It's not just something we do, it's something that forms us when we think.
Speaker 2:Greg John Paul said this great thing Our bodies, in fact our bodies alone, make visible the invisible, the spiritual and the divine. Our bodies were created to transfer into the visible reality of this world that mystery hidden from all eternity in God and be a sign of it. And what is that mystery? God is a trinity. He's an eternal exchange of love. So when we walk into the mass, into the liturgy, it's not just something we do, it forms us because we're opening ourselves up to that eternal exchange of love. Why? So that I can become that and then I can manifest it in the world.
Speaker 2:It's not brain surgery we're talking about here, it's the two great commandments right, love God, be open, receive and then love your neighbor, be that. But to do that takes grace, and this is the beauty of this reverence, this is the beauty of the connections. If every other word out of my mouth is an F, this and an F, that every other word out of my mouth is an F this and an F that. If I dress slovenly, if I don't respect my family, my neighbor and if I don't walk into the liturgy with that respect, it doesn't form me. Greg, there's a process here, isn't there, and it's so beautiful. When we think that we're sacramental, our bodies make visible our souls. We think that we're sacramental, Our bodies make visible our souls. God, that spark that you said, that God gave us, even for love of, say, a spouse, you know, and this is all coming from this connection A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And to maybe fill this out with great leadership from our leaders, cardinal Burke, almost the same time that this article was released, had a letter appealed to Pope Leo XIV, and it's about this very subject. If you allow me, in the National Catholic Register. If I could read some of his punctuation here, he says sacred liturgy is the church's greatest treasure and irreplaceable. He continued adding that disorder and corruption within the faith and its practice will not be able to stand in the face of the truth, beauty and goodness contained in the worship of God in spirit and truth. He goes on to say divine worship has been established not by man but by our Lord himself, and so fidelity to tradition, how it has been handed down since the time of the apostles, is paramount. He goes on and I could keep reading here, but just some key ideas. Respect for tradition is nothing less than respect for the eus divinum between God and his creation, especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. Very worth reading. And then the cautionary note but he noted and exaggerated focus on the human aspect of the sacred liturgy, unquote in the post-conciliar period of the past 60 years, which he said, leads to a diminished emphasis on encountering God through sacramental signs and to a neglect of man's right relationship with God. He goes on, but how true and authentic and lifting beyond the common critique of maybe Catholicism for those who aren't Catholic or don't understand it, that it's not about just going through the motions, it's not just this externalism, it's not about performance.
Speaker 1:Again, my article is very influenced by Dietrich von Hildebrand's Liturgy and Personality, written in 1936, a book for everybody to read, because it articulates this right response to value, which you know, when we do it for his own good, not because I'm going to get this out of it or he's going to do something for me, but because he made me, in relationship to him, to bow, to worship, where I'm going to find my greatest fulfillment in my nature. By virtue of that, our interior life is going to be healed, it's going to be transformed, it's going to be rightly ordered and you know which of us, with this digital age, this dopamine dispensers in our pockets don't need even the best of us hand in the air here need to be mindful. Why? Why am I reaching in my pocket instead of maybe seeing that it's? It's not just an intentional. I need to find out my daughter is needs to be picked up. Kind of got that picked up, kind of got that. But I mean I'm reaching in my pocket. Why? Because there's disorder in me, because I'm not.
Speaker 1:There's an aptitude for fulfillment, a need, a desire for something to fulfill me in that moment and in days gone by, without these things, I'd be left with turning to horizontal things which have their value. But it's this vertical, this go vertical to God, this capacity to almost respond to that. What if we reprogrammed ourselves to thinking of the inclination to the digital as a summons to God to praise him, to worship him, to adore him explicitly and intentionally? The more I've done that, jack, by the way, and invited our family, our children, our friends to really practice that the more that vertical beam is cultivated in our relationship with God. We look at the cross. It's a great image. The vertical beam holds up the horizontal. So many of us are scrambling after the horizontal and they may be good things, like my kids, I need to pray for them and they're dealing with this 100%. That's going to be inconsequential and ineffective the degree to which we don't cultivate the verticality of our nature and relationship with God, which again is forged by liturgy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we have to make sure it's clear here that those two things that you just brought up are linked. Yes, in other words, you know, john Paul would say, the problem with pornography it's not that it reveals too much, it reveals too little, it doesn't reveal the human heart, you know. But when you said that about the kids, yeah, of course you love the kids, et cetera, et cetera, but you're never going to be infinitely filled. You'll never be able to infinitely fill them. So ultimately we take that, that communion, that community, and we lift it up to God. So these are linked.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes I think, greg, we try to live these two separate lives. You know, I go out and I try to love my neighbor. You know, I bring God right into my neighbor, right, that's the reason I went there in the first place. Right, I went there because my neighbor's sick or my neighbor's lonely you know an old person or whatever, right, and I walk in and I see God in that person in Mother Teresa, right, and I walk in and I see God in that person in Mother Teresa, right. So these are linked.
Speaker 2:The other thing I just want to say real quickly is when you know there's a lot of evangelicals say that listen to this show also. We're not just Catholics on here, even though we have, you know, obviously with John Paul II Renewal Center, we have a Catholic slant. But when they see us genuflect, when they see us bow even the name Jesus Christ, you know you make a little sign. You know I always say they'll ask me why do you need to do that? Does God need Jack to bow down? And blah, blah, blah. Is that the God we have? I said the problem with you you don't have a crucifix with a corpus on it.
Speaker 2:When you look up at a cross and you see Jesus Christ, the God, the creator of the universe, who pours himself out to us. When I see that and I see how he humbled himself, I think I can make a little bow to that. You know, and I think that's a big deal, when you take the crucifix and the corpus of Jesus Christ's suffering out of your liturgy, you forget that, and I think there's a reverence that you don't pick up on right away. When you walk into a Catholic church with the stained glass windows and the corpus there and beautiful music, there's something that lifts you up, isn't there?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm going to make a quick point here. If you don't stay plugged in, you go dead, you go silent. So, as you're chatting here, i'm'm going to make a quick point here. If you don't stay plugged in, you go dead, you go silent. So, as you're chatting here, I'm just going to make sure I plug in my power, as I'm seeing at the end. Yes, a little illustration. Yes, right back. In the honor of my wife, who must have unplugged it to vacuum the carpet which I do often also, but just making the point.
Speaker 1:Anyway, it's right back in the saddle here.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. Well, we'll pick up on that a little bit. You know God started this. You know the reverence. You know he thought we were a pretty big deal when he created us and I think that's always trying to lift us up right, coming in to restore the glory. St Irenaeus right, the glory of God is man fully alive? So when you think about Jesus and the agony of the garden, the scourging getting crucified, carrying the cross, this is a God who always has been humbling himself and leaning toward us, and I think that's just so important for us to remember.
Speaker 1:I agree and really practically we've sort of touched on the real life implications in this, which can be really deep and thick liturgy, right Philosophy, but the practical implications of relationship and being rightly formed and not just languishing.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that. Let's, you know, talk about how a man looks at a woman. We're going to ask you to join us by helping us get the word out. So, if you can make sure you subscribe and then hit like, no matter which platform you're on, remember that the Become who you Are podcast is on audio and any music or podcast app we're up on Rumble YouTube. You can find us on X. When you do subscribe, hit the like button. The eyes of reverence, greg. I mean, this is practical every time we turn around. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the core of it is that I want to see, as Frank Sheed said, to see the world sanely is to see it God-bathed right. To see the world sanely, and which of us aren't suffering within sanity right? We keep saying, doing, thinking the same things, expecting a different result. So what are the dynamics of this sanity? Well, it's number one I don't, I'm not God Like start there. I didn't create this world, I didn't create this order, I'm not the, I can't determine the sides of the road. So if we believe that and we've experienced ourselves, you know, going 75 miles an hour and think we can crash into the berm because we created the rules we're going to get wounded. So most of us now, post 30, 40 years, post-truth society, deconstructionism, this is where many are at. They're really wounded and they're looking for, well, what's the truth? And so Wormwood has been whispering very well, don't look at Catholics. They got pedophilia thing going on and it's jumped through the motions and you know, they walk into mass. If they did hypothetically, if they did hypothetically, and you know, show me, you believe what you say, you believe Many, I think, is the core disposition of anybody in a relationship, in a liturgy, if you want one guidance as a pastor and team and two parents. You want to live it fully. Do we believe what we're saying in the midst of the mass, which might mean as simple as this Dad, as you're driving the car to family on Sunday and you know of unreconciled hurts among your children or your family, 20 minutes later you're going to be praying forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who've sinned against us. Trespass. Ask the question is that just like empty ritual? Is it just because if we don't arrest the need for reconciliation, it's not real? The kids and the family are going to learn or be inoculated against the power of the gospel by thinking it's just jump through the hoops. By the time they hit 14, 15, 16, they're going to get OK, great, we got a cross on the wall, prayed the rosary, went to mass of these things, but we didn't connect with them, with them.
Speaker 1:So to your point, like on romance and all of that, I think that the core thing is by looking at the world and at women the way God desires me to, and the first thing, let's keep it really real and honest. In this world, we battle with all the images and impressions that would direct us. Otherwise I need to recognize, maybe, the poison in my perception and say, lord, heal this. Heal, and honestly I'll say I was in seminary three and a half years. It was a great, blessed time for me.
Speaker 1:I accepted Christ second grade but you know, the battle continued in a lot of ways. Another story, another time. But the battle continued because I'm human and because I'm surrounded by you know I'm a man. I, you know, face all these things. I will say that one of the most powerful things was Lord, you appoint my path, give me your desire, give me your heart. And that factored into a lot of healing and thinking about things.
Speaker 1:To seeing my wife, my current, my only wife. To recognizing in her not just a woman I thought was beautiful or wanted to spend time with, but to see eternity right, to see a capacity to participate in the divine Genesis 127, in his image he made them male and female. Like that was. That became more than just a nice scripture passage. It came alive. Like God made me for a complimentary connection with this woman. I was never ordained a priest and I deeply value that. But another story, you know, it's John Paul II's thinking that really helped me discern what I meant to do. But I saw the truth of my call to be priest, prophet and king in my marriage and like God designed that, like God designed the whole project of romance. Not only no regrets to this day. It's only gotten better and better. I've never been more in love than in this very moment with my wife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but now. So now I'm going to take you to a little rougher place, and not you personally, let's go there but our audience. So here's what's happening. A lot of times, right, we haven't been formed Even the baby boomers, my generation, wasn't formed, and so we didn't pass much down to our millennial kids. And then they're not passing anything much down to anybody, right? So we live in this stew of moral relativism. But now we have people waking up. They're starting to pick up this reverence. They're starting to see there's something lacking. I'm looking for something more. Right, we're looking for something more.
Speaker 2:The young guys that voted for Trump, they're looking for something more. This is a great time to evangelize them, greg, and say, look, I know where that something more is. But when they come into the church again, when they're starting to get on fire, often they're living with a spouse that has basically a hardness of heart, you know, who doesn't want to step into the church, that doesn't want to go on that journey with you. You have children now that you're looking back at and you're starting to say, oh man, I didn't really share the faith with you. Why, like you just said, why do I have a crucifix? Why am I going to mass etc.
Speaker 2:Now I'm almost looked at like I'm the strange one, greg, because there's a hardness of heart there and, unfortunately, when you're speaking, when a man or a woman is speaking to their spouse and their family, now when they've come back into the church they're rejected and this is a very painful process for them and any advice for them, because we want them to keep going forward. This is a very tough battle. That's the battlefield of the human heart, and even Jesus himself said I didn't come to bring peace, I come to bring the sword, kind of warning us that even families there'll be two against three and three against two. But we still have to do what then? In those families? We still have to show respect, reverence for people, and this is going to be very painful for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Well put. I refer back to your great sword behind you, braveheart. I would choose maybe my own favorite version of those sorts of movies Gladiator, and when I see those kinds of movies I realize the battlefield, first and foremost, is in my soul. Like I'm mindful. Now, our family, you know, is on. Each one loves Christ deeply, they're Catholic, they're faithful, but there's the skirmishes, right, there's the perspective. To the day they die, we'll be fasting and praying, and I hope they do so for me. But, honestly, the number one, the number one is Lord. Reveal to me the ways that I am less than pure in seeking you. I'm compromised. I've made decisions, maybe physical things, movies that have allowed to be seen, or music We've been pretty anal about that, in our own home, by the way, but I would say, for many though, it's how have I allowed a compromise? And there's a little you know. First of all, I want to drop liveittodayus. It's a daily reflection that's really gaining a lot of popularity, that weaves these things and unites people in the daily gospel with a declaration that's very powerful and a parent-grandparent blessing. So liveittodayus.
Speaker 1:But I speak of something Jack called the Great Family Reset, and in short form, it begins with me saying I'm going to pick a date. Maybe it's going to take a month, but, lord, in my own private prayer, reveal to me the ways in which I have been less than a good husband and father. Now, this is hard work, but if you want to do battle, man, run into the burning building. 9-11 is easy compared to this, but it's what we're made to do and we will not conquer. Until we do this, come before God in prayer, Reveal to me the ways in which I haven't been the best husband and father and, even if it's just like 1%, spend the time, write it down, do it. Second thing you're going to do is and ideally with the rosary, ask Our Lady to lead us, intercede for us before the throne With the grace outpoured.
Speaker 1:A decade right Pray, maybe even a battle decade. Begin to pray for each member of your family every day, lord, help me to see them as you see them. Help me to see my wife and each of my children the way you see them and to have a heart, to have a care for their heart like. Open up my mind, the eyes of my soul. Thirdly, I'm going to pick a date and a time. We did I've done this twice, by the way, consequentially, where the whole family's together and I say I've been less than a good husband and father, but I want to be. I love you and I'm going to ask for your prayers and support.
Speaker 1:And on this day you're just going to hear me apologize, not excuse, and even if I think it's like a 5%, 95%, it doesn't matter. I want to be holy. I don't say it to them, but I want to hear you. And then I want to hear you tell me how can I be a better husband and father? And I'm going to deal, I'm going to take the punches right.
Speaker 1:That experience where they're looking through a narrow lens and didn't know why we expected them to stay at home Friday night, whatever it was, you know I blew up, I went right, I went volatile because they kept pushing back and whatever. You know, all they're going to hear from me is I'm sorry. And, by the way, I'm going to say this is not a one-off, this is getting rid of the debris that keeps that Niagara Falls of Grace flooding into my life personally with you, I want that kind of relationship. Let's take steps and if next week, monday, wednesday, any time, there's got to be right time, you have more. You got to say let's do that. So great family reset for those willing to do that, regardless of whether or not they go to mass or pray the rosary or on fire.
Speaker 1:I think this is the foundational ground zero human, open the door connecting with, as Christ did.
Speaker 1:Logos became sarks, the word became flesh, flesh and blood, tangible, to demonstrate, to recover the sense that relationship has to be, is the heart of religion and ritual.
Speaker 1:If we're willing to do that, then all the things of the Mass quite frankly make sense the Kyrie right At the very entering the door, the apology Lord, have mercy, christ, have mercy. And the attunement to I'm not there, just the acknowledgement for them to hear me as a dad lead. By the way, archbishop Sample, I have a new article out in Catholic Exchange Shout out to them, by the way, for facilitating these interviews but a new article there on emotional quotient, where he speaks, cardinal Archbishop Sample, to his priests and the transformative effect it had by him being candid about his family of origin, struggles that caused him to act and speak in certain ways and the deluge of grace that was outpoured. What a great example of our shepherds in doing that. That to me, jack, of all the things I could say is the family, great reset, attunement to my own sin, apologizing, opening the door, conveying my desire to deepen those relationships, and let God's grace work from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Well, listen, where can we learn more about you and your work? I'm going to put these in the show notes, so make sure you send me the links to these, but go ahead and mention a couple of things that you're doing, will you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to of all the links ilovemyfamilyus is one ilovemyfamilyus. And I'll go with liveittodayus. Is that daily, if you will, reflection that can unite us all? And there you've got access to my book, right of a Lifetime, which is a moving story. Go into that later another time, but those are good access points.
Speaker 2:I can get the magnificent piglets there.
Speaker 1:a piglet Well yeah no, you have to go to amazoncom if you want to. Magnificent piglets are. Look me up, greg Schleter, and you'll see access to these books and others coming out actually in the next couple of weeks, which I'm excited about.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good, very good. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for being on the show. We really appreciate it. I'll also put the link, of course, for the article in there. I think that's an article that you can really read and sit on. A lot of things will come to your mind as you're reading that article and I think that the beauty of reverence, it'll do something to you, won't it? Greg? You'll sense this. I don't want to use the word feeling now, because we just said you got to be careful with feelings, but you'll have a sense that your heart is changing, I think, over time, when you really respect what you're doing right with your body, you know our body reveals the soul. Like you said right, we're embodied souls and I want to speak and I want to look and I want to act. You know, like it's real, even if I don't understand it all in the beginning, and it does start to form you. It starts to change your heart. You actually become that person over time as you unite yourself to Jesus Christ, I think that's how you find out it's real 100% Jack delightful
Speaker 1:delightful conversation and blessings to you and your entire audience. God has made us for excellence and I think he's appointed and anointed us to fulfill it and he's given us the sacraments and this community. We have a mission, right and a purpose, and thank you for kind of articulating that and being a touch point through your program, and I'm grateful to be part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you again soon, God bless.