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
#662 Charlie Kirk and his Battle To Bring Love, Truth and Salvation to Young People: The Courage to Stand For Life in a Culture of Death
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The paradox is striking—in our modern culture, authentic love has become the greatest sin. When Charlie Kirk stood for the defense of life, marriage, and family, he faced not reasoned disagreement but hatred so intense it ultimately led to his martyrdom. What does this reveal about our cultural moment?
In this episode Jack delves into the spiritual battle underlying our cultural conflicts. Exploring how young people disconnected from their spiritual nature become vulnerable to ideologies that promise freedom but deliver enslavement. He shares a poignant story about a college student who argued that abortion was necessary because having a baby would prevent her from finishing her education—revealing how our culture has reduced love to feelings, sex to pleasure, and children as obstacles.
Drawing from Scripture and Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body, we examine how our physical reality points to something greater—an eternal exchange of love that exists in the Trinity. Our bodies are designed to make visible this invisible divine reality, yet our culture has obscured this truth. The battle begins in the human heart, where we must choose between authentic love and the counterfeit versions offered by secular ideologies.
The real enemy isn't people with different viewpoints—it's the spiritual forces that corrupt hearts and minds. By cultivating our own spiritual lives through prayer, Scripture reading, and sacraments, we become equipped to stand firm in love even when facing opposition. This is what Charlie understood, and what we're all called to embody.
Join our Claymore community as we pick up this mantle, defending truth with both courage and compassion. Download the Claymore Battle Plan and connect with us on X @JP2Renewal for weekly writings and fellowship with others committed to authentic love.
email us info@jp2renew.org
Welcome, men of Claymore and all people of goodwill, jack Riggert with the John Paul II Renewal Center. This, of course, is the Become who you Are podcast. I already put up a podcast for today. It was with Deacon Greg Ferrell on Lectio Divina. It's called the Zombie Apocalypse. You should listen to it. It was from a story when I was in Seattle visiting and I saw these young people walking around, nobody talking to each other, and I had this idea that that there were a bunch of walking zombies. But you know, zombie is a is a body without a soul, and I felt so bad for those young people. And then Deacon Greg and I started to talk about it and, anyways, we ended up doing a podcast to teach Lectio Divina, which is reading scripture.
Speaker 1:Lectio Divina is to read the scripture, meditate, pick out a phrase or something and then you pray on it. God, what did you want to talk to me about today? And then you contemplate it. Complatio contemplation, that's just really being silent and then listening now. So complacial contemplation, that's just really being silent and then listening now. So it's a dialogue with God. Now I'm listening to what he wants to say to me and this is an encounter of the heart. You know this is Pope Benedict XVI said. You know, our faith will never be an ethical decision or, you know, information, a lofty philosophical idea. It's always going to be an encounter with an event, an encounter with the person. And this is how you get into that encounter. You can sense it in your heart and you start to walk into the light. It gives you a new horizon, a new way to look out at the world and a decisive direction for your life.
Speaker 1:Well, anyways, I was thinking about Charlie Kirk again. I just have not been able to get him out of my mind for more than a few minutes at a time and I thought, well, I already did a podcast on Charlie and you know what else should I say right now that there's so much on everybody's talking about? But then I saw this vitriol coming from these people and marching and shooting the bird and saying you know Charlie Kirk, and I don't care what happens to his kids or his family, he's got it coming. He should have thought about that before he went on stage and went to these college campuses and talking to these college kids about this campuses and talking to these college kids about this, and as I and I sat there in silence, again, contemplating what exactly did Charlie do? I mean? What are you talking about? How can people become so hateful that they take a 31 year old married guy with two beautiful children who's there debating, talking, trying to open up kids to maybe see through another lens than the one they grew up in in this culture of death that we call it? So, anyways, I'm thinking like, what exactly did he do? Huh, and where did all this violence and things come from?
Speaker 1:And his number one sin is love. His number one sin in the world today is love to authentically love people, and especially, of course, he loved his family, he loved his faith and then extend it right out to the neighbor. So this is just the two great commandments Love God, be filled with divine life and love, and then go out and love others. And this is the number one sin of the atheists and the secularists out there. We have a real enemy. And when we start to think about people, with all this vitriol, you know, we say well, how can you not hate them? Well, we're called to actually love them. And that's what Charlie was doing. He saw all the confusion out there as he was talking to audiences and he loved them, his heart went out for them, and that's what we have to remember.
Speaker 1:What was his number one sin? He defended life. He defended marriage and the family. He defended the child in the womb, the child's right to have a mom and a dad. This is love. Huh, this is the sell that we've been talking about. And then he loved this country. He was a patriot. Love this is the cell that we've been talking about. And then he loved this country. He was a patriot. So all of those things are just antithetical to this culture that we live in. It's about hate violence, robbing, stealing, all these types of things, right?
Speaker 1:So where did Charlie's love come from? How would he do that? And it came again from just those two great commandments love God and love neighbor. And his work then went out. The neighbor he was really concerned about young people. He knows what young people were going through and his number one thing, his number one thing was what it was the salvation of souls. If you forget about that as he looked out in the audience, it's the salvation of souls. He knew that we have an eternal life, that we're here just for a little while. We just boom, we go through.
Speaker 1:I was 31 years old. It seemed like yesterday with my own children I had three children at that time and it went so fast. And you realize, yes, we're on a journey, but we came into a world, into this life, exploded on this stage and we're going someplace and that's why Pope Benedict said it'll give you a new horizon, a new way to look at the world, in a decisive direction. You start to look up where are we going? Huh, and then that allows you to be filled with love and to become a person of love. And this is the attack again. So when we look out at those young people, what Charlie understood was they're not the enemy. The enemy is the enemy. The enemy is Satan. The enemy is evil. St Lucia of Fatima the last great battle between our Lord and Satan is going to be over.
Speaker 1:What Marriage and the family, of love, of love, of Trinitarian love being transferred, of love, of love, of Trinitarian love being transferred, being made manifest in the world through who we are. That's why the Claymore Battle Plan is so important. You know the Claymore Battle Plan talks all about this. Make sure that you get the Claymore Battle Plan. It'll be in the show notes Again. Download that, share it with people. It's the outline of this and then, of course, our podcasts and all our writing and I'll get to that later where all those go up. But every Friday we're going to have a podcast. This Friday, two of them and also my new article would go out to all the young people, and so we want you to read that and be in discussions with that and enjoy in our community and the community of brotherhood where we really bring these principles of love into the world.
Speaker 1:Remember, charlie knew something. You know a body and a soul, a human being without grace. This connection is like the branch off the vine and it starts to wilt. Or maybe cut flowers. The same thing you know when you cut flowers and you bring them up and you put them on your table and they look so beautiful and that's these young people at these college campuses. They're still flowers, they're still young, but you start to see them wilting. So, so, so quickly.
Speaker 1:Now it's going to take a body and a soul, plus grace, to connect back on that vine again, to bring that source of love back into your life so you can become a person of love that gives you the potential for human flourishing, the potential for human freedom not to be enslaved by all these gender ideologies and all this vitriol, the stolen innocence that we're doing for young people. We're stealing their innocence, those young people on college campuses. Their innocence has been stolen very quickly in the schools, in the culture, in so many different ways and now they bring that in and you can just see the hatred. There's a lot of people turning. Of course, that's the good news. There's a lot of people turning again. But you really start to see the weeds in the wheat and those young people are not the enemy again. The enemy is the enemy and those men that are in power in education, that are cooperating with Satan, cooperating with evil, and to turn these hearts. And what Charlie was doing is the same thing Jesus Christ did in the whole Christian message is to go out into the world and reclaim those souls for Christ. It's an eternal story. So to give you an example of that, I saw a clip of Charlie and he was on a campus and a young woman was talking to him and she was really pushing back on his defending the child in the womb.
Speaker 1:Now he defends marriage, of course, the family, women, all the time, and he knows they were being taken advantage of and lied to. And you see this, when she was asking, she was defending her right to kill her own child. Now, she wasn't pregnant at that time, but she said this. She said, if so, she's in college about halfway through. And she said but if I get pregnant now and I don't have an abortion, she's telling Charlie I won't be able to finish college. No, you have to sit on that for a little while. She thought this was a cohesive, coherent argument. Charlie's sitting there taking this all in A young woman, maybe 20 years old, 19 years old, saying but if I don't kill my baby, if I have sex with anybody anytime and I don't kill my baby, I won't be able to finish my college education.
Speaker 1:I won't be able to finish my college education, I won't be able to take my next class. And you just sit on that. You realize how crazy this is that love has been for those young women, reduced to a feeling, just to an emotion, to a pleasure. This is what they're taught in schools I know this because I talk about this all the time and then reduced down to sex, you know, but but meaningless sex.
Speaker 1:Sex for what? Sex for pleasure. But it in. Charlie said to her. He goes. Well, you don't have to have sex, you know where babies come from. Right, she goes, I know where babies come from. He goes. Well, you don't have to have sex, get married, you know, live chastely, be free. Why do you, why do you allow someone to use your body as an object? And he's trying to stand up for her, for this young woman who doesn't even understand what Charlie's trying to do, to say you don't need to be used and you don't need to use other people. For what? This momentary, meaningless pleasure. And then what you get out of bed and you go home and he goes home and maybe you never talk to each other again. And it's so. It's so sad and so tragic that I'll kill my baby because of this. And so then they went into. You know when is the baby born and all this stuff. You just see Charlie standing up again for life, for the baby, for marriage and the family. But also he's looking at her and he could come back in so many ways and put her down, but he's looking for the salvation of her soul to bring her into the story. So, with all of that said, you know I'm reading scripture today and again, I love the Magnificat, you know, or?
Speaker 1:Hallow has got a good app. You can get these readings. The best way I found over the years is to just see what the readings are for the Mass that day, even if you get to go to Mass, which I often try to do during the week. But even if you don't get the Mass, read those readings early in the morning or at night some way, and then you pick something out there that sticks with you and it just touches your heart. So here's what happened Yesterday I'm going through a drawer in my bathroom looking for something and as I do, there's this pin.
Speaker 1:This pin, and it was upside down and it was stuck in the back. And I'm thinking about Charlie and I go what is this pin doing? Back there and I reach in the back and I turn it over and it says One Nation Under God. And it's got Charlie's Turning Point USA on the bottom One Nation Under God. And I just thought, oh my gosh, what a sign, huh. So I put that on and in honor of Charlie and his family, one nation under God. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness that's what this was founded on, and it's founded on your inalienable right as a human being as a child of God. You know that's really. Go read our US Declaration of Independence, just the first couple of paragraphs, and you're going to see all of that in there. Very beautiful.
Speaker 1:So again getting back to the Magnificat. So I love the Magnificat because not only does it have the readings for Mass, so it'll have an Old Testament reading or a letter from St Paul, which it did today, it'll have the Psalms and it'll have the Gospel and they're interrelated. So you have this cohesive way to read the Bible. Sometimes people try to read the Bible and they just start from one end and go to the other end and it doesn't all come together for them. If you read this way, over three years you'll read the whole Bible, but you do it in continuity. With all of this Old Testament coming to the New Testament, you can see how the New Testament brings out the Old Testament, and so it's one cohesive thing. And so we have three cycles in the Catholic Church cycle A, b, c, and so by the time you're done with the third year, you've read the whole Bible in essence, and you do that every three years. So over the years I've read the whole Bible many, many, many times, but I do it in this beautiful way.
Speaker 1:But there's also a meditation there from a saint or somebody talking about that from maybe an angle that you didn't think about before. There's also a saint of the day Now. The saints this month in the Magnificat are saints that were persecuted. And again I think about Charlie when I was reading that. So I want to read you just a little bit from the first letter of Timothy, and I was thinking about Charlie when I was reading this. I'm going to put my glasses on here because I'm going to read right out of the Bible here the first letter of Timothy, and kind of this is what I was thinking about with Charlie as I'm reading this.
Speaker 1:And so this is St Paul talking to one of his disciples, timothy, who's a young guy and this is why I brought up Charlie and he's warning him against false teachers. So he left them. He left them in a spot, and then Timothy's in charge of making sure that Paul's teaching continues while he's not there and then he'll come back and visit and he says whereas the aim of our charge is love, the issue's from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith, and he said certain persons by swerving from that and wandering away into vain discussions, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding what they were saying and the things about the assertions they're making. So he says now we know that the law is good. He's talking about the Mosaic law from Moses, the 10 commandments which we have carried through right. Those were given to us and that's a law written on our heart too. And he goes like this so, understanding this, the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and the disobedient, for the ungodly and the sinners, for the unholy and the profane. So he's saying this. He goes the law is laid down for them. You don't have to worry about the law because Jesus has overcome that. The law is in place. Of course, all the Ten Commandments are in place, but you don't have to. They're not rules for you, because you what you believe those two great commandments to be filled with love of God and to become a person of love. And so you fulfill that in love, and that's why I started up Charlie did.
Speaker 1:The number one sin of today is he was a person of love and of course this comes right from God. God is love and this is why Satan hates guys like Charlie, he hates love, he hates the child in the womb, he hates marriage and the family, he hates love of country. And all of this he wants to take down because this is all human destruction of a country. And all of this he wants to take down because this is all human destruction. And so when he says this, he says the law is made for the unjust, the lawless, it is to protect the what, the innocent, the child in the womb, do not kill. Huh, that's number five. It protects you against thieves, murderers, liars. And he said but we don't need that. But the people that do the unholy and profane, for listen to this for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers and whatever else is contrary to the soundness of our faith. Isn't that amazing? You know, we think about all the destruction going on today.
Speaker 1:And then he goes on to say this is 1 Timothy, chapter 3, and he says I hope to see you soon, but I'm writing these instructions so that, if I'm delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Right. The truth Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of our religion. And he talks about Jesus coming in the flesh and being that person of truth. I am the way, the truth and the life. He goes on to say this. He said, and think about this.
Speaker 1:This is St Paul talking to this young Timothy, and I'm sure God was speaking to Charlie. The same way, command and teach these things. And he said let no one despise you because of your youth and set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love and faith and in purity. And this is Charlie's message, wasn't it? In love, in his faith and in purity, the way he lived Till I come back and see you, do not neglect the gift that you have been given. Charlie saw this gift, he was given this gift. And he says what which was given to you by prophetic utterance? To go out and practice these duties, devote yourself to them so that all may see your progress. Practice these duties, devote yourself to them so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and to your teaching. Hold to that so that by doing this you will save both. By living this out, you'll save both yourself and your hearers. And this is what Charlie was doing. Again, he's saving himself and he's looking for salvation of the souls. And then one more part of this. It's just so beautiful. And again, these are the readings for this week. So I'm reading a couple of them from Timothy for this week.
Speaker 1:The one from today says this If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings which accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit. He knows nothing. He has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. Isn't that what we do today? Just twist and distort these words. Huh, a man can become a woman. A baby is just a clump of cells. Marriage can be redefined as anything. So we change and twist all this. And he says which produce what? Think about this? Envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, wrangling among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth. They don't have the truth in them, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. There is, so they're looking for worldliness.
Speaker 1:Listen to this. He says that those people that throw out God and look just for themselves, for what they can get out of all of this, he said but we brought nothing. St Paul tells Timothy into this world and we cannot take anything out of the world, isn't that true? Jesus talks about this. All he says for love of money is the root of all evils. It's through this craving that some have wandered away from their faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs. Don't forget, it's the rich, it's the elites, it's the so-called powerful of the world who are pushing these ideologies on the rest of us. When it just becomes money, something happens to your heart, it becomes very dark. And then, of course, satan will go in there and he's going to use that. You think about the Bill Gates and the George Soros of the world pushing all these gender ideologies, the abortions, the marriages that they wreck with that. And then, finally, this but and think about Charlie and all of us, all of us at Claymore, same thing we pick up that sword that's behind me, the big Claymore sword.
Speaker 1:Now, this is a spiritual battle. Huh, this is not a weapons battle. The sword doesn't mean to go out and start slashing. In fact, it's the opposite. The sword doesn't mean to go out and start slashing. In fact, it's the opposite. It starts on a battlefield of your heart between good and evil, between love and lust, using people. This is the battle, huh. The battle is fought in the human heart. And then you go out into the world and you do good or you become evil. That's what the sword represents, right? So fight the good fight of the faith. So fight the good fight of the faith.
Speaker 1:Take hold of the eternal life in which you were called. When you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses, when Timothy came into his faith, in the presence of God, you gave that, who gives life to all things, and of Jesus Christ who, in his testimony before Pontius Pilate, made that good confession too. Well, what confession? Do you remember that? Maybe I should read that to you real quick. I'll just read a little bit part of that. It's in Matthew. It's also in John.
Speaker 1:This is when Jesus came in front of Pilate and Pilate's interrogating them. And Jesus answered Pilate, you say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said to him what is the truth? Everyone is of the truth looking for the truth will hear my voice. And Pilate, just like all the secularists what is the truth. There is no objective truth, it's just my truth or your truth. And this is what happens. When people say that there's only my truth or your truth, what are they getting at there? They're getting at, we can act however we want. Well, the problem becomes the guy next door, the guy down the street or the gang also can act any way they want, which is robbing, stealing, killing, et cetera. And we see this all over the world.
Speaker 1:Right, you hear this vitriol and you hear all of this coming at Charlie and you think you know, at the end of the day, life is short and it's a journey, and so that body and the soul, the default position without grace is just sin and death. And you see this death again, and you see even this young woman. Not only is she into sin, but she doesn't even care about the death of her child. You become very, very dark, but it happens. It happened to me in my life. You know. That's why I know this so well, because you realize you walk away from God and you think you're trying to live your life properly. You just slowly, slowly, slowly walk into eternal hell. That's where death is huh, in eternal hell, and God wants to bring you life. I want to bring you life and bring it to you in abundance. But the beginning of that verse, which is John 10, 10, he says a thief will come and try to steal that light from you. So it's a walking with God.
Speaker 1:I'm writing a handbook. It's 52 short acts, I call them, and that handbook is to go along and supplement the Claymore battle plan. The Claymore battle plan again can be downloaded. Load this up. First it's spiritual formation, how to get your own heart back right through prayer and et cetera, et cetera. Everybody has probably done that already. I'll have it in the show notes. Download that, share it with people.
Speaker 1:But the second part of that is to learn more about your faith. And John Paul II was such a good teacher. So the podcasts that I put out, especially on Fridays, are going deeper and deeper into that teaching. And right now, because the handbook's not ready yet, I've got a few more chapters to write and introduction and some other stuff before I can actually send it in to get published. So it's going to be a while and that's a process.
Speaker 1:So I'm writing these every week and I started already a couple of different times, but I just put one up last week and I'm putting up act two this week and I'll continue to do this, so you don't have to wait for that. In other words, and the best place to follow us is on X. So we are up on YouTube on any podcast app these podcasts, but the writing itself. You can go to my sub stack, but the best thing is to go on X. Go under JP to renewal, so go to X at JP the number two renewal and you'll go on our X platform and there I post everything, the videos. I post other things too, but I post these writings so you'll be able to find everything there. It'll be in the show notes, the um.
Speaker 1:The other thing is we started a community there, claymore community, under X. Now you have to be let into that. So write us, um, and tell us why you want to get in there. Uh, the basic way it works is somebody refers you, that knows us, refers you in there. The reason is we don't want a bunch of noise in there. We want, and people don't have to be perfect to get in there. That's not the reason behind this. The reason is that we want seekers, searchers, and so everything in the community is all posted in one spot, so you just go to one spot. There's not a lot of other things in there you have to go through and it'll rank the newest ones on top. Today, this writing that went out today will be there. This act two, the new podcast, will be out there. I'll put this up later on. I want to read you just a little bit. As we're going out today, I want to keep this quasi short Act two, awaken by Beauty, the opening scene, I call it, and you think about this.
Speaker 1:Contrast this with the vitriol and these ideologies and these gender ideologies that we're talking about, and you start to see the beauty of this. It starts out beteshit. Beteshit is in the beginning. This is how the Bible starts. When God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind, the Holy Spirit, a mighty wind, swept over the waters. And then God said let there be light. And so there was. And so you see this darkness. God is going to come in and he's going to turn the light on. He's a God of order, he's a God that says no, there's an objective truth, there's a right way to live, and he's going to bring us into the story, which is a love story.
Speaker 1:If you forget that it's a love story, if you forget that it's a happiness story, if you forget that it's a fulfillment story, if you forget all those beautiful things, then your mind can get very dark and God seems like a faraway father who's just given us rules and regulations to follow and he says no, these are in your heart. This is who you are. This is not more information, this is the DNA. You're a person of love, not only the Charlie. Love people. This is who we are. This is the essence of our soul. Why? Because God is love. So when God comes into your heart, this is what you find. You find a love story. You find this God that loves you, and then he fills you and then you go on in this journey with God and you walk with Him.
Speaker 1:Well, charlie did that in his life, right, brothers? It starts out brothers thinking about you, brothers, it starts out brothers thinking about you. We start where it all begins in awe and wonder. Creation kicked off with God's delight. God saw everything that he made and said it was good. After he had created man, god looked at everything and then, when he created man, he said now, it's very good that's you, brothers, created very good in his image, invited into an intimacy with God that carries over into your actions in the created world. I know this sounds too good to be true, but in fact it's the very logic of our faith.
Speaker 1:And think about this. What I'm going to tell you right now John Paul's whole thesis of his theology of the body, the basic foundation of his work, the basic foundation of who we are. Think about that girl that was debating, charlie, about meaningless sex and abortion. The body, the body, our body, and it alone, is capable of making visible the invisible, the spiritual and the divine. Our bodies were created to transfer into the visible reality of this world the invisible mystery in God from time immemorial and to be a sign of it. Well, what is that reality, that invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial that our bodies are a sign of and make visible in the world? God is an eternal exchange of love Father, son and Holy Spirit and we're destined to share in that exchange. But that starts now Eternity. When we were born and exploded on the stage, we were already eternal beings, and so we are in eternity already. We're living in this temporal space right now. This gives us a chance to be free.
Speaker 1:See, god couldn't just bring us into his story and say, no, you have to be a person of love, you have to follow the commandments, you have to do this, you have to. No, he has to make you free, because love itself. You can only be loved if you're free. I can't force my wife to love me, you can't force someone to love you, you can't be forced to love another person, you can't be forced to love your enemy, even as Jesus said, right, but you become a person of love, and that's what we are designed to be and that's where we're going here. But it starts right now. The two great commandments love God, be filled with divine life and love. And then they carry it through. I'll read you just a little bit more and you can read this on your own.
Speaker 1:So life is a love story and you're wired to chase beauty, human and divine beauty that pulls you out of yourself into something bigger. See, this is what the sex, gender ideologies, this is what that young lady didn't understand. This is not about grasping and taking lust, selfishness. To be a person of love is to give to one another. So that's what you're pulled into when you see the beauty of a woman, when you see the beauty of God, you see the beauty of a sunset or the sunrise. The stars were out. Oh, this morning when I got up, I get up, I got up around three, 34 o'clock. I go out the door. It was, it was. It's getting kind of cool in the morning, it feels so good. But the the moon was, was over where the sun was coming up and the sun hadn't come up yet and it was just reflecting off part of that moon and there was some planets up there and some stars you could see. It was just breathtaking and that beauty of God coming in Bereshit in the very beginning.
Speaker 1:So I had told this story about the second grade from the last one, from the last act, the first one that I had written, and it was about the beauty when I was just a young guy and I saw the beauty of those twin girls. I hope you read that and that's what pulls you out of yourself. What is that mystery? When I'm looking at a woman, I'm seeing her body, but she's not just the body. It's not about body parts to this young lady right To be used to use another person. What really pulls us into is the mystery, the awe and wonder of God being expressed in that woman. And I see her and, ooh man, that ache. Well, that's the mystery of the person. It's not about body parts. I mean, if you just see a woman as a body part, you're really missing the beauty of a love story, of giving your love to her. She gives her love back to us, right.
Speaker 1:But even if you just see her and you don't even get a chance to talk to her, you say quickly in prayer you know this is part of our claim or morning ritual to open up and say thank you for the beauty of that woman, thank you for the beauty of awe and wonder around us, and that prayer lifts you into big beauty, god himself, who's our destination, and he comes into your heart. So it's not a waste to say, oh God, I got to look away from that woman. Or, you know, I start to think of these thoughts and temptations hit me. That's okay. Open those temptations, don't hide those, don't stuff them, don't indulge them in porn and all this kind of garbage. You know, open that up and in that prayer the divine will come into your heart, right. So that's why I told that story.
Speaker 1:But the world often tries to rob you of your innocence at an early age and ever since the world's been trying to steal what? Your sense of awe, your sense of wonder, porn, hookup, endless scrolling on your phones. It's all fake, it's a cheap version of beauty and you're created for more. So that's what we're doing we're walking into the story. So we want to read that. I might want to read just as we're going out here right now, just to show you the beauty of this.
Speaker 1:This is from the Magnificat again. And if you go to Claymore, if you download the Claymore Battle Plan, I put the link for the Magnificat again. And if you go to Claymore, if you download the Claymore Battle Plan, I put the link for the Magnificat in there. It's like $19, $20 for the whole year if you get it electronically. What I do it's a little bit more. If you want the print, you know you can do it or not do it.
Speaker 1:I love books, but for this, I'm fine reading it like this. Well, there's a meditation there that was incredibly beautiful too. But I'm fine reading it like this. Well, there's a meditation there. That was incredibly beautiful too. But I'm just going to read you a little bit more the saints this month that are profiled in there. There's a saint of the day and saints who face persecution. There's a theme for the month, and so this is Saint Emily de Rodea a Saint Emily de Rodea. She died in 1852. She was in the French Revolution, which was destruction of churches, destruction. They killed so many priests. It was taking down God again.
Speaker 1:This is an old story that we're in right now. It's accelerating, it's getting worse. We see the weeds and the wheat really growing up together. And this is the battle that you're in. You didn't come into a neutral zone here and this is the battle that you're in. You know you didn't come into a neutral zone here.
Speaker 1:And this is what Charlie understood very well. You saw Charlie say you know he picked up his cross with Jesus Christ no-transcript. And what did he do? What did Jesus do? At 33 years old, he was crucified. He died for what? For love and for truth. Can you imagine that you die an innocent man for love and truth? This is Charlie. He picked up that cross. Jesus said if they hated me, they're going to hate you, and this is really the battle. Are you understanding this? Just let this absorb into you, because there's a real enemy out there, and you know, you read St Paul, ephesians 6, about verse 10. We're not dealing with flesh and blood here, but with the powers, the principalities, the rulers of this present age, and these are ranks of demons, ranks of fallen angels, and this is really what we're seeing today. Right, so Charlie picks up his cross, he follows Christ and he follows him all the way to the crucifix, all the way to dying, and he's a martyr. Charlie's a martyr for the faith and we're not going to let that go. We're going to keep doing that. That's part of Claymore, and we have to pick up our cross and follow Jesus Christ. And that cross, that sword behind me, is how we start on the battlefield of our own heart to let Jesus come in and cleanse us of all that selfishness and all that sin, so that we prosper, we blossom, that those cut flowers go back into the roots and, boom, we come up again. It's amazing what happened.
Speaker 1:So this young girl, emily de Rode I don't speak French Rode probably was born into a noble French family During the violence of the French Revolution. She was raised in a remote chateau, far from danger. Isn't this what we say? Oh, you know the dangerous. So I'm outside the city. I was born in the city but I don't live there anymore. I'm in the suburbs. Oh, it's in the city, right, all that stealing and blah, blah, blah, no, no, no, no, that's coming right to all of our places. I travel, I go to these small towns, and even in these small towns I talk to these people and I speak in these churches in these small towns and I said, well, you can't have too many problems here, right? You're not in a big city, you're in a small town. It's rural Farms all around you and stuff. Oh, no, no, no, it's here, it's here. This is the acceleration I'm talking about. So again, she was raised in a remote chateau, far from danger. Isn't that what we think? There's no danger here.
Speaker 1:She was not particularly a religious child and as a teenager, prayed as little as she could get away with. But when she was 17 years old, she experienced an awareness of God's abiding presence, which changed the direction of her life. Just listen, listen, listen. God is always at the door, knocking, knocking, knocking. Well, emily tried to enter three different religious orders then, but returned home each time Soon.
Speaker 1:Afterward, in a random conversation, she realized that the revolution that we're talking about, the French Revolution, had not only destroyed churches, but it also destroyed opportunities for poor children to receive any education at all. Think about this revolution that we're seeing now. Gender ideologies, the Marxism, the 1619 project, talk about that. We're all racist and we're a racist country. You know we are stealing the opportunity for those children all over the United States right now to receive any education at all. It's amazing, you know, when you read history, when you read the scriptures, how everything just comes to life and you go, wow, what a battle that we're in Different times. You know history doesn't repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. In a few weeks, emily managed to squeeze 40 pupils. She saw these poor kids that had no chance for an education. This is always Marxism, socialism. We no longer care about education but about indoctrination, and it took over our whole school system here in the United States. In Western civilization you almost can't believe this, but that's what's happening, right? Certainly, if you are at a college campus, like Charlie is, you see this. Okay, so she takes 40 pupils into her school room. She develops In time.
Speaker 1:Many women sought to enter the religious order of teachers that Emily had established. To help her with this and to build more schools, and many schools were open to teach the children of the poor. In the anti-Catholic atmosphere of the time, emily often faced ridicule and received numerous abusive letters. Isn't that something? They attacked her for that. For what? For educating children? She always responded courteously and although she also had a sharp wit, so she would come back at them also had a sharp wit, so she would come back at them. She didn't die a martyr. She died from a battle with cancer later on.
Speaker 1:But anyways, you see this battle going on and the persecution, huh, and Charlie just took this to the logical end of following Christ. Charlie would say this, though he said we're all going to die. He knew this, he knew the dangers that he was in. He wasn't looking for that. If you see these videos, it'll tear your heart out, right with Charlie, with his family, and I think about his three-year-old daughter and how beautiful their relationship was. But then I think about that one-year-old boy who will see his dad, of course, on videos and different things like that, but he will never remember, really, his dad. When you're one-year-old, you won't remember it, and what a shame, huh, I mean, that's what really makes my heart ache. That's when I really understand the evil that we're facing right now. Huh, that he won't even know his dad. So just pay attention to that.
Speaker 1:Read the Claymore battle plan, go on X, follow us on X, and we got to help these young people. And you know, it's up to us to pick up that mantle. Charlie was such a good leader and all of us have to step up to the plate because if enough people don't wake up, this force of evil will just take our country down. It's already taken our culture down. It's already taken our culture down. It's already divided so many marriages and families. We've lost so many children to abortion. But at the end of the day, it loses your chance, your opportunity to really understand the truth, to come into the beauty that God wants for you, to see the awe and wonder around you.
Speaker 1:So take your time to read Scripture. Follow the Claymore battle plan, the formation there. Take it seriously, especially that early morning ritual. It takes you five minutes, and then read Scripture every day. Start to pray the rosary. Don't forget the confession, because that's the divine mercy behind me.
Speaker 1:That's where Jesus said to Sister Faustina this will be all in the handbook and these future articles that I'm writing too, where Jesus got hit by the lance and water and blood flowed out. Well, water is baptism and confession. Right, jesus is cleansing us of our sins. And why? It's the nuptial bath, it's the wedding bath, it's getting ready to receive what Jesus, god himself. So that's the red huh, that's the Eucharist, that's what we receive at Mass every day. This is my body, this is my blood, given for you from Jesus' last supper, and he pours this out at every Mass. There's nothing, nothing, nothing that you can do better than that Go to confession, to receive the Eucharist and to become a person of prayer, so that you can become a person of love. Hey, god bless you. If you have any questions, we have an email in the show notes. Feel free to reach out to me. In the meantime, love God and love others. We got to bring some goodness into this world. That's our job. Talk to you again soon, everybody. Bye-bye, thank you.