Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast , the production of the John Paul 2 Renewal Center . I'm Jack Rigert , your host , and , yes , you guessed it , I'm glad you're here , glad you're here with me .
You know , this is going to be kind of a fun exercise in the midst of evil , corruption and depressing news , and this is the reason why I have so many things I could talk about . So many evils in the world and good things too . There's good things too happening , but so many evil things , so many currents coming at us .
And here at the John Paul 2 Renewal Center we want to bring solutions . You can always talk about the latest news and the latest shootings , and I want to bring up a couple of those things today , but I also want to bring up the answers , the solution , at least the big picture , so we can understand what's going on .
It's very , very important for us , otherwise we'd get frustrated at just a bunch of information coming at us .
And so what I do differently here , of course , as you know , is try to bring solutions , try to bring the word of God into it , and I want to kind of allow you to go along with me today and kind of journey along because , as I was looking at all the different things that I'm going to be talking about in presentations , not just on a podcast , but in
presentations . I do a lot of work on stolen innocence , as you probably are aware , talking about education , what's going on in our schools , but also what's going on in our church and attacking our marriages and the family . So , again , we just go above the trees for a second .
But then , as I did that and I'll unpack that in a second but as I did that , I started to think you know , dear Lord , what do you want me to say to myself , to people , to proclaim today , and , as so often that I do , I go into Scripture . Right , I go into prayer and to Scripture , of course , receiving the sacraments , just getting close to God .
But tell me the story and I just get the Scripture just from today , almost every day , is going to answer those questions for you . Once you get into Scripture deeply , once you stay close to the sacraments , if you've gone to confession , you're receiving the Eucharist , you know , and all the things that we talk about so often .
So I just went to Scripture today and , as I did that , the weed and the weeds popped up . So I'm going to talk about the weed and the weeds . I'm going to talk about Scripture today , this journey that God's people are on and what happens when it gets twisted and distorted .
We can see what's going on now just from history , because it's happened often and we have Bishop Sheen who talks about these cycles that it goes through , and so we're going to bring Jesus into this , moses into this , bishop Sheen into this .
But so just a quick overview when I start out , and then we're going to kind of dig into some granular things and then come back out into this bigger context again . Just a quick FYI again Go to our website . Jp , the number two . Jp , the number two reneworg . Jp , the number two reneworg . Look up at Love Ed .
Love Ed is just an important program we're launching now and we're bringing it into parishes and it's very important and this is going to be parent driven . So listen to this parent driven . So you reach out to me , put some parents together in a parish and let's get this thing started .
It's a way for parents and children , your children , to get on the same page again , to take them back from the culture . Very easy , very doable , hardly any time on your standpoint at all . I'm going to give you the resources for this . We actually come into the parish , facilitate it , along with the parents . So it's a beautiful thing .
Get everybody , get this domestic church built up , because this is really the solution to these , these ills . And I bring this up because I want to dive in a little bit into education and what they're doing there . All right , buckle up and get ready for today's episode . All right , we are back , and thanks again for joining me .
You know one more thing I might mention on love ed . We really , we really need some support in order to do this , to launch this site , to bring some , some people on to help me with this . People I've known for a while , people that are excited to help out , but but you know , it all comes down to money .
These people aren't really worried about making a ton of money or anything , but they got to pay their expenses . We got to buy computers , we have to go out and buy resources for these people , we have to go to the parish , etc . Etc . Everything costs something .
So I'm not looking for a lot of money , but if I am looking for 50 , 50 , 50 people out there that will , that will pledge to donate $50 a month for a minimum of 18 months to get this , get this going . So just look up in the show notes Easy ways to donate . The easiest way is just put it on addresses in the show notes .
Just send a check every month for 50 bucks . You can stop whenever you want , but just try to make a commitment for at least 18 months so we can get this thing going . So 50 , 50 , right , 50 people , $50 a month and we get this . We really get this going . Really . The culture this is really a key to turn around .
The culture is for families not only to wake up but then to be empowered to bring their children back in and understand their own sexuality .
So love ed is bringing parents and their children together , talk about the birds and the bees , basically at a very young age , and then we come back again when they get into a little bit older so like 15 , sixth grade and then seventh and eighth grade and help empower them and give them resources to take it home .
And then we do the podcast and follow up training with them . And so we're really building up this domestic church . And why ? Because I'm going to get into right now .
I'm going to get I started to to to give a talk not too long ago and I started it with really discussing the failure of our public school systems nine in Illinois and that , and so we just have , we're in the belly of the beast . We just have a corrupt government here .
And so you know , it's amazing how twisted and distorted this is and the evils being perpetrated . And this is why , as I started in my , my intro , you know what's the solution to this . You know it's between good and evil . This is a battle between good and evil and if you don't get that , you'll become very , very frustrated .
You're going to a dark place and we don't want to do that because Christ calls us out of that dark place into the light and we're going someplace .
Look , this life is gets over very , very quickly and you know we again , you know that day that you , you die , you're going to have on your cemetery the day you were born , the day you died in between is a dash . Well , we're living in the dash . And how do you live that life out ? You know , it's not about grasping and taking .
You'll never be fulfilled and happy if you do that . So three necessary societies again will go above the trees or way above the trees . I've talked about this before . It's just a quick overview . It's think about as a triangle We've got this long foundation and then going up like a pyramid to a point .
Well , one side , on the left side of that , if you picture this in front of you , this triangle in front of you on the left side , is marriage in the family , necessary society , the necessary society . On the right hand side , on the bottom , is the church .
This is God's word bringing us in , bringing us , you know , in this battle between good and evil , giving us the grace and the knowledge and the wisdom and the love to bring this through . So these are very linked together , right ? And so what happens now ?
You have an attack on both , and it's been going on for a long time now , but we're at a point where it's just accelerating .
And so then , as you go up the triangle this is polity , this is how we , you know , in essence , to be short , you know , this is our culture and then , downstream from our culture , our politics , how we organize ourselves , our elected officials . But this is built on a constitution .
This is built on , as John Adams and James Madison said , a religious and a moral people in the United States . This is what made the United States so special . So when , if you wanted to take down this country , what would you do ? You're going to attack the base . You're going to attack marriage and the family , you're going to attack the church .
Once that morality is gone , that base gets real weak . And then what happens ? We have , we have a subjective , these subjective thieves . Really , you know they , I'll be like God , I'll decide what's good and evil . Well , after a few generations , you know that permeates , that gets into the culture . That's where we're at now .
We are in an immoral culture , a bunch of hedonistic people that don't really care . That's why we elect these criminals like and just morally defunct people . You know , in the , for the president of the United States , the most powerful person in the world , is totally bankrupt , and so we have Pritzker here in Illinois just promulgating evil on us .
So I want to talk a little bit about those things and then I want to get into the gospel of Jesus with the weeds and the wheat , just to give you a little overview , and then follow today's scripture .
I want to , I want to bring these ideas in , but I want to show you that , as we're speaking about the evils in the world , we want to put this in context all the time so that you have a handle on what you can do about it .
So wire points , which is a group in Illinois , a nonprofit group that keeps their eye on Illinois and a lot to do with education , traveled to Peoria last week and to talk to two local groups . They're about the failure of the Peoria public school system to educate students in that area . Now Peoria is south of me , so I'm west of Chicago now .
I was , I grew up in Chicago , or born and and and then raised partially in the western suburbs , and then and then south of us is Peoria . Peoria is was really ranked pretty high as far as places to live , you know , with affordability and lack of crime and different things like that .
Well , it's starting to break down now and people are starting to look at the public school systems and what they've been doing over the last you know generation or two and what they're doing to kids today . It's , it's amazing .
So again , if you're going to attack right , if you're going to attack the country , if you want to bring it to its knees , the socialists and Marxists and I won't get into that too much because I unpacked this before are going to go after your marriage and family . Well , how , how best to break that down ?
We'll indoctrinate the kids , right , and we're going to take your kids out of the home . We're going to go into this indoctrination camps , called schools today , and and and attacks .
So , anyways , one of why our point's main goals is to get those who run these schools and these districts in the state board of education to acknowledge the poor results , the problems in Illinois education , they say , will never be improved until these poor outcomes are openly acknowledged by those who run the systems .
Well , of course they don't want to to to bring this up . You know , because the unions are so corrupt . You know , across the nation , just Marxists , and and and . Look at , this is about power and money . This is a throw God out , break down marriage and the family and then , in this chaos , we always have the power to do .
You're seeing this all over the place , right ? So in Bishop Sheen . So I'm going to start out with Bishop Sheen quote right here before I get into this . And he said this because he's he was saying why , why , why would they do that ? Who would do that ? And he says only those who live by faith really know what's happening in the world .
The great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive processes going on because they've lost the vision of the heights from which they have fallen . Wow , we've normalized the fall . We've normalized sin . You know , our inherent human dignity is what separates us from the powers of evil .
That has its foundation in the fact that we are eternal children of God . When God has forgotten , the creature itself grows unintelligible . We no longer know who we are and and this is why parents aren't standing up in so many cases there are so many millennial parents . They have no clue . No clue what's going on .
You know , I talk to them , I bring them into meetings and different things and tell them what's going on . Whatever I go , these are your kids . How about the nation ? Bishop Sheen said this a nation always gets the kind of politicians it deserves . So think about the millennials again , and not just the millennial .
I'm just not just picking on them , but I just get frustrated with them because they have kids of their own now and they don't seem to care . So many of them don't seem to care .
And it says a nation always gets the kind of politicians it deserves , if a time ever comes when the religious Jews , the Protestants and the Catholics ever have to suffer under a totalitarian state which is what we have now , which would deny them the right to worship God according to the light of their conscience , it will be because for years they had thought and
made no difference what kind of people represented them in Congress and because they abandoned the spiritual in the realm of the temporal . You get back to that . John Adams and Madison again with the founding fathers said this Republic of ours is can only be kept together by religious and moral people .
So if you take that out , you know you attack marriage and the family , you attack the church which is supposed to bring this light in , and everything will come apart . And that's their goal . Right ? That's always the Marxist goal Take God out , destroy marriage and the family and then we could take power and build back better , right ?
You hear this all the way from the World Economic Forum . So here's the Impiore School , district 150 . 95% of the Black students cannot read it at grade level and math . 98% of them are not proficient in math . 98% of them according to the state level . In one high school proficiency rates on the S&T , the SAT and math . Guess this is for all races ?
Okay , in one high school SAT and math 0% for all races . Zero of them are up to state proficiency standards . So it's impossible for a Peoria to be successful now going forward so that that that , that town , that city , that area , that people's rated very highly as a good place to live . Guess what's going to happen in just a little while .
And how about their work boards ? Where are they going to get that work ? Where are they going to get their thought leaders from ? Where are they going to get their political leaders from ? Corruption , corruption , corruption . So for Peoria to thrive , if kids can't read or do math , I mean , what are they going to do ?
So here's the response by Dr Sharon Carrot , k-h-e-r-a-t . Carrot or Carrot , she's the superintendent of Peoria schools . Now , now here's the blame , right . This is Chicago and Peoria and , and let's just say , the state of Illinois .
Now , I hope you live in a state or even I know many people live outside of even our country that listened to this podcast , but I hope you , you're in a better place than us and that here in Illinois , again , we're in the belly of the beast . We always are going to blame what ? Racism , classism .
You know somebody in the past , it's not me , you know , it's not the students , it's not me , it's always something else . Of course . You'll never solve anything by doing that . These are grown people . A doctor , you know and again , when I get back to doctors of education , that's a PhD , that's a psychological head disorder . That's what that stands for .
You just watch PhDs in education . There's something cycle , psych , psychologically damaged about them . It's just the reality of who they are .
Now I don't know if they've just gone down this deep , dark place so long that they they have lost any light any way to get out of this , or they just been indoctrinated so deep into the suppressor , oppressor , this Marxism , and they have no God . God was taken out of their life and you can't really just blame them sometimes . Because why ?
Because the attack on the Black family now this is a Black woman , dr Sharon Carrott blame me , of course . Racism and probably white supremacists and all this kind of stuff , and you know , all of these things could have had factors at some point . All of us got to pick it up .
Where we're at right now , though , we live in the most diverse , homogenous country in the world . That that that was at one time . You know , the place where everybody came . For what ? For the world . This is the , this is opportunity , the land of opportunity .
You know , I again , I had four grandparents coming that were three of them were orphans , from four different countries , all trying to do what . They all came here penniless . If they , all you know , blame Hitler when they , when they got out of various countries that were communists and not , you know , full of Nazis and , and you know , jews that escaped .
You know we can all blame somebody else , but at some point you have to open yourself up and you have to say what's the solution to this ? I am and turn around and say , okay , what can we do here ? Of course it's building up the black family , you know . You know , and , and and this doesn't just go for black families anymore either .
We're seeing this in the Hispanic communities , the white communities , etc . We're all brothers and sisters . If we don't get that right and we keep this oppressor , oppressor thing going , you know we had solved this . You know I grew up in the , in the , in Chicago in the late 50s and 60s , and you know all this civil that .
You know the , the , the civil strife was going on in Chicago and , but you know we overcame this and it was a battle . But now , instead of going forward here , what do they do ? They want to take it all backwards again because they actually like this Marxist and and you know the socialists , the Marxists , they like that battle the oppressor , the oppressor .
They're going to take us back into that , and so you can go on and on . Now this isn't just Peoria schools , you know there are . Let me see here there's 53 schools statewide in Illinois . 53 , we're . Not one child is proficient in math , not one . So you know , this is a very small but sliver of hope that we had . We had school choice .
We're trying to get school choice and many , many states are trying to do this . Well , what is Pritzker ? What would you think Pritzker would do here in Illinois ? He stops school choice . He's going to stop those vouchers . You're going to stop the money that's following the , the child .
This is the only way some of these intercity kids and the people in those poorer schools are going to be able to get out , because , you know , not everybody is rich , not everybody could send their kids to private schools . We need to get those kids out of school , but what are you going to do if they can't afford it ?
Right , we got to reject these ultra liberal public schools and use private schools , homeschooling or leave Illinois , but it's not always so easy . So we had school choice at least at least some kids were able to to leave these with these vouchers and things , and he wants to take that out . He also a band the band on books .
He wants to bring up to bring pornography and any kind of just twisted , distorted ideologies into these schools . And guess who pays for all this ? We pay for all this . It's amazing corruption that's going on . And if you think it's just in , you know , in marriage and the family .
You know , cardinal Timothy Dolan , on in New York , maybe he's finally starting to wake up . Oh , god bless him if he is . It's about time . You know it . So he starts to talk about . This was not too long ago , and he talked about saints Peter and Paul , the founders of the church in Rome , who died rather than betray their conscience .
I wish he would have caught on to this a little bit earlier , but anyways , he , you know , I guess better late than ever . He's probably looking around and finally realize that , holy cow , you know it's not okay to go along with evil .
You know , I can't just be marching in pride parades and and and rubbing my elbows with , with , with evil , and expect anything good to come out of this .
I can't rub elbows with Marxists and socialists and you know all the famous , the leader of the world , and go all these beautiful banquets and and and realize that you know I'm rubbing elbows with , with the , with the devil himself in a lot of instances , right that ?
So , anyways , he finally comes out and he talks about the end of religious liberty week , which was not too long ago , where we honor our most cherished freedom , which is how the founders saw it and why they had it lead off the bill of rights .
Indeed , the framers , dole and rights , were keenly aware the potential danger of government budding into church issues .
Nearly 200 years ago , one of the most prospective commentators on America , alex de Torkville , expressed his confidence that this daring experiment that democracy called the United States of America would not fail as long as religion and faith remained free and vibrant .
And now he goes on to list all the ways that the FBI is attacking Catholic groups , like those ardent and the defensive baby in the womb , or even prefer the Latin mass as potential terrorists today . And so he puts this and he names a lot of different things .
You know nine different federal agencies have proposed to make religious charities working in partnership with the government give up their legally protected rights to ensure their staffs are representatives of the organization's beliefs .
You know , here in the United , here in Illinois , we had to stop the adoption agencies that were going on and we've done some great work here with it adopting because we didn't . We didn't go along with same-sex marriage .
There's a government inspector in Oklahoma that threatened to cut off a catholic hospital from federal funds unless it extinguishes an open flame , which is a candle a candle in the small sanctuary lamp in the , in a chapel next to the tabernacle with the holy Eucharist . It's unbelievable .
The Department of Education wants to push through rules that roll back protections for religious students at public universities , put religious groups at risk . So I could go on and on and on .
You know it's amazing the arrest of Mark Hauke praying outside of abortion clinic , the FBI raids on parents who are just standing up for their kids , and so finally Dolan goes . Like this , he goes .
While I was recently preparing my sermon for mass on the Feast of Saint Elawatius Gonzaga , I was reminded he died at only the age of 23 , having contracted a virus while ministering to victims of a plague in Rome .
So he's reflecting back on the , on the , on the coronavirus , and allowing allowing all the churches in in his district in the United States and across the world to be shut down . And this came from , you know , pushing down from Pope Francis and all the globalists and everything to shut this down .
He's finally examining his conscience and saying and I'm not going to take the time to go into that uh , that that may not have been a good idea and he's starting to have regrets from that and he's starting to see what the government did and the overreach they did .
Well , you know , I've been talking about this since , uh , since COVID began and Dolan finally wakes up . Well , you know , again , thank goodness he wakes up now and you think about all the attack now , uh , going on , uh , with even something . You know when you talk about the government itself now .
So we talked about marriage and the family , we talked about the church . Now even think about the government overreach . Now look at the way they're going after Trump and whether you , you know , whether you uh like Trump or don't like Trump , you have to be able to see the injustice going on .
You know Tom Renz , who's an attorney that's been fighting this fight for a long time , just wrote , he said during Calend so he's looking at one of the plea deals from Hunter Biden during the calendar year 2017 .
He's reading one paragraph from from from this plea deal uh , hunter Biden earned substantial income , including uh , just under a million dollars from a company formed with CEO of a Chinese business conglomerate . Six now listen to this six hundred and sixty six thousand . Six hundred and sixty six dollars . So six , six , six , comma , six , six , six .
That's a lot of money and it's all satan huh . With his domestic business interest . He earned approximately another six hundred and sixty four thousand dollars from a Chinese infrastructure investment company . He earned a half a million dollars in direction uh director's fees from a Ukrainian energy company this is 2017 70 000 dollars relating to Romanian interest .
48 000 dollars from a multinational firm . None of this , of course , was influence peddling . Of course , right , he's just that brilliant of an executive , because when you think of learned lawyers , you think of Hunter Biden .
The most learned lawyer I know said Tom Renz , uh , and with , with all these frequent pictures of him snorting coke off of hooker's butts , and you know , I mean look , if you've seen the laptop and seen some of the pictures which I actually saw last night .
There's a book published um by Marco Polo , that they published a book of his hook , uh , laptop content that was passed around at a at a little meeting I was at last night . It was just , it's disgusting stuff . So , while we have this persecution of Donald Trump , all of this stuff is is going on behind you know .
Look at Alan uh , you know Alan Dershowitz , who you probably know His commentary on Jack Smith , who's the prosecutor with Trump . Dershowitz by no means is a Trump fan . And Tom Renz says we're clearly on different sides of the political spectrum , with Dershowitz leaning left , but I admire him for the way he looks at the law . Law is impartial .
It's supposed to be blind , that's the way it's supposed to be , and he knows these are garbage indictments against Trump and this is Dershowitz . And Tom Renz says and I agree with this , of course that Jack Smith indictment , in my mind , was both he should be prosecuted for misconduct and it's illegal , and I hope Trump sues him personally .
But anyways , again you see the injustice going on . So what's happening ? Right ? So let's get back to here . It's the weed and the weeds , if you wonder why God permits these things . So in Matthew 13, . I'm going to read you part of this and you just have to sit back , take a deep breath and say why does God allow this ?
And Matthew 13 is just so powerful , right ? But I'm just going to read you from verse 24 , the parable of the weeds . Another parable Jesus put forth before them , saying the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field , but while men were sleeping , his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away .
So when the plants came up and bore grain , then the weeds also appeared . And the servants of the householder came to him and said Sir , did you not sow good seed in your field ? How then has it weeds ? He said to them , an enemy has done this . The servant said to him then do you want us to go and gather them ?
But he said no , lest in gathering the weeds you root up the weed along with them . Let both grow together until the harvest . And at the harvest time I will tell the reapers gather the weeds first and then bind them in bundles to be burned , and gather the weed into my barn . So God allows , evil Doesn't need to come up because we're free . We're free .
You know , again , we're living in that dash called our life and we have to decide . This is the big decision , isn't it ? It's , it's . We have , just we don't know how much time we have , right . So the situation here is clear the field is fertile and the seed is good . We are the seed .
The Lord of the field has scattered his seed at the right moment , with great skill . He even has watchmen to make sure the field is protected . These are our shepherds , right ? They're supposed to be watching over this , and parents watching over their kids .
If afterwards there are weeds among the weeds , because men have failed to respond , because they , as in Christians in particular , have fallen asleep and allowed the enemy to approach . This is our problem . We walked away from God . We're like cut flowers . We have , we have just walked into the weeds . We have become one of the weeds .
When you do evil , when you allow evil to exist , you become evil over time . You know , joe Biden didn't become who he is . Pritzker didn't become who he is overnight . They make small steps toward evil and then they become evil , and then they bring evil and they manifest it in the world and then they are evil . Or the other way .
I start to do small good things . I repent for my sins . I started to do good , I become good , I am the good . So the weeds right . This is cockle . It looks very much like wheat and can easily be mistaken until the ears appear . So it looks kind of like wheat .
So if it gets around , if it gets ground up with the wheat listen to this it contaminates the flower and any bread made from that flower causes severe nausea , so it can really ruin , you know , the flower . In the East , personal vengeance sometimes took the form of sowing this cockle among the enemy's weeds . It really happens .
So Roman law prescribed penalties for this crime . So that really happened . So when the careless servants asked the Lord why the weeds have grown in the field , his explanation is obvious An enemy has done this . This is the fall , and we've normalized the fall . The enemy , of course , is Satan , but he uses people .
Uses people to bring his evil into the world who have come up and decided to put their life with him . I can be , like God , right . We as Christians should keep on guard to make sure the good things placed in this world by the Creator , including our children , were developed in the service of truth and good .
We have to bring them into the world , we have to pass this on . But we fall into sleep . It's a sad thing . It's sluggishness in each human heart . What's the solution to all this ? I am . I'm the solution . I have to walk in . Look at if the shepherds or the church don't know how to proclaim the gospel anymore and actually have become evil .
We see this all the way coming down from the Vatican with its Pachamama being traded around with the John Paul Institute , the Life Institute . Pope Francis has put corrupt homosexuals and thieves . He has put pro-abort people in the Institute for Life for the Catholic Church . Don't listen to what he says . Watch the fruit of what he does . What's the solution ?
We know the solution . We have the Catechism . We have Scripture . We have good pastors . We have some good bishops . Maybe Cardinal Dolan is going to finally stand up and become one of those good ones . Now , again , better late than never . We need every single one of them , but we have to wake up . We know what to do and how to live .
We have to do this and we have to pass this down to our kids . We took it for granted . We never passed this path of faith down to our kids . We didn't give them the truth . Now they are getting indoctrinated in these schools . They have no idea . They are naive . They are going in . You are not taking them to mass .
You are not taking them to Bible study . I am talking about most people that would call themselves even Christian , but so many of them are nuns now . They are nothing . What are they passing down to their kids ? Nothing . They are allowing them to get beat up , twisted and distorted in these corrupt school systems .
I want to get me into the second part of here , which are the readings from just from today . It is so rich I am going to add just a little bit . I am going to extend them out . The reading from today at Mass I always get this from Magnificat is Deuteronomy 4 , which I will read out of , and then Jesus in Matthew 16 . I am going to read from that .
It is fascinating , beautiful , powerful things . I want you to put it in the frame of mind that this is us . This is what happened . Bishop Sheen talks about these cycles that we go in . The Old Testament is always like that . So is the New Testament after it was lived out .
People go in these cycles , we lose our faith and God comes back in all , through the Old Testament , he pulls people back together because they have been taken over or destroyed . Whatever leads them out of slavery , it is slavery to sin . We see these cycles over and over . Bishop Sheen said we are in another cycle of a downward spiral .
This is just going to happen . Now we are in this , but at the end of the day , I am going to be judged . If I don't want to burn up with the shaft of weeds and the destruction I am going to bring into my family , to my kids , my grandkids , etc . We have to stand up and be the light . This is what we do . This is what makes a life worthwhile .
Here is the exhortation from the Old Testament . It's one of these cycles , but but put out , let's put ourselves in this right . And so when God's speaking , he's speaking to us now . So here's an exhortation to the Israelites to keep the law , faithfulness to the law , god's chosen People and his closeness . He wants to come close and intimate with us .
This is the United States of America . God chose a country that we could be free to , to bring our religious beliefs into this country . God helped us with that , made us the most prosperous . Diverse , homogenous it was . It was people from all over the world . We have everybody in the whole world here .
Right , it's a bread basket of people all trying to do what ? To build a life , the American dream . This is all being destroyed , and we're allowing it to be destroyed why ? Because we lost the vision , like like like Bishop sheen just said . See , only those with who live by faith really know what's happening in the world .
The great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive processes going on , because they lost the vision of the heights from which they are Fallen , and we have done this to our own children . So here it goes . And now this is chapter 4 .
And now , all Israel , give heed to the statues and the ordinances which I teach you this is Moses and do them that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord , the God of your fathers , gives you . This is the and I get back now Unquote right , this is our story . We should be passing this down .
You shall not , then I continue . You shall not add to the word which I command you , nor take from it that you may Keep the commandments of the Lord , your God , which I command you . Your eyes have seen what the Lord , god , did in the past .
So I'm gonna can I'm gonna go down to Chapter 4 , verse 9 now , just to save time here , but you should read the whole thing . It's amazing . So verse 9 says only take heed and keep your soul diligently Lest you forget of the things which your eyes have seen , unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life .
Make them known to your children and your children's children . Gather the people to me that I might let them hear my words so that they may learn To fear me . God said all the days that they live upon the earth and they may teach their children to do so . Fear him what he's , a lover fear . Fear going against him . Fear , fear hurting the father .
If you really loved your father , right , I fear hurting him . But if you have to , then you can fear . Hit the the 10 commandments and go against them and break those and you will fear God for the punishment he's gonna bring you . But we see that punishment today . This is what we always forget . Oh , I'm afraid of God . He only gives me all these rules .
Well , break those rules , because those are the God's heart . Do not kill . Honor your father and mother . Don't steal , don't cover your neighbor's goods , your neighbor's wife . Don't commit adultery , you know . Don't murder people . I mean what , what ? What is there not ? You know that you don't agree with there .
I want you to focus on as less , lest they depart from your heart all these things I taught you all the days of your life and then make them known to your children and your children's children . This is what we've done in the United States . We were so prosperous that we took it for granted , and our kids have taken it for granted .
We took it for granted . We're passing down nothing to them now here I'm gonna go on again . I'm still in chapter 4 to verse 32 , which is the actual reading today from the Magnificat .
This is the Lord's special providence to his people who , again , he loves , he's bringing close to them , and this could be us for ask now of the days that are past , which were before you since the day that God created man upon the earth , and ask from one end of heaven to the other Whether such a great thing as this has ever happened before .
Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out in the midst of the fire , as you've heard and still live , or has any God ever attempted to go make a nation for himself among the midst of other nations , like our God did ? And I skip a little bit . So .
So , basically , god has given us a country here in the United States , just like he pulled together from them . We are based on Judeo Christian principles . If we walk away from that , we lose our heart , we lose our country and we become like everybody else . This is from verse 37 again , I'm just trying to save some time .
And because he loved your fathers Right and chose their descendants after them , brought you out of Egypt and brought my grandparents out of all their countries , with his own presence , by his great power and Driving out before your nation's , greater and mightier than yourselves , to bring you in , to give you their land for an inheritance as Of this day .
Know , therefore , this day and lay it to your heart . I mean , think about you . Know when , when , our , when , our founding fathers left the powers and principalities of of England and the suppression of the king and , etc . Etc . Right , and now we have a land that we can be free and . Know , therefore , this day and lay it to your heart again .
He always gets to the heart . Lay it to your heart , think about how this happened . And the Lord is God and heaven above and on earth Beneath . There is no other .
Therefore , you shall keep his statues and his commandments , which I command you this day , that it may go well with you and with your children After you , and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord , your God , gives you forever .
So you know , being good , obeying the commandments of the law , brings life , you know , initially this was understood as longevity . Of course , in the Old Testament and this land that we have , you know , whereas sin often brings with it misfortune or death , as punishment from God , and we're seeing this in our own lives , are we ? This is in our country .
Look what the covert facts did and all this evils . You know they made a lot of people sick , but look at the violence in the streets in Chicago and stuff and the theft and the murder going on right .
The fact that God is just in his treatment of mankind , rewarding him or punishing him sooner or later for the evil or good he does , is a message that runs right through the old and new testaments . But if you think about it , we punish ourselves first , don't we ?
When we cheat on our wives or our husbands , you know when , when we have abortions , when we , when we no longer Bring the law would be , defund the police and let civilization break down . I mean , do we not pay for those things ?
In ancient tests , the X , the Accent is on reward or punishment , in this present life , of course , and it's true it does now in the New Testament , more emphasis put on divine Repert , a retribution , in the future life . Is it not surprising that there should be this line of development in the biblical ethic ?
I mean , god takes account of time and grace to lead men to the fullness of truth . So he's leading us to the truth , isn't he ? And so I want to kind of Go back to the gospel of Matthew now , and this again is just from today . So this is the gospel of Matthew .
It's , if you want to follow me , it's chapter 16 , verse 24 , but I'm just gonna go a little bit before them and to go to verse 21 . Jesus is ministry on the way to Jerusalem . Now , think about this . You know , jesus is Fortells his passion and his resurrection , his self-denial .
He's , he's coming here to build this bridge , to bridge his back to eternal life . But we also take Jesus into ourselves so we can live this out today . It's it's , it's the manifested . Today we have to bring this down to our children . So from that time , jesus began to show his disciples and this is us , that we that he must go to Jerusalem .
He must suffer many things from elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed . Isn't this the attack ? Today , jesus brings the good into the world , the truth into the world , love into the world from the Creator , and then he's gonna be raised , he said .
But then Peter took him aside and we've given me , said God forbid that you're gonna die , you're gonna suffer that this shall happen to you . But Jesus turned to Peter and said get behind me , satan . You're a hindrance to me , for you're not on the side of God , but of men . Youth are thinking like like men right now . Listen to what I say . Jesus says .
Isn't this the problem with the church ? Look at Father James , martin and soupage and and McElroy and and Wilson , gregory and all these people just throw what God says out . No , I will be like God . They say . These are the shepherds that are leading us in the wrong place .
Right , and I think about all these politicians , you know , and even all the people in their own marriages . All I'll be like God . I don't want to carry across . I don't want to sacrifice for others . Let's play the blame game right this ?
That doctor , whoever it was that I quoted from Peoria it's not even worth going back and listening to some Marxist Baloney from her or anybody else , is gonna spew that stuff at the end of the day , and again , your heart goes out to them . I don't know what happened in her life . Look at , prejudice really happens , evil really happens . But what's the solution ?
The solution is not to look for you know for more people to to to you know to conquer and say , oh , you oppressed me , now I'm gonna press you and we turn around its reverse racism . I mean , what does that accomplish ? No , we have to be liberated from sin . So this is why Jesus says this in verse in 24 . He didn't .
Jesus told us disciples if anybody wants to come after me , let him Deny himself , take up his cross and follow me now . Now think about all these politicians , all these instances , all these things I brought up in our own lives .
Here too , because I am the solution where I have to follow him and and it doesn't look like it it's gonna be easy , because he says for whoever would save his life will lose it . Whoever loses his life for my sake , we'll find it . For what will a prophet of man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life ?
Well , what shall a man give in return for his life ? For the son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of the father , and then he will repay every man for what he's done .
Truly , I say to you , there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the son of man coming into his kingdom , before they die , before many of them die . He will come , he will be crucified , he will be resurrected and you will see the opening of the kingdom . We have to say yes to him , right ?
A Christian cannot ignore these words of Jesus . You , you have to risk , you have to gamble that , this present , this present life of ours . We have to gamble our life and give it to him in order to attain eternal life . How little a life is to offer to God ? Who are we without this ? This is our dash . What ? What you want ?
To bring glory into your life ? You become small . Let Christ become big , and he will show you the path to this thing . It's only when we humble ourselves . All these other people I talked about our pride , pride , pride , month pride , this pride that it's one of the seven deadly sins .
Right , our Lord's requirement means that we must renounce our own will in order to identify with the will of God . Father James , martin and Supage , and all these guys again , cardinal Supage , god wills the same thing , I will , and they're fretful at having to do that will of God himself because they find it repugnant to accommodate their will to that of God .
But we have to go about them and discern . You know what is marriage in a family ? What is the church ? We have to stand up . You know , bishop Sheen said that we're the answer , the laity is the answer to this . We have to make sure our bishops act like bishops , our priests act like priests , our religious act like religious .
But we also have to do the same thing in the government and we have to do the same thing in our lives , because it all starts with marriage and the family , right ? So hence it happens to them that sometimes they think that we're in , they find not their own will and pleasure , that that's not the will of God , saint John of the Cross said .
But he said , on the other hand , when they find satisfaction with themselves , it's because God is also satisfied . Our satisfaction , our happiness , actually comes from curing the cross to humble ourselves , to do good for other people .
John Paul II with young people so often right Young people you know that your life has meaning to the extent it's given away as a gift to others . So Christ's words are crystal clear . Every person has to bear in mind the last judgment huh . Salvation , in other words , is something radically personal . He's going to repay every one of us for what we have done .
Man and woman's goal does not consist in accumulating worldly goods . These are only a means to an end . Are they good to have ? Yeah , I got to support my family . You know I might create businesses in the world . There's nothing wrong with that , but you got to create . You got to keep this last , you know this last judgment in mind .
You got to be close to Christ . You know this world is going to get worse before it gets better here . So , anyways , we open ourselves up to the good and we become good in the world . Pass this faith down to your kids . Bring love Ed . Look at again our website . Look up Love Ed . It's a very simple . It's a very simple program .
We'll show you how to do it . It doesn't take much time . We'll help you with it . We'll get this birds and bees talk down and then open up a dialogue on going dialogue in your homes to make this a domestic church . Then we got to go out , we got to get on the school boards .
We have to see what's going on with this and we have to stand up against evil . Life goes by very , very quickly . I am going to do a second part on this and it's really going to focus on Bishop Sheen's warning of crisis and Christenom .
So , with the saintly , you know , long ranging spiritual vision of Bishop Sheen , he saw the roots of today's crisis firmly planted and growing in 1974 . So that's before I got out of high school . I'm going to age myself here , right , and he gives us an answer on this and he kind of opens this up and I want to do this in the very next session .
So listen for this . I'll try to get it out . I'll try to get one out by Monday so you don't have to wait too long . It's really beautiful and powerful . So this will build on that , on what we talked about today . Hey , god bless you . Thanks for being with me . Talk to you soon , everybody . Keep the faith , keep your hope up .
Look at , this is just part of a story . Keep it in mind that these things happen in life , that we're living in a culture that's thrown out God . This is a . You know , we're post-Christian culture .
We're no longer this country that James Madison and John Adams figured were the moral and religious people , and so , unless that turns around , just like I just read , we're going to lose this to the powers and the tyrants . We're going to be choked by the weeds . To put it simply right , and again , we have this three necessary societies .
So we've got to build up marriage and a family . We cannot allow them to indoctrinate our kids , because we have to save their souls , if not the country , the church itself . We have to understand that . We have the teaching . It's been coming down to us . Unfortunately , we may have to wait until we get some better church leaders .
In the meantime , look to Bishop Strickland . Look to Bishop Strickland , cardinal Burke Cardinal , or Bishop Athanasius Schneider Vigano . He's got some good insights on all this stuff . So we have to . But we have the catechism , we have scripture , we have John Paul's teaching . Go back and listen to our podcasts every Wednesday on Theology of the Body .
It's just such beautiful things . Email me if you have some specific questions and I'll bring them up on future podcasts . God bless you . Thanks for supporting us everyone . Don't forget the 50-50 plan . Bye-bye , rained .