#425 Finding Love In The Dark; A Letter To Our Grandchildren

So I was sitting down the last couple of days I meant to do this on Friday and this is Sunday as I record this and I just , you know , I just these wheels kept going around on my head and I put some things down and then I went back to work again on it and I didn't like it , and then I really meditated for a while on scripture and just prayer and I

said , you know , what are all these headlines ? God , you know , I mean , what do we want to tell our children and our grandchildren about this crazy world ? And I , you know I'm thinking about Donald Trump and and you know whether you like him or not , you think he's an egomaniac or not .

It doesn't matter what the point being , it's in , just what , what's happening to him . Right , we have a two tiered justice system , you know . I , you know I think about the January 6 insurrectionists they call them , you know that have been in prison now for three years , offered no bail .

Three years , three of them , almost all of them , let's say , with no prior records . No violence , no records , no , nothing . And then you have these violent communities . You know , I'm outside of Chicago , born in Chicago , and now you have all these actual violent criminals being released without bail .

We have cashless bail here , so one group of people are cashless bail , they get out with nothing . And then we have these , the January 6 people who have been in prison for three years offered no bail at any price .

It's amazing what happens , right , and , and then you think , okay , well , you know we have to turn to the church , you know we have to get down on our knees , which is true , and and and all of those things are true .

But then on the visible , the shepherds themselves , we have Pope Francis , who embraces someone like Father James Martin and many , many , many others who just spew heresy and actually embraces them , you know , takes pictures with them and things . And now he's relieved . Another bishop , another faithful Bishop , bishop Joseph Strickland out of Tyler , texas .

It's amazing , amazing , amazing canceling . So we have both the church and politics . You know the culture canceling people out . Joseph Strickland hated for what ? For reading the catechism of the Catholic Church out loud . I mean , that's what he did , it's , and you think there's .

That's bad enough , right , that's nefarious enough , as dark and as sinister as they can get , and and and it's not . It's not as dark and as sinister as you can get . What's really the darkest and the most sinister is what they're doing to our children .

What they're doing to our children , twisting and distorting them at a young , young age , without , you know , even being of the age of reason , yet attacking their innocence , stolen innocence , that's as dark as it can get . Bringing pornography into their life , twisting and distorting their minds , bodies , souls . You know that's the worst , and so I speak on this .

As many of you know , I speak in a presentation called stolen innocence with a friend of mine , tom Hampson , who's an undercover , was an undercover undercover investigator that for child sex trafficking and child porn and all these things , knows these things intimately .

And both him and I , when we got together for the first time , realized that hey , you know , you can't arrest your way out of these things . You know , it's just too pervasive , too big . It's a battle between good and evil . So after we present this to people and show them what's going on in our culture and our schools and all these different things .

And many of those people in the audience are grandparents . You know you would hope and we're always looking for parents , and parents come , but , but we get more grandparents right , more gray hairs .

You know that , for all kinds of reasons that I've outlined before , and I'm not going to take time to say that today , except to say again that grandparents are frustrated . What can we do ? What can we do ?

So we outline a number of different things that they can do school boards and library boards and local mostly local elections , and things we want to get them involved in and all kinds of different ways .

But then we have to fill our children , and so we brought out programs like Love Ed , which helps parents get this message down to their children in such a beautiful way . But finally , finally , they got to know their story . They got to know their story .

So , with that in mind , I'm , I'm I've been working on for a while now and I bring bringing pieces of this is out in my presentations .

Is is a project called Finding Love in the Dark , a letter to our grandchildren , really with with grandparents in mind who are frustrated , who want to do something , and what it is is is helping them find wisdom , seek wisdom , truth , beauty their grandchildren I'm talking about and purpose in a world gone mad . How do you do that Right ?

So that's really the work that I'm been working on . That's what I really want to . I want to outline today a little bit , just give you some some really good basic . You know , we got to tell the story .

We got to tell a love story , finding love in the dark , because we all seek that , all everyone seeks love , because we're created in love , by love and for love . You know , it's not enough anymore just to give them information .

Young people , we have to to get in touch and have the gospel get in touch with their DNA , tell the love story , because they have this running through their bodies already . It's right in their bloodstream . Many times . I'll begin to talk with young people say , okay , before we get going here , you know who ? Who , anybody in this room create the universe ?

Raise your hand . Anybody create the universe ? No , nobody , anybody here . The author of the largest story we found ourselves in , I mean , who here put the stars in the heavens ? Anybody you know who separated the sky from the land ? Anybody , no , oh , so you came into a story .

You came into a story and that's the truth for all of us , right , we all came into a story . So I'm going to give you a little taste in three acts . Today I read discovering really our life right In abundance , finding meaning and purpose in a world gone mad . So buckle up and get ready for today's episode .

Chapter 1 In the Beginning , a Cosmic Explosion of Love . And the Pharisees tested Jesus by asking Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause ? Jesus , instead of limiting himself to their line of questioning , pointed them back to the original model of marriage . He answered have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female ?

And for this reason , a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife , and the two shall become one . So they are no longer two but one . What , therefore , god has joined together ? Let no man put us under Betashit Jesus is pointing us to in the beginning . Betashit , the Hebrew word for in the beginning .

After five days of creation , the Garden of Eden is ready , it's prepared for a wedding feast and the God seems to draw back into himself . In Genesis , one and Jesus . Let us create man in our image , after our likeness . So God created man in his image , in the divine image . He created them , male and female . He created them .

Smiling upon the newly married couple , god blessed them , saying to them Be fertile and multiply , fill the earth , bring forth children . For they were very good . God created man in his image , in the divine image . He created them , male and female , he created them .

This is the very first thing that God chooses to say to us about anything in the Bible that he created us in his image , in the divine image he created us . Human beings , from the beginning , were created to be sacramental , visible signs of God Trinitarian love in the created universe .

John Paul , writing about this in the theology of the body , said the human body think about this with its sex , masculinity and femininity , seen in the very mystery of creation , is not only a source of fruitfulness and procreation , as in the whole natural order , but contains something more from the very beginning the spousal attribute that is , it contains the power

to express love . It makes us different than all the other animals , doesn't it ? We are called to procreate , come together to two , become one , become three , open to life . But that's an expression not only of bringing a child in , but that's an expression of love .

Our bodies express love , precisely that love in which the human person becomes a gift and , through this gift , fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence . I become a gift to my wife , my wife receives . This gift becomes a gift back and forth for me , open to life . This is a tiny , sacramental sign of what , of the trinity , of the trinitarian love .

John Paul went on to state his thesis , his whole thesis of all his work in theology the body , and that , when allowed to sink in , let this sink in . It will revolutionize , and has been revolutionizing , the way we understand the human body and sexuality .

He said this the body in it alone is capable of making visible what is invisible , the spiritual and the divine . Our bodies were created to transfer into the visible reality of this world the invisible mystery hidden in God from time , immortal , and thus to be a sign of it . Well , what is that invisible mystery of God ?

That God is an eternal exchange of love , father , son and Holy Spirit , and we are to be the visible sign of that in marriage . What does it mean ? As physical , bodily creatures we cannot see God . He's pure spirit . But God wanted to make this mystery , his mystery , visible to us .

So he stamped it right into our very bodies by creating us as male and female in his image . The function of this image is to reflect the trinity , an inscrutable divine communion of three persons .

Thus , in a dramatic development of Catholic thought , john Paul II concludes that man became the image and likeness of God , not only through his own humanity , but also through what , through the communion of persons , which man and woman write from the beginning , express . This is what our sexuality is about .

And the pulp adds this on all of this , right from the very beginning they're descended the blessing of fertility linked with human procreation . The body has an up-shoulder or spousal meaning because it reveals man and woman's call to become a gift to one another , a gift fully realized in their one flesh , marital sexual union .

The body also has a generative meaning that , god willing , brings a third into the world through their communion . In this way , marriage constitutes a primordial sacrament , understood as a sign that truly communicates the mystery of God's Trinitarian life and love to husband and wife and , through them , to their children and , through the family , to the whole world .

Thus , in this dimension , a primordial sacrament is constituted , understood as a sign that efficaciously transmits invisible world in our visible world , the invisible mystery hidden in God from eternity . And this is the mystery of truth and love , the mystery of divine life in which man really participates in . Man created a mago day .

In the image and likeness of God , we become the very sacrament of creation , the sacrament of the world , the crown of creation that everything is set up for . And then what we bring ? Love through our bodies . We're embodied souls , but we express our soul and this desire because it's innate in us , given to us by the source of God himself , to express love .

So the very sacramentality of creation , the sacramentality of the whole world , is revealed in some way through our bodies . In fact , through his bodilyness , his masculinity and femininity , mankind becomes a visible sign of truth and love , of God himself in the world , god who is love .

So all of love has its source in God himself and was revealed already in the mystery of creation . Together with man , holiness has entered the visible world and we were naked without shame , it says in Genesis , the world created for him .

The sacrament of the world and the sacrament of man in the world comes forth from the divine source of holiness and is instituted at the same time for holiness . Oh my gosh , right , this was all I started , was all set up as a wedding . And what is that wedding to bring ?

To bring God's trinitarian love in the world , to be a tiny little sign of it in a created way . God is not a sexual being , but he created our sexuality so beautifully , so so sublime , that when we express love we become a gift to one another , open to life .

We become this little love bomb that brings God's love into the world , the crown of creation , while something happened in it . Act two the fall . The first is battle in human history now has been unleashed , but it's been unleashed now on children . See , this twisting , this distortion of what's happening to our poor children is the epitome of sin .

See , unfortunately , in the fall , mankind , adam and Eve , would fall from grace and enter the tempter , the Mysterium and Equitatus , a Latin phrase which means the mystery of evil . Satan doesn't have his own clay . He can only twist , distort and seek to destroy the Amago day , the sign that God created . What good to express love in the world ?

Now , the serpent was the most cunning of all animals that the Lord God had made . The serpent asked the woman did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden . The woman answered the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden . It's only the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said .

You shall not eat of it or even touch it , lest you die . But the serpent said to the woman you certainly will not die . No , god knows well that the moment you eat of it , your eyes will be open and you will be like God's , who know what is good and what is evil . Fast forward today to today .

My heart goes out to young people who are being pulverized by a twisted , distorted and very toxic culture .

They've been repeatedly lied to about the very basics concerning the meaning of marriage for the family , authentic love , the meaning and purpose of sex and sexuality , and more Particularly disturbing is the sexual indoctrination , exploitation and grooming of children taking place on a mass scale .

Where , in the public school systems , jesus said let the little children come to me , for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven . The fiercest battle ever waged in human history is fought in our country right now , and it is for the hearts , the minds , the souls and the very bodies of our nation's children . We've never seen anything like this .

What makes it all the more sinister is that far too many Americans have allowed this to happen Alexander Schultz and Nitsyn , the great Russian artist and writer who spent eight years in the Soviet Gulags . K Mowen said this the strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on the level of its industrialization .

If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted , it will not be saved from collapse by any perfect government structure or by any industrial development . A tree with a rotten core cannot stand . Children , then , who are naturally trusting of authority , are being indoctrinated , groomed and sexually exploited . They're innocent , stolen from them .

They are experiencing skyrocketing mental health issues that should be sending parents a clear warning . Something has gone terribly wrong . Anxiety , depression , self-harm and suicidal thoughts are no longer uncommon , with suicide rates rising fastest among who ? 10-14 year old girls Everywhere your turn .

Targets have been placed on the backs of children to satisfy the bloodlust of ideologues , pedophiles , big pharma , the abortion industry , large corporations , social media , the porn industry and , of course , the rich and powerful who thirst for money , power and power .

Control , and sex has never satiated , but none have placed more targets on the backs of children than the public school system and the teachers' unions . Americans , who were sold on the idea that to properly educate children they must be turned over to the quote-unquote expert class , have come to realize that the goal of academic excellence has been hijacked .

America's public schools have become toxic , morally , intellectually and politically . And while it seems to happen overnight , it's been decades in the making . As ideologues , mainly Marxists , saw an opportunity to create a new utopia without God , we're going to create the city of man huh .

They began their long march by infiltrating the universities , the teachers' colleges and finally it's gotten down to the entire public school system and the teachers' unions .

To give you a sense of this , perhaps the most influential figure in modern American education is John Dewey , who moved the Frankfurt School , founded by Marxists in the United States , to Columbia University .

Dewey was a socialist and a staunch atheist and who had spent time in the Soviet Union to study their system of education , and upon his return to the States , he wrote a book on his admiration for and desire to replicate the way in which their system was used as a political tool .

How , then , the Soviets he studied were able to so quickly embed a collectivist mindset into children , and how they began to dismantle . Listen to this the need for a family unit . Our special concern here , he wrote , is with the role of schools in building up forces and factors whose natural effect is to undermine the importance and uniqueness of family life .

Dewey eventually became known as the father of progressive education . His lack of understanding of the dignity of the human person and his disdain for religion and made it informed his view of education .

Do we believe that more than an emphasis on reading , writing and arithmetic , education should be used as a tool for social engineering and for the raising of the consciousness of children toward activism ?

He taught the philosophy of education at the teachers college , then at Columbia , which he helped to found right , where he was able to have a vast and profound impact .

Listen to this by 1950 , already a third of principals and superintendents of large school districts across our nation had been trained there and returned to their districts to spread these theories throughout the nation . Well , I'll tell you what now . It's entered into every school district .

When I talk to school boards that are looking to hire superintendents of schools , they said you just have to look and hire them on their scale of wokeness . You can't find somebody that's not woke . What was the practical implications of this ? Prayer was strategically removed , as was the preledge of allegiance , followed by the voice of parents .

Love of God , family and country were replaced by slogans and fads that would change along with the ideological spirit of the day . As a result , the modern public school classroom is no longer focused on academic excellence and critical thinking .

Instead , classroom time has taken up with indoctrinating children into a cesspool of neo-Marxist critical theories under the guise of DEI , sel , crt , cgt , gqt and a host of other alphabet soup labels . Maybe I'll quickly go through these . Dei , of course , is diversity , equity and inclusion .

Sel is this hyperdermic , needle-like atrocious horse that comes in it's social emotional learning . Crt is critical race theory . Cgt , critical gender theory . Gqt , critical queer theory . I mean , they're going to inundate , inundate , inundate . Until you just throw up your hands , it almost seems endless .

And while all of this is nefarious enough , they all have to distract us from the particularly disturbing push to expose children to pornography on a mass scale . Underneath this is intentional and systematic . See the begin quote . Begin , end , quote experts . The experts know that pornography can be used as an effective tool to what ?

To destabilize a society , to wreak havoc on marriages and families and to twist and distort the human heart of a child and eliminate God from their hearts and from the culture . The experts understand that the early year children are sexualized and robbed of their innocence , the easier it is to make pornography begin quote perfectly normal .

End quote pornography perfectly normal . As my good friend Thomas Hampson wrote in a recent article , children cannot rationally weigh the pros and cons of the various perspectives on sexuality . Children have neither the knowledge nor the reasoning capacity to consider these issues , since the reasoning center in the human brain does not fully develop until age 25 .

They need parents , they need grandparents , they need educators . They're gonna help them with the truth . Jonathan Van Meeren wrote I've been giving presentations on pornography for a decade and during that time I've heard a thousand versions of the same heartbreaking story .

A young boy stumbles across , pouring on a computer , smartphone , ipad or some other digital device , the primal power of the sexual imagery that he does not fully understand but pulls him nevertheless into it , capturing his imagination . It draws him back over and over again and eventually renders him an addict .

The average young man with a long standing porn addiction in my experience , jonathan says first saw or watched porn in grade six . In the past several years , however , I've increasingly encountered young people who got hooked on porn at younger and younger ages . Once I spoke with someone who got addicted at age eight .

Another who shared his story with me started at age five , at age 15 , struggling to get free . This young man said he'd already been looking at pornography for over a decade . The porn industry robbed him of his childhood , which he will never get back . A common lie told to the young is what there's nothing wrong with pornography Watching it doesn't hurt anyone .

The truth is that it's hurting everyone in our society . But let's just start with you , with the individual . Porn violently attacks both body and soul . The way porn attacks the soul is by looking back at how I opened this up . Let's meditate back at how I opened this up , the spousal meaning of the body . The body expresses love .

Well , the way porn attacks the soul is by the fact that it's the opposite of God's plan for self-giving love . The opposite of love , you see , is not hate , it's lust or desiring to see and then use another person as an object . Pornography , that is the opposite of love and so the opposite of everything that you've been created for .

I've lost count of the people I know whose relationships , including marriages , have been destroyed by pornography . And while pornography is not a drug , it works like one in the brain .

Sexually stimulating images release powerful neurotransmitters and less than a second , the brain is flooded with a chemical cocktail , including things like testosterone , oxytocin , dopamine , epinephrine and more .

Over time , one's brain is rewired like an attic , resulting in the need of a high and the belief that promiscuity is normal and , over time , the abandonment of the hope of ever finding true love . Already , back in 2016 , the state of Utah declared pornography a public health hazard . Listen to this resolution that passed .

It identified a number of harmful issues that impact individual and public health , it said . Among these are low self-esteem and body image in adolescents . The objectification of women , in which girls are taught they are to be used and boys are taught to be the users . The normalization of violence , abuse and rape .

An increase in the demand for sex trafficking , prostitution and child pornography . The harmful effects on brain development and functioning , including deviant sexual arousal and difficulty forming relationships . Unfortunately , these claims merely support research that dates back several decades . We know all this .

Still , if you think that pornography is the rotten core of the tree that Sholzenitzen spoke of , it is not , as Sholzenitzen would go on to write , the rotten core of the tree is that men have forgotten God . Evil is nothing new , of course , but the face of evil changes .

Far too many adults , including parents , have chosen to ignore or even embrace the ideologies that act like hypodermic needles , injecting evil into the human heart . Evil into the individual human heart and then into the heart of the destroyed relationships . It takes it into the culture and twists and distorts the culture and then finally into politics and beyond .

Men have forgotten God and with no restraint on evil , it's accelerating throughout our nation and into the world . Already , children are facing a very uncertain future that will not include the freedoms and opportunities that were available to past generations .

So my heart goes out to young people Set out like lambs to the slaughter , with no moral instruction to face neo-Marxist ideologies . Who are in , these ideologues who are dressed up as educators , children without a moral compass , without a moral compass to do what ? To guide them to the truth , to help point them to the good ?

Instead , they come face to face with a moral abyss . They lack a well-formed conscience . They weren't given one , they weren't given help .

So they're easily filled with any ideological fad that comes along and accept the lies concerning their identity , the meaning and purpose of marriage , the family , the meaning of authentic love , the meaning of sex , the meaning of purpose of their own lives .

Relentless indoctrination and moral relativism has left more than two thirds of young people without a belief in truth or objective right and wrong . Pope John Paul II , a prophet for our times , identified this back in 1994 when he wrote in his letter to families .

Unfortunately , he wrote various programs , backed by very powerful resources , aimed at the breakdown of the family . At times , it appears that considered efforts are being made to present as normal and attractive and even to glamorize situations where , which are in fact irregular .

Indeed , he went on , they contradict the truth and love which should inspire and guide relationships between men and women , thus causing what Tensions and divisions and families , with grave consequences , he wrote , particularly for children .

The moral conscience becomes darkened , what is true , good and beautiful is deformed , and freedom is replaced by what is actually enslavement . In view of all this , how relevant and thought provoking are the words of the apostle Paul about the freedom for which Christ has set us free and the slavery which is caused by sin . End quote .

Make no mistake about it we're in a spiritual battle . The sister Lucía , the main visionary of Fatima , clearly defined in her letter to Cardinal Kaffara and John Paul II when she wrote this the final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family , she went on .

Do not be afraid , she added , even though whoever works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought against and opposed in every way , because this is the decisive issue . But then she concluded like this don't be afraid because nevertheless , she said , our lady has already crushed his head . The battle has been won .

The overall battle has been won . Christ has redeemed us , but we have to say yes . This is the battle for the human heart , those who will say yes to the love of the bridegroom or those who will reject him . Men have forgotten God . And which brings us to act . Three Enter the bridegroom . The redeemer of man . Original sin and death had entered the garden .

The entrance of shame indicated a radical change in our first parents' experience of embodiment , and it indicates the loss of grace and holiness . And so this original man without sin gives way to historical fallen man who must now contend with lust in his heart .

Today the world has normalized the fall and the human body , and its masculinity and femininity , has almost , almost , lost the power of expressing this love in which the human person becomes a gift in conformity with the deepest structure and finality of his or her personal existence . The heart has become a battlefield .

John Paul II rolled between love and lust , between love and concupiscence . This drawing down , this concupiscence that we all experience , so don't feel bad about that . We all experience this dragging down of the threefold concupiscence that John the Evangelist wrote about .

And the more that drawing down that concupiscence dominates the heart , the less the heart experiences the spousal meaning of the body , the less sensitive it becomes to the gift of the person that expresses precisely this meaning in the reciprocal relations of man and woman . See , humanity has lost the vision of the heights from which it's fallen .

Jesus answers in the beginning it was not so . In the Sermon on the Mount . He goes further to challenge them and us . He says this you have heard it said you shall not commit adultery . But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart . Christ's words are severe in this regard .

John Paul II poses this question . Then , are we to fear the severity of these words , or rather have confidence in their salvific content , in their power . See , the power lies in the fact that the man who utters them is who , the Lamb of God , who takes away the sins of the world .

Christ didn't die and rise from the dead merely to give us coping mechanisms for sin . His death and resurrection are efficacious . They effectively liberate our liberty from the domination of concupiscence .

As John Paul II expresses it , this means , if we open up our bodies once again to the breath that robs the Holy Spirit , we can experience a deep and real victory over lust . We can experience in what is erotic , that original nuptial meaning of the body and we can live it out . This liberation from lust is in fact the condition of all life together .

In truth , it's an illusion , john Paul II said , to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not accept and experience our sexuality and love and the whole meaning of life according to their true meaning and their close interconnection . So he says in the Gospel of Life .

The sexual embrace , he went on , is the foundation stone of human life itself . The family , and in turn culture itself , springs from this embrace . Can you imagine the sexual embrace . This is how important it is . This is why Satan goes after it . In short , as sex goes , so go marriage and the family . As marriage and the family go , so goes civilization .

So what have we been experiencing ? I mean it's no exaggeration to say that the task of the 20th and 21st centuries so far , this early 21st century , what's to do ? What ? To rid culture , marriage and the family and the human heart of what Christian sexual ethics , so that we no longer understand what we're talking about here ?

So if we're to build a culture of life , then to turn this thing around , the task before us must be to reclaim that this task begins on the battlefield of the individual human heart , and it's a call to join our brothers and sisters to say yes our personal fiat to the universal call to holiness our fiat to receive the redemption offered by Jesus Christ and so

be safe , and then to go out in the world and live that out . We begin by what ? By entering the neural gate . Then we pick up our cross and follow the bridegroom .

In Ephesians 5 , saint Paul writes this , and he joins these two bookends the husband and wife created Imago Day in the beginning , and then Christ and his church , christ , the bridegroom , who comes in to restore this and he writes this husbands , love your wives , as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her by the washing of water , with the word that

he might present the church to himself in splendor , without spot or wrinkle or any such thing , that she might be holy and without blemish . This is his bride , this is us . You know , the church is in a building . The church is this organic building up , these organic stones , and we are each one of those organic stones .

He comes to wash us with water with the word to give us his blood in the Eucharist , that he might present the church , then his bride , to himself in splendor and the church might come in without spot or wrinkle or any such thing . How ? Because it's his holiness , he is redemption that restores us .

Saint John Paul II called this passage the sumo of his entire teaching on the theology of the body . Make no mistake about it .

When all the smoke and fog clears mankind , man and women's yearning , burning desire to love and be loved , and the joy in the in myriral union and the sexual embrace points directly to the Eucharist and Jesus' desire to become one flesh with us .

We receive Christ and then we give this to one another so that we can fulfill the spousal meaning of the body again . Archbishop Fulton Sheen summarizes the teaching of countless saints and mystics when he proclaims this . He says this this is so powerful .

Now , we've always thought , rightly so , of Christ and the Son on the cross and the mother beneath him , but that's not the complete picture , that's not the deep understanding . Who is our Lord on the cross ? He's the new Adam . Where's the new Eve then ? At the foot of the cross ?

If Eve became the mother of living in the natural order in the very beginning , now this woman at the foot of the cross is to become another mother . And so the bridegroom looks down at his bride .

So our blessed mother becomes the symbol of the church , of all of us who are going to receive the bridegroom on the cross so we can be filled with divine life and love . And so Jesus looks down on his bride . He looks down on his beloved Christ , looks at who at his church , that we are all organic building blocks of . See .

This is the birth of the church , right there on the cross , and our blessed mother beneath him . As Saint Augustine puts it and here I'm quoting him verbatim . Bishop Fulton sheen said this is what Saint Augustine said , this is where he gets this from from the third and fourth century .

The heavenly bridegroom left the heavenly chambers with the presage of the nuptials before him , he came to the marriage bed of the cross , a bed not a pleasure but a pain , uniting himself with the woman and consummating the union forever , as it were . The , the blood and water that came from the side of Christ was the spiritual seminal fluid .

Think about that , the blood and water that pours down . What does it do in a sacramental order ? It washes us of sin . It fills us up with the Eucharist to make love to us , not a sexual love , right , a spiritual love , so that we can turn and and make God's love visible once again in the world .

And so , from these nuptials , right women , where's your son ? This is the beginning of the church . Christ gave himself up for her . The church is bride that she might be immaculate . Jesus gave this act of oblation and enduring presence through the institution of what . How do we receive this ? Through the ages , he institutes the Eucharist .

At the last supper , you see , he anticipated his death and resurrection by giving his disciples in the bread and wine his very self , his body and blood , as the new manna . The ancient world had dimly perceived that man's real food , what truly nourishes himself as mankind , is ultimately the Logos , eternal wisdom .

The same Logos now truly becomes food for us , God himself . Who is the Logos , jesus Christ , and how does he give it this food ? As love . As love , the Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation .

Jesus takes on our humanity , in a sense all of us , and then , more than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos , we enter into the very dynamic of the self-giving love of Jesus on the cross pouring himself out to us , the Church .

You see , in the Old Testament the imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable . It had meant standing in God's presence , but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift , sharing in his actual body and blood .

The sacramental mysticism grounded in God's condescension toward us operates at a radically different level and lifts up so far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish . God wants to draw us back up into himself , into the heavens per se , so that it's like the branch on the vine .

We can start to receive this from the source of love be filled today . Today , eternity doesn't mean tomorrow . Eternity means forever , so that we can live this out . Let me conclude this with one of my favorite reflections on love . This is from Father Karan , a Spanish priest and professor of theology who was , at least at one time , at the University of Milan .

I'm not sure if he's still there or not , but he also quotes from the German poet René Wilkie . It's called Desires and Earthly Limitations how to live like the Holy Family . This is so beautiful . It's a reflection on fallen man and woman trying to find love and a solution for it .

So he begins like this the woman , with her limitation , awakens in the man , who was also limited , a desire for fullness out of proportion with her capacity to answer it . She awakens in him a thirst which she is unable to quench , a hunger she's unable to fully satisfy .

This is what gives rise to the anger and the violence that married couples so often experience and the delusion they feel if they do not understand the true nature of their relationship .

If husband and wife do not encounter what that sign is , pointing to , the place where they can find the fulfillment of the promise that the other has aroused , then they are condemned to be consumed by a pretension from which they cannot free themselves , and their desire for the infinite is condemned to remain unsatisfied .

The German poet René Wilkie identified very keenly this drama in loving relationships , sensing that ending up in this downward spiral cannot be the only way out . This is the paradox of love between man and woman . We hear we have two infinities , meaning two limitations , two infinite needs to be loved . Meet two fragile and limited capacities to love .

Only in the ambit of a greater love Do they not consume themselves in pretension and not resign themselves , but walk together , each toward a fullness of which the other is a sign . If you do not love Christ , beauty may flesh more than the person you love .

The later relationship withers becomes Christ's , the truth of this relationship , the fullness to which both partners point and in whom their relationship is fulfilled . Only by letting him in is it possible for the most beautiful relationship that can happen in life not to be corrupted and die in time . This is the audacity of his claim .

Okay , everyone , hey , thanks for joining me . Don't forget to financially help us if you can . We're going out to parishes right now . We're sharing this love story and we have to do it and we have to help grandparents and parents and parishes to have this vision and to help us do that .

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