#436 Is Your Marriage Unraveling? How Natural Family Planning and Celibacy For The Kingdom Restores Relationships

And St Athanasius , an early church father and the doctor of the church , said the son of God became man so that we might become God . You know I make a while to guess at this , but I bet you , most of us , are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to .

Yet St John Paul II said there's an echo of this story , of this divine life that we're created for , inscribed in each human heart , in your human heart , and if you put on a proper lens , if I put on a proper lens , we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment .

See , that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology the body . It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today . Who am I ? What's my purpose . Why were we created male and female ?

How do I find happiness here on earth ? How do I find love that satisfies forever ? Hey , glad you're with me . I'll be right back for today's episode . I'm excited to be with Linda Piper , but she's not in Pennsylvania , she's right here in the studio with me . How are you , linda ? Good to have you in .

So we get the sunrise and sunset every day , when we have sun and beautiful , mysterious sort of scenery , with the fog moving in partway . So , yeah , we're enjoying it .

You know we are on audience number 75 . We're getting our way through this thing , given on March 24 , 1982 , there's just so much .

Here we're still on continents for the Kingdom of Heaven and following Jesus Christ , who said something very radical to the disciples Remember that's really coming from a background , their Old Testament people , right that Jesus is talking to , and so in heaven they're not married or given in marriage , and some people are already called to begin to live this out , real

breathing , living people here on earth , to skip the earthly marriage , go right into the heavenly marriage . Well , you know , when he's saying this , they're really scratching their heads , just like we do at first when we contrast that give up marriage . That means sexual relationships , which you almost have to add today , right , voluntarily .

Can you imagine how this sounds today , linda ? People would say to us what ? No , no pornography , no lust , no selfishness . No gender ideologies , what , what ? No queer labels to find utopia here on earth . What do you think I mean ?

It's but but this , this was unfamiliar to the disciples , too right , in a different way , in a different way , but yes , it was .

And yet what I love about what Pope John Paul brings out in audience number 75 is that Christ , his whole life , was that clear detachment from this idea of marriage , in a very discreet way . So he was doing it , modeling it while he was talking about it , which gave the apostles a chance to kind of take a breath and observe .

You know what he was saying , but also what he was doing .

Well , we look back at the 60s that you and I both lived through and the widespread unhappiness now looking back right , just like the disciples . It took them a while for all this to sink in . I think this connection from God and from our sexuality and misunderstanding took a while for all of us to realize .

Oh my gosh , there's a ton of pain and suffering here . Now this has morphed brokenness on top of brokenness , has morphed to such an insanity that our poor young people , many of them , are suffering with nothing . They come into a world with no values , nothing to be filled with . Well , in that time , god always sends a prophet . Right ?

A prophet doesn't just read the tea leaves for the future . Right , a prophet looks at today . What's happening today and how is this playing out today ? That's really what a prophet in the Old Testament does . It's not like he's prophesizing 500 years from now .

He's saying this is what I see , this is what I know , and this is what's going to happen if we keep this up right . So , john Paul II , give people a little background here . We haven't done this for a little while . Became Pope in 1978 .

Before he came to Rome from Poland , he had already written out and planned to be a book , what's called man and Woman . He created the mythology of the body . He ended up breaking this into 129 small or short talks . All this writing that he had did . He presented it every Wednesday to a general audience in St Peter's Square .

When he was there , he traveled sometimes . He wasn't always there . He started in 1979 , so soon after he became Pope . He was shot in 1981 . So he took some time off , obviously , and he gave his last address in 1984 . So over a period of time , he prophetically saw the attack on the human person . He saw this .

It's a distortion of our identity , meaning and purpose . Why were we created ? How about our bodies ? Why were we created , male and female , you think ? Well , everybody knew that . Then he put it all together in here , as did God , about finding peace and joy . Where do you find that ?

And this is what this whole thing comes down to this universal understanding of what is love . Love is the basis of all of this . If we had to boil it down to one concept , it's love . Yes , it's love .

We went from love to romance to sex , and now I think it's even deteriorated way past that . So we need to all ask ourselves within our heart what do I mean when I say I love , and is it really what true love is ? And that's what the Pope directs us to .

You don't have to get married . Marriage is an icon . Marriage is the sacramental sign that you and I have talked about and we've shared for 74 sessions so far . But now we're at a point now where Jesus says there are people that will give up this marriage and he's one of them .

So God himself , who is love , walks into the story and doesn't do what everybody's been doing through the Old Testament , which is get married and that's the fruitfulness . And he says oh , we have to understand what the big story is and that at the end of the day , they're not going to be married or given in marriage .

And he said right now , there are people that are going to model this for you and I'm going to be one of the first people to do this , or the first person , even though I think there are prophets in the Old Testament that actually did this , whether they intentionally did it or not , voluntarily did this and were filled in , and they may have been , but this

wasn't the teaching right . Jesus is going to come in with a new teaching that says that , yet that we were going to give up this marriage and enter into the heavenly marriage , we're going to choose celibacy for the kingdom of God . Right .

What's the answer to that ? The Pope says , right here , because God will be all in all . And St Paul says that in 1 Corinthians 1528 , god will be all in all and that is the ultimate goal . And so in our earthly marriage , is it's a sign of that heavenly marriage ?

The idea , then , that that's what our destiny is is beautiful , and Christ is saying it's all a part of that fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit . Like , let's kind of move away from just earth and flesh and you know things we can see , and move into that realm of the Spirit which we know in the Immaculate Conception that we just had the feast .

You know that conceived by the Holy Spirit . And there's where it begins .

It's that that , either way , whether you skip this marriage , you're going to have to go and aim right at heaven , where we're going , where you're neither going to be married or given in marriage . You have to be filled by God right now , and here's the big problem with people that are searching for love without God and without being filled .

They're trying to give what they don't have . So you think , well , how does this affect me ? It has everything to do with you , because you're going to have to actually move away from your selfishness and you're looking at another person in emptiness and trying to fill yourself with sacks or with them and or asking them to be your fulfillment .

How many marriages suffer , linda , because I'm looking for infinite satisfaction and there's no way you're going to do that for me . And so , at the end of the day , they also have to open themselves up .

They also have to step into eternity with one foot and say , yes , I have to be filled so that I can give this to my wife , I can give this to my husband and then the fruitfulness of your life , or whether that's children . Hopefully it is , but it doesn't have to be , and some people can't have children , right , but this spills out to your neighbor .

And then it spills out to the culture , it spills out to our political life and it spills out even to the church , from vocations . You know where the vocations come from . Now , if we're no longer filled with the spirit , our marriages come apart or we have children out of wedlock , we have abortions .

You think about all the things , the addictions , the eating disorders right ? Everybody's trying to stuff themselves with something and we're all searching for the infinite and we all have to turn to the infinite . If you want the infinite , you're going to have to turn to the infinite one , right ?

You cannot stuff yourself full of finite things without just getting addicted to something .

Is that union with Christ ? So that's really . If you love someone , that's what you're willing for them , and how you express that is going to change based on your relationship with that person . Is this my spouse ? Is this my kids ? Is this my neighbor ? So how that plays out looks different , but it's the same basic worldview .

What motivates you day to day in life .

Male and female ? What is love ? What happens right ? So it's like a movie that you got to 45 minutes late . You know you stumble through it . You feel fortunate , maybe , but you take life for granted , too busy looking at your little reflecting screen right To really answer those questions . And you know so many people I talk to .

You know , sometimes good things happen in life , sometimes beautiful things . You know , you go to college , you find that job that only you can do , you find the girl , you find the boy , you fall in love . But then tragic things happen , right , they happen to all of us . You know , 10 years on that job , and you feel , oh my gosh , I can't stand this .

You know , one more day , maybe you get sick . You know , maybe . You know you were told the vaccine was safe and it's tested .

And you know , I know so many people that looked around and said , oh my gosh , you know , we trusted the government , we trusted this , we trusted that , and now I have some kind of side effects , right , or somebody falls out of love with you , or you fall out of love . The feelings go away and you just go . Okay , now what , you know now what .

And so we have these opportunities and what happens in life . I said , well , I'm going to divorce my wife and I'm going to find somebody else to fill me . This happens every day . Or you can turn to God and fall down on your knees and say , god , you have a plan , you have a plan and I want something more .

And you know and this is inevitable if you think about it . Sin is here , death stalks us , and the only one that's going to overcome both of those is God himself . You may go from pizza to pizza to pizza , from woman to woman to woman , from man to man to man , trying to fill yourself , but at the end of the day you know the inevitable is coming .

And you know , god designed this . You know , in this way , right Once we turned away and original sin came in the world , death entered , sin entered and in a way , linda , I guess , look , I don't want to , I'm not looking forward to that last breath .

But on the other hand , can you imagine if all of the evil people in the world or maybe even myself , you know didn't have to face that reality and we would continue to grasp and not look for meaning ? So death entered . In a way , it's a blessing , right In a way it is a blessing .

So for most of my life as a cradle Catholic , you know , I look at the priests and religious and understanding that they have forsaken marriage to be in persona Christi and the sense you know , with the priests and the other religious to bring to life that spiritual life that we're all to have .

And the Pope says here in paragraph one that that is a sign that the body , whose end is not death , tends toward glorification and already , I would say a testimony among men that anticipates the future resurrection . But think , jack , if I don't believe that , if I think death is the end , you know , then what do I do with any of it ?

And here he reminds us once again that death , whereas you're staying right , it's not the end . And so we need to look to that eschaton , to that destiny and that future resurrection . And I thought that came to my mind in thinking about all we hear about the priests and celibacy .

And oh , they need to be married , because then we wouldn't have all these problems that we've seen of late and I think , wow , if we misunderstand this sign , then of course my thinking is going to go to let's get rid of that sign .

And when I understand that that sign is really pointing me to God and to the future resurrection , it's like really another way of killing God , getting rid of God , pushing him out .

You see , it's like there's no end to how the evil one can come in and twist our thinking on what should be the direction and path we need to be headed towards and try to turn that all around for us .

The apostles themselves , when Jesus told them that they shouldn't get divorced , or the idea is not to get divorced don't forget that they said , well , maybe it's better if we don't get married . They started to realize how difficult marriage was , and if you couldn't divorce your wife , then maybe it's best if we don't get married . They said so .

On the other hand , when we got rid of God in our own hearts , in our own culture , we really got rid of the sign then of marriage and certainly what it pointed to . And look how it wrecked us . There's a something I read fairly often . It's called COVID and coffee . It's done by an attorney . He's really really good .

His name is Jeff Childers , if anybody's interested . But COVID and coffee look him up . I mean , he does a commentary basically every day . He's incredible . He put it up during COVID just to keep in touch with everybody and it got so big that he just continues it . Now he writes this today . A KTT H770 radio station ran a story yesterday .

Headline rants Seattle student failed quiz for saying men can't get pregnant . He said you probably won't believe this , but I didn't make this up or exaggerate any of the facts . Get ready for more science , he says right , and he does it with a smile , of course , because we all say it's about science , right it's ?

You know , all the way from the climate to all this other stuff . That's such a malarkey . Today he said it all started after a diverse 10th grade ethnic study . World history teacher at chef at chief self international high school in Seattle , washington , gave students a quiz titled understanding gender versus sex .

The quiz had a series of true or false questions and you can easily imagine the quiz was just a lot of woke gobbledygook , like testing for proper pronoun usage in various bizarre scenarios and confirming students ability to identify people's private sexual perversions , such as whether people , whether trans people , are always gay .

I mean these are the kind of things we're discussing today , right ? So he says I'm running out of adequate . I'm running out of ways to adequately describe the intensity of my eye rolling when I researched these stories , but I saw the back of my skull , this time from the inside . He said so here's the questions . And this kid flunked this .

Question four was a true or false biology question with the statement do all men have penises ? Question seven was about biology , posing the true or false statement only women can get pregnant . You can probably see where this is going . The quiz had no essay question asking what's a woman , what's a woman , although there should have been .

Anyway , one chief stealth that's the name of the school chief stealth student correctly answered true to both the biology questions and he failed the test . So he failed it because he said yeah , men have penises , not women , and men cannot get pregnant . And he failed it .

Now his liberal mother she's a self-described liberal she went off the rails and the school wouldn't do anything . So she went public with this and you start to see again , linda , how far off the rails this is a high school . Who flunk a kid ? Because it's just the reality of looking at your body .

When I think about the last Supreme Court , what's her name again ? Is it Jackson ? Or last name ? When she couldn't describe what a woman or define what a woman was right .

And now she's on a Supreme Court , the highest court of the land , who can't define what a woman is because she says she's not a biology major who can't see right in front of her that a man cannot get pregnant , right ? Or that a woman doesn't have a penis and can't define that for us .

And yet she's looking at case after case after case after case and you wonder how is she gonna judge that right ? How is she gonna judge those cases when you can't even look at the concrete reality of a person standing in front of you and see if they're a man or a woman ?

I mean , it goes off the rails and you see that when you're not filled with the spirit , that our reason and our intellect and our will can get very darkened . So what we're talking about here is important stuff when Christ says to be filled with the spirit , right In so many different ways .

I know I've broadened this out beyond where Jesus originally took it , but so did John Paul II ultimately .

And I think that speaks to the importance of those of us who do believe to parents in particular , where our children are just being exposed to these incredibly bizarre ideologies and ways of thinking , that they need to step in with speaking the truth to their children . That's part of what we're trying to do by unpacking this theology .

The body is to help parents with that .

I learned many years ago from this perspective of viewpoints , and what I might believe and accept or not believe is that , as a child , if I don't hear much from my parents about any of the important topics in life , I'm gonna go out there as I go to school and hear all kinds of things from my friends and teachers and other adults in my life , and I'm gonna

try to piece it all together to come up with some understanding of who I am and what life is about from all of that , and it could be some very strange stuff , as it's getting stranger and stranger .

Well , if I don't have anything to relate and bounce that off of , because my parents haven't taught me what the truth is and the beliefs , then I'm gonna be very confused and settle on something , because I don't like that feeling of not knowing .

So I'm gonna go with something and whoever maybe has the most influence on me , and yet if I hear the truth at least I've heard it it's kind of like an inoculation against some of these ideologies that truly don't make any sense even in the material aspects of it .

I will then have something to at least compare and will actually be inoculated against , like there are those , I believe , still like this young man who has the inoculation . He knows what the truth is , you see , and we have to get there with all of our children .

least with the faith , right . But this young man knows . But somebody did .

So what's the solution to this gender confusion ? These young people are suffering the lies , the falsehoods . You know that you're never gonna satisfy . Well , I would tell kids exactly what Jesus said . He said , you know , in in heaven , they're never neither given in marriage , not married , or given in marriage .

And right now , young person , you know Christ is , is offering us and inviting us into a larger story . You know , you're 15 , 16 , 17 years old . You're not married or given in marriage either . You know , let's step away from the sexual perversions and this lustful society that's trying to shove all this stuff at you , to steal the innocence of your heart .

Yeah , and , and , and . Let's just open up our heavenly desires . You know , for heaven , and so walk into the story and that's really the answer . The answer is an encounter with God himself . And I just make this other point when we're talking about young people getting married , think about Natural family planning . Now , same thing .

If you think about that , what do you do with natural family planning ? You know you're giving up for a time , right during that time , where your wife say , if you're a man can be pregnant , so for that 10-day window , or whatever it is , 10 , 11-day window you are going to abstain . And then that abstaining I can .

I can either look for other ways to fill me I could be mad at my wife , I could be mad at whatever , or or living in agony or I can take this time to do the same thing that they were asking that young person to do is to Turn yourself and open yourself up natural family planning . Every month , as a man , I'm going to open myself up to God .

I'm going to spend more time opening those desires to God . And what happens ? It's like fasting , what I fast often , and when I'm done fasting I don't just feel myself full of , you know , a mindless eating .

I'm very mindful because I haven't eaten for a day or two and I'm going to fill myself up with something good and then the flavors tastes better , that the the sites takes better . When I go shopping , everything becomes just more beautiful . You know , same thing with my wife . If I just mindlessly have , you know , go after her and try to have sex .

That's the one way to do this . But if I fast from this , what happens ? I start to see her differently , I start to talk to her differently . In those 10 days we sit down and talk about other things and I'm opening myself up to grace at the same time . Unless you do this , you won't understand it . You have to try it .

But when , when those 10 days are over , I I'm very mindful now . I'm mindful that she , she looks a little different . I see her a little bit differently . The lust has been gone that you know . Christ has filled me with grace . I now am not giving nothing away , I'm giving God away .

I'm actually walked into love and I'm being , participate in love , and now my wife and I are extended into this story . Right , all of this still is pointing to God , right , what he wants for us . And eternity doesn't mean Tomorrow , eternity means forever right . We're still . We're eternal beings with a body and a soul . We're gonna have bodies forever in heaven .

Right , jesus , after he came back from the dead , he , when he was in his resurrection , he came back with a glorified body . They didn't recognize him at first , but they , they understood once they can they go . Oh , wow , this is powerful , right , yeah , powerful stuff .

That's all a part of the mindfulness of it , but also the fact that there's another side of us . We're body and soul , and we talk about that , but we focus so much on the body at the expense of the soul . You know you're actually becoming holy by that ability .

With the fasting and when it comes to natural family planning and all that that involves , not only Will you look at each other a bit differently after that period of time , but the the act will be be more meaningful , it'll be much more in line with what God intended our sexuality to be for , because we've , you know , taken a step back and taken that time and

the beauty of that . I think there's no way to really overstate how beautiful that can be and how much that strengthens a marriage and the love for each other .

This is not normal . Now We've normalized the fall , we've normalized sin , but we're called to live in the spirit St Paul says in in 2 Corinthians 4 16 . So we do not lose heart . Though our outer man is wasting away , right is even as by get older , our inner man is being renewed every day , and this is men and women .

Right , for this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory , beyond all Comparison , because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen . For the things that are seen are Transient , but the things that are unseen are eternal . You know I step into that story , linda , and you stay okay .

Even well , you know you're talking about unseen things . Love is unseen . How do we make love visible ? We make it through our bodies , we . We actually have to express it . Where is love ? Where does it exist , you know ? Is it a feeling ? Is it an act ? No , it's much deeper than that . God is love .

Until we start to understand those things , we just take all this for granted , and then we get morphed into these weird ideologies , these weird things that happen to us , and we can twist it and distort it .

I am amazed you know I bring this up often , linda but Godia Mespes , one of the four constitutional documents of Vatican II , number 36 says when God has forgotten , the creature itself grows unintelligible . We no longer know who we are . And John Paul was part of writing that .

You know that , godia Mespes , which is a pastoral constitution , you know , to bring the church into the modern world , and it's amazing , right and then I think about Mary's fiat , right when she's kneeling there and the angel comes up to her .

And I'm just going off the top of my head , so I'm not reading it exactly , but you can go to Luke , chapter one , and you can see this , where the angel comes to her and is announcing this and she goes well , how could that be ?

I haven't been with a husband , and the Holy Spirit will come upon you , right that God will overshadow you and , at the end of the day , this is life in the Spirit . Mary's yes is so beautiful , so powerful that she's literally impregnated with God .

And in the morning , when I wake up , I kneel down before I look at my phone and I say be it done to me , just like our Blessed Mother , according to your word . Well , what do I expect from that ?

I expect to be literally impregnated with God , and St Paul would say the Holy Spirit fills us to the point where we cry out Abba , father , the Holy Spirit within us . We take the grace from Christ , from that one-time act of redemption .

And Jesus said before he goes to the Father it's good that I go to the Father , because we'll send the Advocate to you , and the Advocate will take what is mine and give it to you , and so he fills us , and so the Holy Spirit impregnates us with God . It's this fruit that I can now take into the world .

Good luck without it , really , because I look around and I just see the world is dying , we're killing each other . It's hatred , really , at the end of the day . All the violence , all the lies , all the stealing , all the abortions , all the divorces , all of this stuff , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah . Right , and what are we doing ?

The wars , the way we , the hatred , the envy it's all based on hatred . It's all based on lies and falsehoods , because we're not filled with the Spirit . There is no political solution for this , except for the politicians that are also filled with the Spirit that will then legislate laws that are going to reinforce marriage and the family , religious freedom .

Stand for the truth , right , choose the good , and otherwise you know what Say Levy ? You know this is an old story . We stood at the tree in Genesis 3 and said I'll be like God , I'll decide what is good and what is evil . Isn't that what we're doing with these ?

Traditionally , in Catholicism we would talk about your spiritual life , your prayer life , and all of that is renewing your inner soul , your inner life . That's the same thing as saying being impregnated with God , that he is within me , within my soul , and our soul animates our body .

So if I am , if I have Christ in my soul , if I have that grace , then that's going to animate me in every way . I'm going to do my chores , which I may or may not like , more cheerfully , with a better attitude . I'm going to treat other people . I'll hold my tongue If I want to say something nasty . All of that you know .

So we go from sounding like , oh , this is all way up there . You know , and what does it mean for me day to day , to being just as practical as it can be ? That we must have Christ in our hearts , we have to open to that grace and then we will be able to , in our circle of influence , bring that to those people and each person .

I think this came out like 30 years ago in pop psychology with our circle of influence . But if you think about it , so I have the circle within my family and friends and all of them have their own . So it becomes this , this beautiful maze of each of us being able to influence the others through this .

But if I don't have it within me , I'm you know , nothing's going to happen there , it's just going to stop with me . So you see , we have to get this because , literally , our culture is dying .

Now if you take that extended out , you say , okay , well , this is what happened to this generation is because we that's a sphere of influence that you're talking about we did stop passing this down and so , even if on my deathbed I come back into the church and I accept it and God will take you , right , he's going to take you , he's , you know , he's going

to forgive you . It's full of mercy . I mean you know how much time you're going to do in purgatory , what I don't know . But at the end of the day , look behind you as you're on the way out and there's going to be a sadness in your heart because you're going to see your kids , your grandkids , maybe your second family , third family .

You know you left those people empty and they're all following in your pattern of brokenness . And it doesn't just get like you . We start doing these things in history all . Look at where we're out to kill the Jews again today .

I mean you know it's almost unbelievable what what Hamas did to those , to those people the rape of little kids and stuff I mean , and the murder and this goes . But look at , there's two sides to everything . I get that right , but it's amazing , the point being , it's amazing how much evil is perpetrated .

And when you take love , when you take God , who is love really out of the human heart ? I mean this will again , linda , you know , when it comes down to our own lives . This is the , the whole book , and I love .

Christopher West one time said the whole Bible can be summed up in five words God wants to marry us starts out in the book of Genesis , with an earthly paradise with the marriage of man and woman . It ends up in the book of Revelation , the last book of the Bible , and a heavenly paradise with the marriage of Christ in the church .

And so this is what we're talking about . When you understand that one leads to the other , you stop looking . Look at , I may have to defend myself , right . Somebody breaks in and he's , he's , you know , he's , you know , hurting someone , and I may have to kill him even .

But at the end of the day , it's not because of hatred , right , things happen in life and and , but at the end of the day , we're called to love even our enemies . This is a big deal . You know , muhammad wasn't loving his enemies , right ? Christ is the one that loves his enemies , and so the God who is love extends this even to our enemies .

This is very difficult , and my wife is not my enemy , so if she gets me mad or I get her mad , we try to . As we get older here , we make up very quickly . Now , you know , I used to be mad Linda for three or four days , I mean we would not talk to each other .

And then sometimes , when she's not quite in the mood , then I am , but one of us is will very quickly like , way faster than I ever thought we could be , you know , disagreeing about something pretty rough , and within five minutes we're we're talking about . You know what ? I'm sorry , I'm sorry and just go . Whoa , that never happened .

As we pray in the creed , we understand that . But the Pope says here something that's beautiful to me see . It's towards the end of paragraph number two in this audience . He says only Mary and Joseph , who lived the mystery of his Jesus's birth , became the first witnesses of a fruitfulness different from that of the flesh . That is the fruitfulness of the spirit .

What is begotten in her comes from the Holy Spirit . And if we just meditate on that , the fruitfulness of the spirit , your example of forgiving each other quickly , that's fruitfulness of the spirit .

But the Pope always states it so beautifully for us that he wanted to focus on this concept of fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit .

So you have to watch , you have to give yourself some mercy , right ? God's giving you mercy . You have to give yourself and others mercy . I guess I would just , you know , as we're closing down here , to say open your heart up , expect an encounter right Now .

That encounter is going to look different and God's not a vending machine , you know he's going to surprise and woo you , but it will happen . But you have to watch for it . It might be little things , it might be a big thing , it just depends . You know he's a romantic God , you know , and he's a merciful God .

So , but , but I would ask in this time to fast right To , in this time , meaning this crazy time that we were born in . Try fasting , you know , and I don't have time to go into fasting right now , but but try fasting from food for sure . I fast from food and drink just black coffee and water one day , two days .

You know I have a brother that fast for four days in a row and and and very powerful things can happen . Right , because you're , you're , you're really , you're really opening . You have all of this , you know your stomach starts to growl , say , or this happens , or that happens , and and you're opening , opening , god does something to us , it's really something .

And then at the end , like you said , die with him , right , Go to confession , receive the sacraments , read scripture and step into the story big time .

And then , and then , like you said , you know no matter where you're at , linda , stay faithful , stay married , do the best you can with that , and God will , will , will make good out of all the evil that you did and all the evil that others are doing around you , and and and so this is a journey , isn't it ?

So , just a reminder to everybody , we're going to take a Christmas break from this , from the theology of the body , and we will be back after the first of the year . So , linda , say goodbye to everybody for a couple weeks .