Welcome to Become who you Are . Podcast production of the John Paul 2 Renewal Center . I'm Jack Rick of your host . Hey , thanks for joining me today . St Catherine of Siena said that if you become who you are , that you would literally set the world on fire .
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 wild 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 Stegology , 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 on audience 80 with my good friend , linda Piper . This audience was given on April 28 , 1982 .
It's kind of the thought , linda , came to me , that John Paul was really a prophet for our time when we think about all of the craziness going on in the culture and really the devastation .
When I say craziness there's a lot of destruction , you know , between abortion and pornography and child sex trafficking and these gender ideologies and marriages being ripped apart .
I wrote a piece that you're helping edit right now the burning desire of a young woman and earthly limitations , where she had three small children and she was really struggling and thought that there's something maybe wrong with her marriage , that the flame was grown cold .
You know there's not a lot of time for romance when you got three kids and her husband is out trying to figure out how to make a living and support everybody and you know she felt like she wasn't loved and so , anyways , some other man was paying some attention to her , made her feel good and she was really drawn emotionally and physically to that person and
wanted my advice on this . I opened that up because , at the end of the day , linda , our desires for love , to love and be loved are infinite desires and the only way to be filled in our marriages and our earthly life is to first be filled with the infinite lover himself . So we're going to be talking about the bridegroom today .
I don't know if you want to start us out there , linda , because this love of the bridegroom , the reason I bring it up like that is that this is very practical for us and concrete this love of the bridegroom . When we really receive this love deeply into our heart , we become persons of love , and if we don't , we will go on looking for something else .
It will never be totally filled . And John Paul II maybe you want to unpack it a little bit . He starts out audience 80 , the same way he finished audience 79 , so maybe you want to pick it up from there . Say hello to everybody .
Jack . It's such a good opening and stressing the point that these desires we have are infinite desires and they're put in our hearts by God and so we need to pay attention to them because they're important . And that's why John Paul actually repeated his paragraphs here in the two separate audiences .
So the first thing he says it's so key is that it is a characteristic feature of the human heart to accept even difficult demands in the name of love for an ideal and , above all , in the name of love for a person .
And in parentheses he says love is in fact oriented by its very nature toward the person , and so we think first of all of other human beings when we hear person . And yet we cannot forget that the Trinitarian love we have spoken so much about is between persons father , son and holy spirit .
And particularly the pope is focusing our attention now to that person of Jesus Christ , the bridegroom of the church , and we find , as he unpacks audience 80 , that he is directing us to think about the celibate person is oriented towards that person of Christ .
So remember we had talked earlier about really the calling is two vocations the earthly marriage or the heavenly marriage , and in the heavenly marriage , christ is the bridegroom and the celibate person has , has renounced , has forsaken the earthly marriage . For that heavenly marriage to be that sign For all of us that the person is called to the image he's imaging .
For us , the religious are the next world for us , so it's important for us to think of that person of Christ as the bridegroom .
Yeah . And the other thing , from a practical standpoint of people are Listening and say , well , I'm , you know , I'm married . You know what this has got to do with me . It's got , just like I said in the opener , it's got everything to do with us , because you can't give what you don't have the eternal bridegroom .
From the beginning , john Paul is always pointing us back , as he does here again too . So on the next section , the spousal meaning of the body he's he's talking about and at the same time it's Christ's call to continents .
It's very interesting that in Matthew 19 we get that familiar , that those verses three to nine that John Paul brings out over and over again , and you know that where they were , jesus is pointing us back to the beginning , to this sign of marriage .
But when we think about this , in Genesis , that Adam was created and put into the world , just adopt mankind , and it was original solitude , that that he had a relationship with God , this is what we're talking about . He had a direct relationship with God and he was , he was happy there . You know , god gave him all these gifts of creation .
He was wandering around , he could have thought he was supposed to be a scientist and an explorer , you know , and and then only later , once he was filled , does , does , does God say , okay , well , we're not done . Yet there's one time he says that it's not good , and it's not good that man should be alone .
And he gets back to what you just said , that God himself is a trinity , he's a community of persons and he's in , he's bringing the sign , that trinitarian sign , into this created space and he says okay , I'm gonna put you into a trance , into a deep sleep , and I'm gonna make two of you .
And so now we have this , this capability of walking into this sign . It's amazing , you know , when we think about marriage and I who thinks about this , this profound Self-gift , the spousal analogy John Paul will talk about where you're pouring yourself out into another person .
This is why you can't get divorced , he would say , because it's a , it's an eternal sign of an eternal union and communion with God himself , with the bridegroom himself Made visible in this created world .
But again , you know the idea here that Jesus is saying that , that there are eunuchs that are gonna be caught stay eunuchs , or celibate men and women that are gonna skip this earthly marriage . Well , what , what , what . What is that got to do with us .
It's got everything again because , just like Adam in the beginning , before God took from the side made Eve , god was already filling him and he says now I've got something else for you , though you know it's not good that you should be alone . I want you to enter into this sign .
I want you to bring eternal beings love first , and then eternal beings into the world . They're gonna be with us forever . It's amazing , actually .
Yeah , I think it's so key that the spousal meaning of the body , which is a phrase we're using over and over again , is Very clear in everyone's mind what that means . It's that spousal gift of self Meaning that I'm . I'm giving my all , and this is what we get from Christ , our bridegroom to us .
When we open ourselves up , he's giving us his all , and when we're filled with his love , we're then capable of responding as we opened up with , with that heart of love to the other .
Yeah , and then , as we go on to to section three , here he says contemporary mentality has become accustomed to think and speak above all about the sexual instinct , thereby Transferring to the train of of human reality what is proper to the world of living beings in , in the created world , other than human beings , the animals .
And so what he's saying is you know , the modern man says this is just instinct . I got to have sex and this is just part of who we are and and it is part of we are . But we are not created like animals . We are created with reason and also with free will . Well , what does reason tell us ?
That there's a meaning and purpose behind the sign that this isn't just a Procreate . You know , it isn't just Reproduction . This is procreation , which is , which is different . This is a gift to one another , this is a sign that I'm giving myself to you , you're giving yourself to me .
This is like the eternal bridegroom on the cross pouring himself out to us , and so so , when we think about that , you know , this isn't instinct , this is this . The instinct , of course , to reproduce is , is in us , to to carry on this . You know , the species , the Genesis . That's why Genesis is called Genesis , right it's talking about .
You know the Genesis of man versus animals and you know Versus . You know even the Hebrews in the beginning . You know where do we all get our start ? And where we got our start was that we're different Than the animals , and we're conscious , we're conscious of that .
I am conscious that when I walk in the forest , that I'm different than the animals , and then the , then the plants and the fish and everything else . Well , what is that ? That's reason . You know , god gave this to us . We're created in the image of God , with reason , free will .
But then the likeness of God is to be a Lover , to love others , to be filled with love and then become that person of love . That's the spousal meaning of the body . The spouse meaning of the body does not just mean sex . A man and a woman's body tells you that you are to be a gift to one another .
So even a celibate man or a celibate woman can pour this gift out to another .
And this is why it's important to married people , because they look at the saints and the mystics and the religious and they say , oh , god can really fill us , god can really fill us , and so it's only then when I'm filled , the same way that I can be a gift to my spouse and a gift to my children and grandchildren , and etc . Etc .
Right yeah yeah , back to our separation from the animal world . The Pope is very clear that there's there's an unambiguous boundary that is drawn between the world of the animals and man , created in the image and likeness of God .
That's all important to describe , then , how it is that , even though there is that sexual Instinct , if you want to use that word , that Attraction that we feel towards one another , we get confused in our culture and most modern man because , as we talked earlier , we reduce love down to sex , love to romance , to sex , and then we say , well , wait a minute ,
here , you know we're talking about love . And then we think , well , we're just talking about sex and it's an instinct . And there you go .
And he makes it very clear to us that if we do that , when we just reduce that love down to sex , that there's a personal dimension of the person that becomes very diminished , and even the Intimate act , our sexuality in marriage to become one flesh , is reduced down , and so we lose what you just talked about .
We lose that spousal meaning and that idea of gift . So it's so important to realize that when the thinking is just love reduces down to sex , we have lost that meaning and that purpose , and that's where all the confusion starts .
And then I think everyone in a marriage who has reached a point where the sexual intimacy is maybe not the same it was in the beginning begins to question well , what's going on here ? And that happens if you equate it love equals sex and nothing beyond that .
And so it might be a signal to me that , well , wait a minute here , there's something more here , and of course that is that idea of I'm giving myself to the other in a form of gift . So then I'm forced really to think that there's much more meaning and purpose to the intimacy than just a sexual act itself .
And that's how I can get myself back on their track of thinking that am I being gift to my husband or to my wife , or am I just back in that mode of taking for myself and thinking that I'm gonna be filled here ?
Yeah , and what happens is you wonder why this , the sexual urge say , even diminishes in marriages and things . Well , at first you don't notice it , that you're being used .
You have , say , a man to a woman and he's in love with her in essence , but when it comes to sexuality and it comes to the bedroom , it's more of a be kind of gross , but it's more of a wham-bam . Thank you , ma'am . And that sexual urge , so what ? John Paul is saying no , you have to go beyond that .
You have to see the person that you're making love to , john Paul again , before you make love to your wife . Men , take your shoes off . You're entering onto Holy ground . You're entering into the mystery and beauty of a person .
If I'm a woman and I have a man that's constantly using me and I sense this once the spark leaves right the chemical reactions that are gonna go away in about 18 months , these chemical cocktails that go off when we first meet each other or first get married , they're never gonna last forever .
By that time , by the 18 months , we should have got deeper into love . That rocket , that first stage , comes off , that those booster rockets come off , but the flight should continue to go If it's aiming toward a target , and that target is Jesus Christ himself .
It has to be aiming at that , so that when I make love to my wife and vice versa , we get into this ecstasy beyond just using one another . So this is not a Puritan idea like I can't enjoy sex . No , not only can you enjoy it , it's going to be much more enjoyable and it's gonna be a lot longer through the years .
Enjoyable for both a man and a woman . That's like making love , linda , with the lights on . There's no shame , it's just this power of our sexuality to transcend us . And also , because we're walking into this love story , that is a real sign of God's Trinitarian love . This should take us to the clouds , you know .
And unfortunately we wanna stay earthly and just be like the animals . And just like I said , you know , you see , you know two dogs out in the yard and as soon as they're done , you know they scamper off , you know .
Well , you do that enough to your wife and after a while , you know she doesn't feel that tenderness , she doesn't feel that warmth , she doesn't feel love , and it could go both ways . And you wonder why we have problems , you know .
Yeah , yeah , and the idea there , Jack , is that it's both partners together aiming that rocket towards Jesus Christ and towards that eternity that we're meant for . It's very difficult if one is trying and the other isn't , you know , to make that happen .
So , that's right and that's where so many marriages begin to to have their difficulties and men , but when you have children now , the gift of self is not just to your spouse but it's also to those children as well , which is that complete fulfillment of persons .
the Pope has told us that it's not really fulfilled , as being apparent , until that element of raising them , educating them , all of that takes place as well . You know , it's like anybody could conceive and have a baby , but that's just the beginning of it all . Just the beginning , yeah , and you see how beautiful natural family planning is .
You know , not that this particular audience isn't talking about contraception , but what natural family planning does is it gives you that window , those you know seven days , eight days , nine days , whatever .
That window is where , if you're holding back and you don't want to have a child for whatever reason , maybe you've got three or four kids that are young , you know , running around . Anyways , what that does is it allows the couple to communicate , to love one another , to show affection , without you know this .
You know this sexual instinct just taking over , right , so you may want to enter into a sexual union but you're putting it off for , say , a couple days , whatever . As I look at the saints and the mystics , I see that's possible .
Again , this is how practical this is , because I look at them and I say God is filling them somehow , even though you know this is a special curism , right , you know , I mean not everybody's called to celibacy for the kingdom , you know Jesus makes that very , very clear . Yet the power to love and to sacrifice and John Paul said this ideal that we're .
You know we're . You know , with it we take up to love that other person . You know how wonderful it is just to be tender to your wife and vice versa , right To talk . You know to hold hands , you know to do things and just show them that you love . So when you do come together . You're building up this foundation . You're setting up a foundation of love .
See , this is all spousal love , isn't it ? Linda ?
Right and when you describe how there are so many times within a marriage where sexual intimacy is not even possible for practical reasons of all sorts . Well , what is that it's like in the moment ?
This married couple is being continent , is being celibate for in the moment , and so it's not that far a reach to understand them for the religious that that celibacy takes place for them all the time . And you can see the connection there , right , because marriage and religious life are not opposed to each other . They're basically two sides of the same coin .
And so , as the celibate person has , through their understanding , the Pope's dresses of the spousal meaning of the body , their choice is then for that celibacy , for the kingdom , throughout , and this is how they become assigned for us of that eternal life that we're all bound for or destined for .
And you know , you have . You know , john Paul didn't make this up , you know , by even . Even so , he wrote Love and Responsibilities in the 60s , before theology . The body came along in the late 70s and early 80s , but before that , bishop Fulton Sheen . In 1951 , a book was published , three to Get Married . By Bishop Sheen . He unpacks all of this .
It's such a beautiful book . It's still in print . I just got a brand new copy again Three to Get Married . I don't know what I did with my copy . I gave it away to somebody , I suppose . But what a beautiful book . And so you know , he talks about these same concepts again . And one other thought came to me as I was reading .
This is is you know when , when God takes the rib from Adam and he forms woman , you know , right from his rib , just the essence ? He makes us in two kinds . And I thought about God himself before Adam .
You know , out of his side per se and this is an analogy , of course , because this is his created Thought process alone he creates and forms Adam , mankind .
But basically , right out of his side , you know , god is this trinitarian love , and out of this love flows , flows right from there , you know , this gift of creation flows right into a human being and so , in essence , you know , here we are , we're creating , and now he takes it again from the essence of who he filled already Adam and he just brings that apart
and really , you know , it creates again another creative process . Right , this wasn't reproduction here , or procreation , you know , this was .
This was a separation , again , a creative , a creative really thought and a creative action of God himself and so really flowing from the side of God again , in an analogy , down to Adam and then flowing out of Adam into Eve . This is a beautiful love process and , again , to be a created sign , our sexuality is a creative sign .
You know , if we could just grasp this and take this back again and own this again , we would , we would solve most of the world's problems really , because most of the problems become and you can see it today this attack , you know , child sex trafficking again , abortion , same sex marriages , all these things come out of twisting and distortion of these signs , you
know , and the sign is really self giving love . You know , we can live without sex . We can't live , john Paul would say , without love you know , God is love , you know , and but , we're too selfish , you know , and once you give in to this power , right , sexuality is power , it's flowing right from God himself .
You know , this power to procreate , this power to come into a love story , this is a powerful thing . God is love . The power of God flowing out in creation is a love story . So this is the same power that we have , this little tiny taste of right .
And we have to be careful with that , because if we let the genie out of the bottle and give ourselves over to lust , it's a powerful movement . You could see , I mean , how , how , how it goes from there to child sex trafficking . I mean , it's amazing how it works .
Right , yes , and it's a perversion and distortion of the whole plan which you described so beautifully . It made me think too , that when we speak of being made in the image and likeness of God and the gift that he has given us of our sexuality to take part in that procreation , it's just amazing , awesome . Those words are used too often .
I'm not sure what I'd like to say , but if you think about that gift that he has given us in our masculinity and femininity to come together and to be a part of creating that new life with Him , it's mind-boggling really . We have taken and twisted that so far .
Now in our culture that reproductive freedom and reproductive rights just means destroying that , killing that baby and destroying the whole process of what it was meant to be . It's like , well , they're doing it right . They're taking beautiful works of art and smashing them and throwing that .
You know , that's to me an image of what we have done with the whole plan God had for us , of the beauty of our complementarity as male and female and the great gift , by giving ourselves to each other , being a part of the procreative new life forming from that , which is a flow of love .
This is a flow of love that goes out . Mother Teresa would say you know , it's a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you can live as you wish . And so this becomes the opposite of love . Again , it's lust , it's selfishness . John Paul alludes to Godia Mespeze , number 24, . One of his favorite passages is 24.3 .
And I'm going to read that , because this kind of sums up exactly what we're saying . Linda . Indeed , the Lord Jesus , when he prayed to the Father that all may be one as we are one , opened up vistas close to human reason .
For he implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine persons Father , son and Holy Spirit and the unity of God's sons in truth and love , truth and charity . This likeness reveals that man was the only creature on earth which God willed for itself . This again is different .
You know , we're different than the rest of the creatures , just like we unpacked already . So you know , the man is the only creature on earth which God willed for himself . Man and woman cannot fully find themselves except through a sincere gift of themselves . So this becomes this whole story that we're telling comes right out of Godia Mespeze , 24.3 .
Everybody should go back . You can do that free , just go to the Vatican website and pull that down and see this beauty of this passage that we're linking again everything we're talking about here , linda , that God wants to be one and he's linking this gift of himself poured out on the cross , made visible . This shows us what God will do , you know .
He will pour himself out to the last , to the end . John Paul brings out John in here , the Gospel of John , and he quotes 13 . And he says Now , before the feast of the Passover , when Jesus knew that his hour had come to the part out of this world , to the Father , having loved his own who are in the world , he loved them to the end .
This is God's love . He loves us to the end . And in 1930 , he also quoted 1930 in there and when Jesus had received the vinegar , this is on the cross when he's dying his last breath . It is finished . And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit . So again , it is finished .
I poured myself out , I gave up my spirit , I poured out everything for the love of you . You know we get a piece of this , we're filled with this and this is what we're supposed to give to our spouses , linda , and to our families . It's the opposite of narcissistic grasping and taking , and this is what we're challenged to do .
And this is exactly what we're challenged to do .
And hope John Paul brings it together , jack , in our paragraph six , here in this audience Also , he directs us right back to God , him as best . 24 , verse 3 , thanks to which man fully finds himself through a sincere gift of self .
Man , male and female , is able to choose the personal gift of self to another person in the conjugal covenant in which they become one flesh , and he is also able to renounce freely such a gift of self to another person in order that , by choosing continents for the kingdom of heaven , he may give himself totally to Christ .
He goes on to say there can be form the love that commits man to marriage for the whole duration of his life , but there can be formed also the love that commits man for his whole life to continents for the kingdom . See what a beautiful way he pulls that all together for us if we have that proper understanding of the spousal meaning of the body .
Yeah , and then , as we start to unwind here , we'll take that idea . And he goes on to say that , even when you're given yourself , this continents for the kingdom of God , it's also made in relation to the masculinity and femininity proper to the person who makes this choice .
It is made on the basis of the full consciousness of the spousal meaning which masculinity and femininity contain in themselves . So this is not artificial In my body , etched as a man , the spousal meaning of the body to give myself away and then a woman to receive that .
Well , this , the same analogy , the same reality of the complementarity , is not lost , you know . That's why and this is so hard , this is what you're seeing out of the Vatican today , linda . They're twisting and distorting this . When a priest gives himself freely , totally faithfully , to Christ , he joins to Christ's body like a husband to a bride .
He becomes the husband in this thing , giving his bride in personic Christy . See , there's a man on the cross , there's a bridegroom on the cross and the priest on the altar is taking the place of Jesus Christ In this created world .
Is this image to all the congregations sitting there right and in essence , men and women in the audience are taken on the role of bride . This is hard sometimes for us to understand , but it's just this , complementary . There's a man at the altar , in personic Christy of the bridegroom , pouring himself out to the bride .
Well , the bride is the church , so of course it has to be a bridegroom , a man , you know , giving himself totally to the bride , the rest of us , and we receive that love . You can't put a woman on the altar . I mean it would be ridiculous . It's like two brides . You know .
You know and see the everything is important to us in this created world and we're conscious of this . It's amazing how it is . And so you become , as a man , a priest , you become a spiritual father then , to all of us in that congregation , I am a spiritual father .
I'm there to feed you , I'm there to you know , to spiritually bring you on and give you advice and treat you like my children . You know , I'm the shepherd of this beautiful flock , you know .
Yeah , and part of the distortion that has happened . Jack was Satan's plan to get at us because he's totally confused women , you know , with their desire to feel like they're equal to men in terms of dignity .
You know , he kind of wormed his way in there to convince us that it meant we had to be like men , we had to do things that men do and that , you know , totally upset the apple cart , because that's not true , it's a lie .
We have our call to our spiritual motherhood and our physical motherhood and that's just as important and equal in dignity as the call to fatherhood .
So he's done a number on us in so many ways that we need to pull back and need to understand , via what the Pope is telling us here about the masculinity , the femininity , the bridegroom and the bride , and see where we fit into that through that spousal meaning .
Yes , and think what we've done today , linda . So now that the feminists of the world , you know , and look at there , there is a reason . They , you know , they're , you know there could . There were times that men could demean women , right , and so we are equal in dignity , which means they should never be demeaned .
You should be free , but you should also be free to be a mother and a wife and free to go out and work if you want to . I mean , you know , if we had to farm , both men and women were out milking cows and working together and etc . Etc . So this is not a big stretch .
The difference is when we really told women that they could skip , you know , marriage , they could skip childbearing , and and then I , you know , I meet a lot of women in their 60s and 70s and 80s now that had no children , maybe got married , but it was a childless marriage , and now have no children , no grandchildren .
Look it , sometimes it just happens , right , you know you can't have children or whatever , but when you choose not to , you know there's a lot of lonely people out there , men and women , that have chosen this lifestyle , you know , and and so you know what we've done today . Now think about the next step .
What have we done to those women that that work so hard then to to be equal , right and in even in dignity ? But even , you know , pushed it further than that . Well , what are we doing today ? So now men are going the other way . So the men are becoming women and competing in women's sports . I mean , this is a . This is so crazy .
Go into women's locker rooms , going into , you know , women winning swimming championships and running champion in the women's sports . So now that women are there , this just shows you , Linda , this was , you know , the devils behind this .
Because now the women said , ok , now I'm at the pinnacle , I can do everything a man can do , and you know why somebody wants to go out and bust herself in the corporate world every day . You know , go , do it for a while and you're going to find out . It's not all that , it's cracked up to be right .
But let's say you did and you know , you become an Oprah Winfrey . And now you have men competing against you know , and trying to show them on every standpoint , and you , just you got to shake your head and you go . What an insane , what an insane world when , when our sexuality gets twisted around , you know , and it all came down to love .
You know you have a body . You are called to love in that body to become a person of love . You know it's not brain surgery really .
And in that call is the call to fatherhood and motherhood . Not all of us are called to the physical motherhood or physical fatherhood , but we are all called to that spiritual fatherhood and motherhood , as our religious demonstrate to us so well .
And those women who were so misled , who then rejected physical motherhood to try to be equal and dignity , probably also rejected spiritual motherhood . You know , they didn't want to have any part of it .
And when we do that , or when a man rejects the spiritual fatherhood , we're rejecting our whole call to who we were meant to become , who we're meant to be , and no wonder we're unhappy and depressed and all those things right .
Yeah , no , that's right to be a sincere gift of self , right ? Okay , well , let's wind up . I think we unpacked enough . Here you know another , just a powerful session by John Paul . I really trying to again shed some light on on this crazy culture that we're living in , this crazy world .
At the end of the day , no matter what else you do , get down on your knees every morning before you look at that phone and give yourself over . Let it be done to me according to your will . Let it be done to me according to your word . Every temptation becomes an invitation to prayer . Open yourself up to the bridegroom . Who will restore your body and soul .
The redemption of the body , the redemption of the soul . And then , finally , the third thing go out and become a person of right of love . Go out and do exactly what we're saying Become a spiritual father and be kind to your neighbors and do all those good things that bring you joy and peace and love into the world , right , hey ? God bless you , linda .
Thank you , linda , thanks for being with me and thanks everybody for joining us today .