Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, the production of the John Paul 2 Renewal Center. I'm Jack Rigger's host. Glad you're joining me. Today's episode Love People and the Truth. Speak the Truth and Love. One without the other becomes a destructive lie, and children are the first to get hurt. Go up and get ready for today's episode. The title for today's episode came from a homily John Paul II gave at the canonization of Edith Stein on October 11, 1998.
Speaker 1:Canonized Saint Teresa, benedicta of the Cross, edith Stein was a Jewish philosopher, a convert to the Catholic faith, a Carmarite nun, and died a martyr at Auschwitz. She was a philosopher and very dear to John Paul II. She said only the love of Christ makes us truly free. He went on to say this in the homily Dear brothers and sisters, the love of Christ was the fire that inflamed the life of Saint Teresa, a Benedicta of the Cross. Even before she realized it, she was caught by this fire. At the beginning, she devoted herself to freedom. For a long time Edith Stein was a seeker. Her mind never tired of searching and her heart always yearned for hope. She traveled the arduous path of philosophy with passionate enthusiasm. Eventually, she was rewarded. She seized the truth, or better, she was seized by it. Then she discovered that truth had a name Jesus Christ. From that moment on, the incarnate Word was her one and all. Looking back at as a Carmarite on this period of her life, she wrote to a Benedictine nun whoever seeks the truth is seeking God, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Speaker 1:Although Edith Stein had been brought up religiously by her Jewish mother, at the age of 14, she had consciously and deliberately stopped praying. She wanted to rely exclusively on herself and was concerned to assert her freedom in making decisions about her life. At the end of a long journey, she came to the surprising realization only those who commit themselves to the love of Christ become truly free. This woman had to face the challenges of such a radically changing century. As our own John Paul said, her experience is an example to us. The modern world boasts of the enticing door which says Everything is permitted. It ignores the narrow gate of discernment and renunciation. I am speaking especially to you, young Christians, particularly to the many altar servers who have come to Rome these days on pilgrimage. Pay attention, your life is not an endless series of open doors. Listen to your heart. Do not stay on the surface but go to the heart of things and, when the time is right, have the courage to decide. The Lord is waiting for you to put your freedom in His hands.
Speaker 1:Saint Teresa of Benedicta of the Cross was able to understand that the love of Christ and human freedom are intertwined, because love and truth have an intrinsic relationship. The quest for truth and its expression in love did not seem at odds to her. On the contrary, she realized that they call out for one another. In our time, truth is often mistaken for the opinion of the majority. In addition, there is a widespread belief that one should use the truth even against love, or vice versa. But truth and love need each other. Saint Teresa of Benedicta is a witness to this, the martyr for love she is called, who gave her life for her friends. Let no one surpass her in love. At the same time, with her whole being, she always sought the truth of what she wrote.
Speaker 1:No spiritual work comes into this world without great suffering. It always challenges the whole person. Saint Teresa of Benedicta of the Cross says to all of us here it is Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love, and do not accept anything as love which lacks truth. One without the other becomes a destructive lie. I'm going to go back and even repeat again about the spiritual works, because this is what we're in. This is the battle that we're in.
Speaker 1:No spiritual work comes into the world without great suffering. This is especially true today when it comes to defending marriage and the family and, even more specifically focused. This historically heightened attack on marriage and the family has accelerated to the point that children are openly being sexually exploited, robbed of their innocence and used as objects and pawns in this cruel and violent attack on the human person, which is, of course, the end goal, something that we don't always see. Well, I see it clearly, and so are the people that I'm working with to defend children. We call it stolen innocence. We're bringing love add into parishes really standing up for the child, right? So let's make no mistake about it. Let's be clear If there's an enemy that hates the human race and there is where would he attack at its core, the foundation of human life itself? Listen to this Marriage and the family, and once again, the most violent attack is on the most innocent and defenseless of all, children I mean. Today, children are mercilessly attacked. By who? By the bullies of the world and those that stand up to defend those children, along with marriage and the family. They're on the front lines of this battle.
Speaker 1:As Edith Stein said, who became again St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, no spiritual work will come without great suffering. There's going to be attack on all of us that stand up because this is the decisive battle. I'm going to get into that in a second. So we see the child in the womb through abortion and then, if that child escapes, the murder in its mother's womb. If it escapes, you've got the gender ideologies that want to render that child sterile with cross-sex hormones, even mutilating their bodies in surgeries.
Speaker 1:You know children who are naturally trusting and this is what's really sad of authority small children, preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade. You know they're naturally trusting of authority. And what are they doing in this culture and even in our government schools? They're being indoctrinated, groomed, sexually exploited. They're innocent, stolen from them and they're experiencing skyrocketing mental health issues. They should be sending a clear warning to parents. Huh, something has gone terribly wrong. Anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts are no longer uncommon, with suicide rates rising fastest. It's fastest Around which group? Young girls 10 to 14 years old. They've tripled in the last 20 years.
Speaker 1:You know, prayer was strategically removed, as was the Pledge of Allegiance, in many places, following by the voice of parents who were actually taken out. And you know the FBI was following up on parents who were standing up at school board meetings. It's amazing what happens Love of God, family and country taken out, replaced by slogans and fads that would change along with the ideological spirits of the day. Right, while all of this is nefarious enough, they often distract us from the particularly disturbing push to expose children to pornography on a mass scale. This is intentional and systematic. The experts the so-called experts know that pornography can be used as an effective tool to rob children of their innocence, desensitize them, allow them to be groomed easier, wreak havoc on marriages and the families easier, to eliminate God from their hearts and then from the culture and ultimately destabilize the whole society.
Speaker 1:How are we allowing this to happen? Ah, lack of truth. Love people in the truth. With no truth, even those who think they are good, loving people, will do evil things, even in the name of kindness or compassion, you're gonna hear, even in spite of all the evil in the world that they're actually complicit in. How are we gonna hear I'm a good person. Let's get back. Let's make no mistake about this. Let's be clear If there's an enemy that hates the human race and there is where would he attack At its core, the foundation of human life itself, marriage and the family? And once again, the most violent attack is on the most innocent and defenseless children, religious or not.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to this, whether you're a Christian or not, truth is truth. Edith Stein was a philosopher first. She was not. She rejected religion. She was a philosopher, but she was seeking the truth. If you're seeking the truth, as Edith Stein said, you will find him, him, Jesus Christ, and then you will find love. So that's so. That's why she can say love in the truth and speak the truth in love. One without the other becomes a destructive lie.
Speaker 1:Here is the truth. This is the truth. It takes a man and a woman to procreate and bring new life into the world, and that new life is a child. Truth is that that child has a right to live. That child has the right to have a chance to flourish as a child in a home with a loving mother and a father who are married to one another, given themselves their wedding vows. I come here freely. I give myself totally to you, faithful to you always, and will be fruitful, will be open to life. This is what sexual union tells us in and through our bodies the truth that the two, the father and the mother, will become one and open up to a love bond explosion which is three. This is just the truth and this is the building block of each and every society, every civilization throughout history. That is just the truth.
Speaker 1:So let's express this biblically, for in the early chapters of Genesis, right from the beginning, it's going to say how important this is. This is before sin, chapters one and two they're not very long Before hatred and vitro, before falsehoods and lies. And if you're not a religious person, I know many that still read Genesis, because it's this poetic language that expresses what love is and what the truth is. And once again, you came from this union. Everyone listening to this came from a union. You were never the egg and you were never that little sperm. As soon as they touched it's a love bomb explosion that goes off. See, your neighborhoods came from this union. The world of human beings, all civilizations, all sprung from the truth of the love expressed in these brief pages written down thousands of years ago.
Speaker 1:Let me just touch on Genesis, chapter one, real fast and think about this. This is the opening scene from the Lion King and this is the most important thing God wants to tell you about who you are and how we're supposed to live. In the opening scene from the Lion King, just picture this you have a mountains in the background and then you have the sun coming up from behind and boom, the light explodes into the space and things are being created. You've got the plants and then you've got the animals and boom, boom, it was good, it was good, it was good. And now you get to a certain part in that opening scene and God seems to draw back into himself.
Speaker 1:And then, still in chapter one, verses 26, he pulls back into himself. He's got like a selfie on himself. What does he got himself? He's reflecting truth and love, who he is. And what is he going to do? Now he's going to flip that selfie. He says I got everything ready by the sixth day. I've got everything and it was good. Now I'm going to bring in what's very good. I'm going to bring in the reflection of truth and love into the world.
Speaker 1:And this is what he says Let us. Make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over all of this that I've just created, over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, over all the wild animals, all the creatures that crawl on the ground. So God created man in his image, in the divine image. He created them. He flipped the selfie.
Speaker 1:How Male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying to them be fertile, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Whoa, what's the first commandment that God gave? See, this isn't the 10 commands, because the 10 commandments came after sin, god's, you know, putting back the guardrails on us to tell us who we are. But this is before sin. The first commandment actually is be fertile, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Join in sexual union.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, what's God talking about here? God in sex, in the same sentence. Yes, you know, he thinks it's beautiful. He created our sexuality and those two become one, become three. It's the nearest thing to an outer body experience that most of us will ever experience in our lives. So how is this different? Huh, I remember this. You know, god is not a sexual being. He created our sexuality to be an expression, a sacramental sign, a visible sign in this world of his invisible love and truth.
Speaker 1:How is love expressed in the world? How is truth expressed in the world? It comes to us, to human beings. We bring love and truth in. Without us it doesn't get in. And how is that different, you know? Because in the beginning, before sin, I mean, how is that different than after sin? In the beginning we were swimming in the ambit of God's love. He flipped the selfie. But when he flipped the selfie, he didn't just push us off, he filled us with divine life and love and we gave that to one another, created a mago day in the image and likeness of God, like it just said here. See, you can live without sex, but you can't live without love, huh.
Speaker 1:So what do we know about the Father, son and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity? The Father pours his love out to the Son. The Son receives that love and it's so beautiful and profound it comes out in the form of a person. We call that person the Holy Spirit. Be gotten of the love between the Father and the Son. I remember when my wife delivered our first child and after I got done, you know, my knees stopped shaking after this delivery and everything came out. The baby came out healthy and I sat down on that chair and I go, oh my gosh. Nine months before that baby was born, I offered my love to my wife. My wife received that love. It's so beautiful and profound. We had a love bomb explosion called the baby. There was a moment in time and time in history where we participated in this love story that God created us for, where the two, my wife and I, became one and in a moment of time there was a love bomb explosion called a baby. Huh, and there was three persons in one, reflecting the Trinity three persons in one.
Speaker 1:John Paul would say this is such a beautiful, powerful, sacramental sign of love and truth that he told a group of young married men men, before you make love to your wife, take your shoes off. You're entering unto holy ground. This is what the symbol of marriage is. This is what it does. This is why you can't change marriage. It can't be between two men and two women. And this is a very confusing time and my heart goes out to all of the people that I meet that have same-sex attractions and things. Because they grew up in a broken culture. They're sinful themselves, but even so, it's not all their fault.
Speaker 1:You came into a pornographic twisting and distortion and people have been telling us lies our whole lives. I know many, many people like that. These are people that we love, don't forget. We always love people, but we always point out that we want to love them in the truth. And then we speak the truth to them. And how do we do it In love One without the other's destructive lie? Jesus always came into different towns when he was walking the earth and he would heal people and as he healed them, he would always say and then go and sin no more. I came here to give you the power, the power of what? Of truth and love.
Speaker 1:Now here's an example of what can go wrong when we don't understand this how easy a whole person's life can be altered and how destructive they can become when they seek to love without the truth. And without the truth they just become this moral, this person of moral relativism, just opinions, just feelings floating up and down. We think we're compassionate, we think we're kind. I know people that say, well, I'm a good person, but they haven't accepted the truth. They don't stand in the truth. So are they?
Speaker 1:Someone I know who has experienced the reality of this subjective sign in their own life, and then, beyond the sign, when I mean this objective sign that I just said, that the two become one, become three, because she's a married mother with children and she's also a doula. A doula is a woman who assists women through their pregnancies. So this is a very special person here. Not only is she married and a mother, so she understands that objective sign, being a doula. She assists other women through their pregnancies. She's there in the delivery room when a child is born. It's an incredible gift to women today who maybe grew up in a divorce or home or with a mother that was not really there for them or they didn't bond and can't help her through all of these things. So this happens a lot in broken families today, so they have a doula around that's going to walk you through. This is amazing, amazing and plus, not only that, maybe you came from a perfect family but you live far away from them and so you have someone there that can come in and give you this mentoring right. Well, this young woman who sees every day the fruits of the union between a man and a woman, a child in the womb, she sees the ultrasound of babies moving hearts, beating, sucking their thumbs. The little one you know we find out the discovery of whether it's a little boy or whether it's a little girl holds the baby in the delivery room, helps the mother begin breastfeeding. This young woman, who would call herself a good person, a loving person in an aspect she certainly is, and many would agree. So here's what happens During the first day of Pride Month this past year, I remember reading in a social media post where she wrote this I hope that all of you who do not support LGBTQISS plus Pride and who do not support a woman's right to choose, I hope you're all feeling uncomfortable today with the start of Pride Month.
Speaker 1:Huh, well, here it is so clear as to why children are suffering as well as marriages and families today. Out of what that young woman said and I guess in her ideas of passion and kindness, children will be murdered in the womb. Gender ideologies just like the ones she described will be fostered on them all the way through schools. Children will not know if they can become a man. A woman can become a man, a man can become a woman. Children can grow up with two moms or two dads, which says okay, I mean, I don't know about you, but every child deserves to have a mother and a father. This isn't always going to happen, we understand this, but you still got to shoot for the model right. You got government schools that are doing what? Pushing child porn on us, separating parents and children. This is what happens. You have a once you step away from the truth, once you step away from love in the truth, or even speaking the truth in love, when you push people away, what happens? Well, one without the other becomes a destructive lie. Someone's going to get hurt and usually, usually, usually if there's children around, it's going to be them that get hurt the worst.
Speaker 1:In 1981, john Paul II founded the Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. The first years, 1980, 1983 to 1984, were very difficult. The Institute was not wanted, and so this is an interview, the Cardinal Kefara, who was tasked by John Paul II to found this Institute. He founded it. He found out it was very, very difficult even to keep it going the years, the couple years afterwards. And why? Because the Institute was unwanted. So the interviewer said well, who didn't want it? It was not wanted, said Cardinal Kefara, within or outside the church, because of the vision it was proposing, and so I was very concerned.
Speaker 1:Without asking anyone, I thought I'll write to Sister Lucia. So Sister Lucia is the main visionary of Fatima. Huh, she was still alive. She was alive to 2005. She died the same year John Paul did and this is in 1981, so well before that. And so he's going to write to Sister Lucia and he's going to ask her for prayers. And the interviewer says well, how did that come to mind, just like that.
Speaker 1:But as you know, from the beginning the patroness of the Institute has been our Lady of Fatima. It is contained in the Apostolic Constitution for the Institute. There the Pope places the Institute under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin of Fatima, so much so I hope it's still there. Cardinal Kefara said that when one enters the Institute, at the end of the quarter there's a statue of our Lady of Fatima and the Chapel of Institute, in the Chapel of the Institute, is dedicated to our Lady of Fatima, and so I thought to write her. So I wrote her, but simply saying the Pope wanted this Institute, we were going through a very difficult time. I ask you only to pray, and I add it, I do not expect a reply. Her prayers were enough for me.
Speaker 1:As you know, in order to have any contact he went on with Sister Lucia, even by letter. One needed to go through her Bishop. So I sent the Bishop. I sent the letter to the Bishop and he passed it to Sister Lucia To my great surprise, after not more than two or three weeks I received a reply. It was a handwritten letter and quite long. I have given sworn testimony of what the letter said.
Speaker 1:The letter ended saying in 1983 or 84, father, a time will come when the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and the family, and those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation. But do not be afraid, because our Lady has already crushed his head. It's amazing. Right End, quote right there for a second. Our Lady is already crushed. I said this is from Genesis 3 already, when evil came into the world and Adam and Eve fall. And you find soon after that that there's a woman there, huh, and this woman has already crushed her head. Well, this is our Blessed Mother. Right, the battle has been won, but we live in a temporal space where we have to decide. Will we love people in the truth and speak the truth, in love or not. All this has eternal consequences, not only for those children getting hurt, but for our own salvation and those all around us. This is what that young woman doesn't realize, when she's not only hurting the children themselves. Murdering children in the womb is bad enough, but then to have them go through all this turmoil once they escape the womb, it's just so sad. But then what happens? When these ideologies get pushed, you get confusion all over marriages and the family, breakdowns and then, ultimately, civilization. So I go back to Cardinal Caffari, says well, this this remained engraved on my heart that our Lady already crushed his head and amid all the difficulties we have encountered and there have been so, so many these words have always given me a great strength. But be not afraid, because our Lady has already crushed his head. The questioner comes back. When you initially read Sister Lucía's words, did you think she was speaking of that moment in history? Now, I just add here that the interviewer was asking Cardinal Caffari, as he was getting ready to give a talk in 2017. So this is many, many years later. So he says this I began thinking a few years ago. So 2015, maybe something like that. After almost 30 years, sister Lucía's words are taking place.
Speaker 1:This decisive battle will be the thesis of my talk today. He said Satan is constructing an anti-creation. The interviewer said Antichoration. If we read the second chapter of Genesis, we see that the edifice of creation is founded on two pillars. First, man is not a something, he is a someone and therefore he deserves absolute respect. The second pillar is the relationship between man and woman, which is sacred between the man and the woman, because creation finds its completion when God creates the woman. She's the crown of creation, so much so that after he created woman, the Bible says God rested.
Speaker 1:Today, what do we observe? He says two terrible events. Carnal Kavara names the first one the legitimization of abortion. That is, abortion has become a subjective right of woman. Now, subjective right is an ethical category and therefore we are here entering into the world of good and evil and we say that abortion is a good, it is a right. The second thing we see is the attempt to equate homosexual relationships with marriage. You see that Satan is attempting to threaten and destroy these two pillars so that he can fashion another creation, an anti-creation, as if he were provoking the Lord, saying to him, I will fashion another creation, and man and woman will say we like it better here, whoa.
Speaker 1:The scripture says, cardinal Kavara went on. The devil is the father of lies, who presents himself as an angel of light. In my talk I will explain the words of Jesus when he says of Satan. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. That's from John 844. And so, in my opinion I do not know and this is Cardinal Kavara, and I do not know if John Paul II had already seen this In this sort of situation the human being who must be defended the most is the woman.
Speaker 1:In fact, early on in his pontificate he wrote Moulierist adignatatum, that's on the dignity of women, and there he sought to develop a theology of femininity, because he understood that this was a delicate point. Is woman the battlefield? Then there is a detail in the Bible Cardinal Kavara says that always struck me. After the original sin, god addresses the serpent and says I will place enmity between you and the woman. That is, god puts a particular enmity between the woman and evil, as if woman had a kind of instinct for the good. Because God has put this enmity between woman and evil. The text continues and between your seed and her seed, and here the theologians see the foretelling of the son of Mary. Therefore, woman has a particular involvement that has consequences for culture, society and the family.
Speaker 1:We are commemorating the 100th anniversary of the apparition of our lady to the children of Fatima, and this was in 2017 again. So that was 100 years before. That, in 1917, was the apparition to the children of Fatima. And what is the message today? He goes on. For me, the originality of Fatima is this At Fatima, our lady prophesied.
Speaker 1:In other apparitions she didn't prophesize, she extorts, Like at Lord's, for example, she said do penance, pray, tell the priest to build a chapel on this spot. You see this in other apparitions. She extorts and recalls the strong exhortations of Jesus to do penance and prayer, but at Fatima, she prophesies. That is, she enters into and interprets human events. She had never done this before.
Speaker 1:The interviewer says does Sister Lucia also prophesy? Yes, she fully entered into our lady's prophecy and she has left her memoirs. Some are very impressive. She sensed that this was the task of our lady. This was the task that our lady had given her, that is, to hand on and interpret this prophecy. That's very powerful. I'm gonna read that again. She sensed that this was the task our lady had given her, that is, to hand on and interpret this prophecy. And the interviewer says and were Sister Lucia's words to you about the decisive battle also prophecy? Yes, absolutely. What Sister Lucia wrote to me is being fulfilled today.
Speaker 1:That was Cardinal Caffar's pre-opener to the talk he was gonna give in 2017. So can you imagine? I mean, in these last five years, I mean this is all accelerated. I mean it's amazing what happens Always, always, always. There's going to be destruction, there's gonna be a destructive lie. Innocent children are gonna be hurt the worst here, as we're seeing now, if we don't speak the truth and love and love and the truth, when we fail to love people in the truth and tell them the truth, children will be hurt, even annihilated. Uses objects, uses pawns in this evil game of taking down humanity. Hey, god bless you. Good to be with you. I'll continue a little bit more with Cardinal Caffar's next week sometime. Bye, bye, everyone. Gi.