Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast , a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center . I'm Jack Riggert , your host . I'm so glad you're joining me . This is our Friday Saturday session for young people .
When I say young people , young at heart also , it could be a lesson for any of us , but it got started like this I love mentoring young people , working with more and more young people , and they're really appreciative because you just see the light go off in their eyes and in their hearts when they flip the switch .
The switch goes from oh my , you know living like the frog in the proverbial pot , not filled up with boiling water , but with moral relativism . And then boom , something happens and they seek the truth .
I became a Catholic speaker and presenter of John Paul II's Theology of the Body and other things when I discovered her biblical teachings on the true meaning of marriage and the family and the meaning of what it means to be human , human sexuality , why are we created male and female ? And I found them to be true and I knew it right away in my heart .
This is what I'm talking about , like you know , when your heart is ready and you know there's got to be something more . And then you hear it and your experience of life says , yes , I know this , it's true , it's this word truth , what is the truth ?
So today I'm spending more and more time discussing these things , even with my evangelical brothers and sisters who , like me , turn to Christ and the Bible almost as a last resort when confronted by so much evil pain suffering in the world , but also in our personal lives . It's usually the pain and suffering in our personal lives and our marriages , our families .
You look around the world and you say , gosh , what is going on here ? Well , it seems to me that more and more people that I meet are seeking the truth . What's going on ? And they're turning to Christianity . And there's all kinds of reasons for that . And you hear people like it's really exciting .
You hear people like Tucker Carlson , russell Brand and Jordan Peterson and his wife who just became Catholic , candace Owens , others . But yet there's so much darkness out there and so many people that attack them when they become like that . And then you realize I got to mentor young people .
We have to continue to nourish them because , to be more specific , it seems that we're back to that battle of the individual human heart . As Alexander Shostakhin would say , it all comes down . All the evil that you see around the world comes down to that battle that starts in the individual human heart . That's the big story .
And then we go out into the world and we either bring evil or good in the world . And this is what you see in this battle all around us those who either chose , or naive enough to allow evil to walk into their hearts and then they go out and become evil , or they've never had the gospel proclaimed to them , and I'm finding that more and more .
So many young people have never heard the gospel , at least in all its power and authenticity to change your heart . See , if it's just words , it's not going to do anything .
It might spark good conversations and maybe it sparks a search for the truth , which is a good , positive step , but it's Christianity , it's Jesus Christ himself , the person , the encounter , that changes your heart . And that's when it's Christianity , it's Jesus Christ himself , the person , the encounter , that changes your heart . And that's when it gets exciting .
That's when you hear people start to they're converted , and then they start to talk about it and they can't hold it in because something happened to their heart and then they want to go out right . And then , when you look around the world , you realize there's no politician or economic system or church leader that's going to save us .
It's going to be Jesus Christ . Before I get into the topic today , which is really good , you know maybe the title Morality and Conscience , the Fall of man , you go , oh man , I don't know if I want to hear that it's really good stuff . Oh man , I don't know if I want to hear that it's really good stuff .
Ephesians , chapter 2 , right off the bat , verse 1 . You know , from death to life with Christ , this is and this is what I'm talking about .
And think about the people in the proverbial pot , you know , sitting there , versus those that have jumped out and found Christ and here's , you know , st Paul talking about this , and you he made alive , speaking of Christians when you were dead , through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked , following the course of this world , following the prince of the
power of the ear , the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience Among these . We all once lived in the passions of our flesh , following the desires of body and mind , and so we were , by nature , children of wrath like the rest of mankind . Just sit on that , our default position is sin and death .
Our default position in this broken world , without baptism , without coming in , without making a decision to follow Jesus Christ , is sin and death . I'm going to read that again Among these .
We were all once living the passions of our flesh following the desires of body and mind , and so we were , by nature , children of wrath like the rest of mankind , but , but , but , but . God , who is rich , in mercy out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses , made us alive together with Christ .
By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus , that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us . In Christ Jesus , for by grace you have been saved , through faith , and this is not your own doing , it's a gift of God .
St Paul says not because of works , lest any man should boast , but we are his workmanship , created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them . Isn't that beautiful ? Beforehand , that we should walk in them . Isn't that beautiful If you take that passage for a couple of days and just meditate on that .
Just read that . It's really powerful . Okay , on conscience and morality and conscience , the fall of man . I think you're going to really enjoy this . Buckle up and get ready for today's episode . But the serpent said to the woman you certainly will not die .
No , god knows well that the moment you eat of it , your eyes will be open and you will be like gods who know who can decide what is good and what is evil . That's Genesis 3 , verses 4 and 5 .
I find more people who once called themselves atheists or at least agnostics , sensing the weight of evil , sin and death in the world , but also within them , the mysterium and equitatus , the mystery of evil . Russell Brand is one of them .
Brand begins his book Recovery and Freedom from Addictions , based on AA's 12-step program , this way here , in our glistening citadel of limitless reflecting screens , we live on the outside . He's talking about our phones and things , and computers and things . We live on the outside of the larger story and so outside of the story of our hearts , I add .
Today , he said , we may awaken and instantly , unthinkingly , reach for the phone . Its glow reaching our eyes before the light of dawn . Its bulletins dart into our minds before even a moment of acknowledgement of this unbending and unending fact you are going to die , you and your children and everyone you love is hurtling toward the boneyard .
I know , you know , we all know . But because it yields so few lines , so few likes on social media oh my gosh , he's funny .
We purr on and blinkering compliance , filling our days with temporary fixes A Starbucks here , an Amazon purchase here , a half-hearted flirt , a few minutes watching a reel of porn , any glinting twitch of pleasure releasing a rush of dopamine like a silvery stitch on a cadaver just to tide you over and you're probably too clever to repose in god .
Or pick up some dusty book like the bible that has been outlawed in schools , where the , where the poetry , poetry creaks , you are told with a loathing for women .
Inside that book is is a hatred of trans people , or someone perhaps and I add a couple of things in here perhaps against CRT and DEI and SEL told that the melatonin in people's skin is the cause of hatred in the world , or that you may just be a systemic racist on the day that you were born for some obscure reason .
I'm taking a little liberty there , but he goes on . Maybe if science and quantum physics could come up with some force or web or string or something that tethers the mystery to something solid , something measurable , you'd think again . But until there's nothing but an empty grave and a blank tombstone , chisel poised in front of you , jizzle poised in front of you .
So no one's going to blame you if you perch on a carousel of destructive relationships and unfulfilling work , whirling around never , still , never truly looking within , never really going home . But because I had the gift of desperation , because I effed up my life so royally , I had no option but to seek and accept help . John Paul II starts his work now .
What I've been working on this last seven weeks or so and I'll continue to do for the next weeks , is from an apostolic letter he wrote to the youth of the world right before the occasion of International Youth Day , when he started International Youth Days in 1985 . He called it Delecti Amici , which means dear friends .
He wrote 16 kind of sections there of things that he wanted to tell young people over the years coming . So I pulled those 16 apart and I've kind of yeah , not kind of I expanded on them , added some things , almost wrote a chapter for each one . Not sure what I'm going to do with that .
Yet Some people are asking me to maybe put it into a book form , which I might do . Anyways , in there , this is section six . Not that you need to know that , but I've been unpacking this over the last five weeks , including an introduction . So six . So this would actually be the seventh one , but this is chapter six .
There , section six on morality and conscience , the fall of man . And so the rich young man comes up to Jesus what must I do to inherit eternal life ? And Jesus replies you know the commandments . It will be infallibly repeated because the commandments form part of the covenant between God and humanity .
The commandments determine the essential basis of behavior , decide the moral value of human acts and remain an organic relationship with man's vocation to eternal life , with the establishment of God's kingdom in people and among people . At the same time , this code of morality is written in another form . These commandments right the natural law .
This morality is inscribed in the moral conscience of humanity and written on our individual human hearts . See , this gets back to how I started this thing . This is the battle of the human heart .
Now these laws are written and if we don't reject them , we get in touch with those in such a way that those who do not know the commandments , in other words the revealed law of God , are a law unto themselves . I can decide what is good and what is evil .
Thus St Paul writes in his letter to the Romans , and he immediately adds they show what the law requires is written on their hearts , while their conscience also bears witness . So we have no excuses for this . You know , unfortunately , man would fall from grace and enter the tempter , the mysterium and equitatus , a Latin phrase which means the mystery of evil .
And this is from Genesis right off the bat , the mystery of evil . And this is from Genesis right off the bat , genesis 3 , verse 1 . Now , the serpent was the most cunning of all animals that the Lord God had made . And the serpent asked the woman did God really tell you not to eat from the trees in the garden ?
And the woman answered the serpent , we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden . It's only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said you shall not eat of it or even touch it , lest you die . But the serpent said to the woman you certainly will not die .
No , god knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil . It's important to pause here and consider that Satan doesn't have his own clay . He can only twist , distort and seek to destroy what God created good .
Nothing is more important than Satan than to destroy humanity , because we are the imago Dei , the image and likeness of God in the world . He does this directly in many ways , through violence and war . Greed is recently seen in the push of COVID vaccines , right just to make money .
They don't care what they do to people , but nothing more effectively destroys human life than the attack on the most innocent and defenseless among us , children and the act that brought them to life and sustains them marriage and the family . This is the core attack today .
Right In Matthew 19 , verses three through eight , the Pharisees came up to Jesus , and he won't . When you listen to this , jesus won't limit himself to the Pharisees' line of questioning on divorcing their wives and points out their hardness of heart . See , we're getting back to the heart . Back to the heart .
He orders them and us in some sense to pass beyond the boundary that runs between man's first situation . Remember that original innocence that we know about in Genesis , before sin and the fall . So we'll go back to that boundary right . And now what does that mean ? Jesus is saying go back to the beginning , see what that model was like .
This means that although man has lost his primeval innocence , today we have right . We came into a broken world . The force to overcome evil has been restored . This is so important . Jesus didn't come for sin management , he came with power . The young man in the gospel seeks out Christ . What must I do to inherit life ?
Once again , jesus won't limit himself and doesn't stop at the commandments in this conversation with the young man . Right , he doesn't . Just he asks him did you follow the commandments ? The young man says yes , now he's gonna take them deeper into the heart .
And Jesus always proposes that we go deeper , to the level of your heart , where you go deep and you only meet two people there you and God . You see , at the end of the day , this is not a commandment story . This is not a rule story .
The rules are only guideposts on the narrow gate and through the narrow gate on that narrow road to Christ , until we discovered that the larger story is a love story . The larger story has always been a love story . The larger story has always been a love story . Once we become persons of love , we no longer need the rules .
In the Sermon on the Mount , jesus presses the whole crowd to go deeper . This is from Matthew 5 , 27 , 28 . You have heard it said that you shall not commit adultery . But I say to you , whoever looks at a woman to desire her in a lustful or reductive way , looks at her with lust in his eyes , has already committed adultery with her in his heart .
Oh wow , if I look at a woman , he's saying no , not . If you look at a woman , if you look at a woman to use her instead of love her . See , the opposite of love is not hate . The opposite of love is to use someone to lust after them . Excuse me , so these are the romantic challenges really to true love that we see around the world today .
In the beginning , bereshit , in the beginning , what Jesus points to he says in the beginning it was not so in Matthew's gospel , god created man in his image , in the divine image . He created them , male and female . He created them .
This truth presents the creation of man as a special gift from the creator , containing not only the foundation and the source of the essential dignity of the human being , man and woman , in the created world this is where we get our dignity from . You take this out .
You wonder why people , and young people especially , are so confused about their identity but also it's the beginning of the call to both of them to do what , to share in the intimate life of God himself , to fall in love right , to bring love and God is the source of love .
We're bringing that love right into our own hearts and then sharing it with one another . It's a link . It's so beautiful . While meditating on these words , I had already been at my desk here for a long time when I was writing this and I got up to stretch my legs . I went downstairs . I have an office upstairs in the studio .
I went downstairs and I joined my wife in the living room . I said hello and she pointed to the television screen where now this is going back a couple years . I don't know if you remember this is a super bowl halftime show , maybe two or three years ago , where jennifer lopez was describing .
So I , when I go downstairs , she's watching jennifer lopez on tv describing her documentary on the super bowl halftime show that she performed last season . At that time , and she spoke A clip of her opening act came on , which was , in essence , a theatrical pole dance for the single largest audience on earth . Do you remember that ?
Here's Jennifer Lopez the biggest audience ever on earth , doing a pole dance . And I walked back upstairs and I wondered what would impel a famously rich and famous middle-aged woman to expose her body in such a way . I mean , right , I was flabbergasted .
Why would a fabulously rich you don't need any more money , I'm already famous and I'm in middle age , right , I'm not some naive kid anymore why would I pole dance for an audience so big ? Perhaps the answer will be in her documentary , which I don't remember even watching . And what are the millions of viewers all over the world ?
Does a show like that change the way men look at women in their lives ? What if Jennifer Lopez's appearance ? And husband and children ? The world has normalized the fall , hasn't it ? Is this the paradox that we miss ? While women rightly demand equality in the workplace and join the Me Too movement you remember the Me Too movement ?
One of the most famous women in the world does a pole dance , jesus says in the beginning it was not so . Bishop Sheen stated it this way Only those who live by faith really know what's happening in the world .
The great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive processes going on because they've lost the vision of the heights from which they've fallen . We don't understand what true love is , that God is love and we're expressing this in the world or we don't , and it gets twisted . Remember , satan doesn't have his own clay .
Well , jesus enters the concrete and historical situation of women , a situation which is weighed down by the inheritance of sin . One of the ways in which this inheritance is expressed is habitual discrimination against women in favor of men . Right , that's what's this old biblical thing that we get .
But we don't see that it's actually in the Bible that Jesus is raising up women over and over and over again . This inheritance is rooted within women too . From this point of view , the episode of the woman caught in adultery in John's gospel , chapter eight , is particularly eloquent . In the end , jesus says to her who condemns you ? I don't condemn you .
And everybody walks away . But then he says go and sin no more . Be better than that , lift up your heart . But first he evokes an awareness of sin in the men who accused her in order to stone her , thereby revealing his profound capacity to see human consciences and actions in their true light . Jesus is looking at both the men and the woman .
He says look it . We have to understand what love is , jesus , seems to say to the accusers . Is not this woman , for all her sin , above all confirmation ? Above all a confirmation of your own transgressions , of your male injustice , of your misdeeds ? You're ready to stone this woman for adultery , but isn't it what you lust for ?
You know it was a man that did this with her . You know what I mean . So this is Jesus . See . This truth is valid for the whole human race . The attitude of Jesus in John right here at chapter 8 , is significant . This is one of the few instances in which his power , the power of truth , is so clearly manifested with regard to human consciences .
The power of truth is so clearly manifested with regard to human consciences . Jesus is calm , collected , thoughtful , as in the conversation with the Pharisees that I read earlier in Matthew 19 .
Is Jesus not aware of being in contact with the mystery of the beginning , when man was created , male and female , and the woman was entrusted to the man with her feminine distinctiveness and with her potential for motherhood . Adam , in the beginning , was to protect her , to love her , to keep the forces of evil away from her . But he failed in that , didn't he ?
The man was also entrusted by the creator to the woman . They were entrusted to each other as persons made in the image and likeness of God . Eve was pulled from the side of Adam . This entrusting is a test of love , spousal love . This is our test today . We are tested to be . Are we persons of love In order to become a sincere gift to one another ?
Each of them , man and woman , must feel responsibility for this gift . This test is meant for both of them again , man and woman , from the very beginning .
After original sin , contrary forces are at work in man and women as a result of the threefold concupiscence right , the threefold concupiscence that St John talks about , you know , concupiscence of the eyes and the flesh and the pride of life . These are a stimulus for sin that , if we're not careful , will drag us down . This is not a neutral world we came in .
If our hearts allow this , we'll sit in that proverbial pot . Well , they act from deep within the human being , these forces of sin . This is why we have to invite God into that space . Thus Jesus will say on the Sermon on the Mount everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart .
See , jesus wants our hearts , doesn't he ? The human body , and its masculinity and femininity , has almost lost the power of expressing this love in which the human person becomes a gift in conformity with the deepest structure and finality of his or her personal existence . This is who we are created to be , yet , yet .
Yet , if you're willing to open your heart to the power of the gospel , the spousal meaning of the body has not become totally foreign to the heart . It has not been totally suffocated in it by concupiscence , but only habitually threatened . The heart has become a battlefield between love and concupiscence .
The more concupiscence , this drag on the human heart what's been released by original sin , the more that dominates the heart , the less the heart experiences the spousal meaning in the body and the less sensitive it becomes to the gift of the person . That expresses precisely this meaning in the reciprocal relations of man and woman .
That's why someone like Jennifer Lopez can go there and do that in front of the whole world . Somehow she's lost that . She's become less to that sensitive gift right that expresses this meaning of love , and it's a twisting and a distortion and she just falls in that threefold concupiscence .
See , this is what happens if we don't proclaim the gospel , especially to young people , today . They're just caught up in this threefold concupiscence . See , this is what happens if we don't proclaim the gospel , especially to young people , today . They're just caught up in this threefold concupiscence .
Certainly , even that desire about what Christ speaks about in Matthew 27 , 28 appears in many forms in the human heart . It's not always plain and obvious , sometimes it's concealed so that it passes itself off as love . It feels like love . So I did it , you know , I thought love was a feeling , I thought love was this act of sex .
That's what young people tell me , although it changes love's authentic profile , then , and obscures the transparent clarity of the gift and the reciprocal love of persons . When we get into that , huh , we are looking for something in that act , but we don't understand . It's not in our heart . Does this mean that we should distrust the human heart ? No , no , no .
It's only to say that we must remain in control of it . In a sense , we all stand before that tree , that proverbial tree , the knowledge of good and evil , each one of us .
And John Paul writes Dear young friends , the response which Jesus gives to each one of us , and John Paul writes Dear young friends , the response which Jesus gives to his questioner in the gospel is addressed to each of you . Christ asks you about the state of your moral awareness and , at the same time , he questions you about the state of your conscience .
This is a key question for man , meaning men and women , of course . It is a fundamental question of your youth , one that concerns the whole plan of life , which must be formed precisely in youth . Its value is the one most closely connected with the relationship of each of you with moral good and evil .
The value of this plan depends in an essential way on the authenticity of your conscience . It also depends on its sensitivity . See , this is what the culture wants to deaden in us , our hearts , so that we begin to just use one another .
So we find ourselves here at a crucial moment , everyone , when , at every step , when , at every step , time and eternity meet . Every step we take , when we wake up in the morning , when we were exploded into this world in the very beginning , we are already eternal beings . When we walk out into the sunlight today , you know you are an eternal being .
You're just on the edge of eternity . There's just a thin veil . And they meet at this level of the heart which is proper to man . It's in the level of conscience , the level of moral values . The conscience is the most important dimension of time and history .
When you go out for a walk today , you guys just invite God into that heart and you'll know that right there , as you're walking , you're entering into the most important dimension of time and history , putting you right on the edge of eternal life . Your test is going on there how should we live ? Where are we going to spend eternal life ?
For history is written not only by the events which in a certain sense happen from the outside , right when you look around , and the evils or the good you know there's a lot of good people doing good things out there too but it's not only the things that affect you from the outside . History is written first of all from within .
It is the story of human consciences , of moral victories and defeats . Here too , the essential greatness of man finds its foundation . And what is that foundation ? Where we find our essential greatness in each one of us ? It's our essential human dignity . That human dignity comes as a son or daughter of God .
In order to get there , we have to invite God deep into the heart . We have to accept Jesus Christ who came in right . Well , I won't go off on a tangent here , I've spoke about this before but we invite God into our heart . This is where our consciousness are formed .
This is that interior treasure whereby man continually goes beyond himself in the direction of eternity . Think about eternity . You're walking into eternity as you're making your choices .
If it is true that it is established that people would die only once , as St Paul said , it's also true that man carries within him the treasure of conscience , that deposit of good and evil across the frontier of death . So , good and evil , and we have our conscience that discerns that . And we decide do I go out and choose the good or choose the evil ?
And in order that , in sight of him , who is holiness himself , jesus Christ himself , looking at us , right , who's offering himself to us , so that we can overcome evil with goodness , right , you overcome evil with good that we each may find the ultimate and definitive truth about our whole lives .
And then St Paul says and after that comes judgment , we have to do good in the world , don't we ? This is just what happens in the conscience , in the interior truth of our acts . In a certain sense , there is constantly present the dimension of eternal life and simultaneously , the same conscience through moral values .
Simultaneously , the same conscience through moral values imprints the most expressive seal upon the life of the generations , through time , upon history and our culture of human environments , societies , nations and all of humanity . What must I do to inherit eternal life ? It's powerful , isn't it ?
When we accept the truth , we go out into the world , we bring that truth into the world , we do good , we become good , I am good . The evil that you see out there , the wars and the lusts and the rapes and the selfishness , that's just the opposite of that . And there are so many children of the wrath .
I'm going to tell you a story about Bill W Carl Young , the spiritual roots of Alcoholics Anonymous . Remember Bill W ? He was the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous . I want to read you a letter , an actual letter that's adapted from a letter that was written on November 23 , 1993 , in response to an op-ed article in the New York Times by Bob P .
So , bob P so in the tradition of AA , you don't publish their last names . They don't want any kind of fame or anybody to look at them as something special . Even Bill Wilson , bill W called himself Bill W . If you're on a cruise boat it took me a while to figure out on a cruise boat it said the meetings of Bill W .
And and you go , why do I keep seeing that you know ? And then you realize , oh , that's bill wilson who started aa , that's alcoholics , anonymous meetings there . It's such a , it's such a powerful thing when it's done correctly . And so anyways , bob p , who writes in 1993 to the editor of the New York Times .
He says I was surprised and delighted to see your op-ed article on November 19th by the great psychiatrist Dr Carl Jung . His thoughts are so pertinent despite the passage of 34 years . I wonder how many people know that the insights he expressed in this unpublished letter were the spiritual basis for Alcoholics Anonymous . And here's the details Bob wants to give .
It came about in 1932 when an American alcoholic named Roland Howard was sent to Zurich , switzerland , to Dr Young's clinic . After about a year , carl Young , dr Carl Jung , told Roland that since they had been unable to bring about a psychic change in him , he would be discharged . No doubt startled Roland asked is there no hope ?
Then Dr Jung's answer was an astounding one for a man of science , and he said this no , there is none , except that some people with your problem have recovered if they have had a transforming experience of the spirit . Ooh , this is a spiritual battle , he's saying .
Through a religious movement at the time called the Oxford Groups , roland experienced the inner change Carl Jung was talking about and carried this message to an alcoholic friend , eb Thatcher , who in turn carried it to a seemingly hopeless drunk , bill W , who became the founder of AA .
Up to that time , the cures for alcoholism focused on winning the drunk away from the bottle , but thanks to Carl Jung and the AA program , it deals almost entirely with gaining meaning in life and with feeling a part of the wholeness of the world .
As Young says in his letter , the alcoholic , then , doesn't need to go back to drinking , with this essential difference , and literally millions have found a new life in Alcoholics Anonymous . In other words , he says you know , at the end of the day , your life has to find meaning . You have to connect to the spirit , right ?
Well , we know the spirit , the Holy Spirit , and you have to be careful , right , because there's a lot of evil spirits flying around too . I have been a member of Bob . This is Bob , the writer of this letter to the New York Times . I've been a member of AA for 32 years and have heard Bill W himself tell this story many times .
My own favorite young quote is in his book Memories , dreams and Reflections , and he said here if you substitute the word alcoholic for neurotic and I would substitute it for porn also it expresses how AA works , but it applies to everyone with every addiction . And so here's what Young says .
I have frequently seen people become neurotic or any addiction when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life . They seek position , marriage , reputation , outward success or money and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they are seeking . Such people are usually confined to too narrow a spiritual horizon .
Their life has not sufficient content , sufficient meaning . If they are unable to develop into more spacious personalities , the neuroses generally disappears . It's powerful huh . That's from Carl Jung , one of the founders of psychoanalysis . In 1961 , bill W , co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous , wrote a letter to Dr Carl Jung himself .
This letter described in its own words the chain of events that changed Bill's life and influenced the spiritual emphasis of Alcoholics Anonymous , events in which Jung played a key role . It all began Bill W now this is the founder of AA . It all began Bill W's writing to Carl Jung in a 1931 conversation .
He says between you , carl Jung , and a hopeless alcoholic named Roland H . Roland , a young , gifted person in business and he became rich and he had tried every cure for alcoholism available at the time but all his attempts failed . In despair he went to Zurich , switzerland , placed himself under the care of you , dr Young , for nearlya year and you were blunt .
You told Roland that any further medical treatment was pointless . Stunned , roland asked if there was any other hope . You , dr Young , held out only one that Roland experience a genuine conversion , a spiritual transformation . And according to Dr Carl Young , such experiences were rare among alcoholics , but alcoholics who had them stopped drinking .
This shred of hope was enough for Roland . He returned home , began his spiritual search and Bill W , in his letter to Carl Jung , told of his firsthand knowledge of conversion . For Bill W it happened in 1934 . So this is Bill writing to Young , telling him about his own conversion story in 1934 , during his last detox at Towns Hospital in New York .
At that time Bill was also an alcoholic at the end of his rope , and his doctor , dr Silkworth , laid out the options to Bill's wife and Bill heard him talking . She should let the authorities lock Bill up , watch him go insane , or she could just let him die . Well , bill knew this doctor's prognosis . He said so .
My depression deepened unbearably and finally it seemed to me as I was at the bottom of a pit . Think of yourself at the bottom of a pit , think of yourself at the bottom of that proverbial pot . I'm being crushed by by all of this weight of sins upcoming death . Moral relativism , I mean right . I mean your depression would deepen , wouldn't it ?
And that's what happened to bill w , and he wrote to carl young . All of a sudden , I found myself crying out if there's a god , let him show himself . I'm ready to do anything . At that moment , bill wrote , his hospital room seemed to flood with white light . I was caught up into an ecstasy of which there is no words to describe it .
It seemed to me in the mind's eye that I was on a mountain and that a wind , not of air but of the spirit , was blowing . And then it burst upon me and I was a free man . Dr Silkworth encouraged Bill to hold on to that experience . Whatever it was Bill did , and he never took another drink .
Released from the hospital , bill immediately began to work on two tasks understanding that white light , the spirit , and understanding and helping other alcoholics to experience something is equally powerful , and he established AA that way . You see , jesus didn't come for sin management , did he ? But with the power of God , hey , glory to God . All right , everyone .
Don't forget . Every morning , before you look at that phone , go down to your knees , jesus , right , just pray with our blessed mother , open your heart up , know that jesus has come with power and say let it be done to me according to your word . Now , let it be done to me according to your will . Show me the way .
Jesus and this is from you know , sister faustina , you know that picture of the divine image . Jesus , I trust in you . That's it , jesus , I trust in you . And then sometimes I'll add have mercy on me , a sinner . Jesus , I trust in you , have mercy on me , a sinner .
And then you can just open your heart , just stay there in silence for a couple minutes , whatever Such a beautiful way to start the morning , know that you're going to be tempted every day , but remember , temptation's not a sin . In fact , temptation becomes an invitation to prayer . And then finally , go out and be kind to the next person .
You see , take that power and love your neighbor , love your wife . Glory to God . Talk to you later , everybody . Bye-bye .