August 1, 2025 • 35 mins
Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”
What if your body was designed to tell a cosmic love story? In this profound exploration of human sexuality, Jack unveils how our creation as male and female reflects something far deeper than biology—it mirrors the very nature of God's Trinitarian love.
The episode introduces the Claymore Battle Plan, a revolutionary framework helping men navigate today's confusing cultural landscape. Rather than offering superficial solutions, this approach digs into three fundamental realities: the human heart's deepest longings, the irreplaceable role of marriage and family, and our essential connection to Christ and the Church. These aren't arbitrary religious concepts but the very foundation of human flourishing.
Drawing from Pope John Paul II's theology of the body, Jack explains how our physical design reveals profound spiritual truth. "The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible—the spiritual and divine," he quotes. This understanding transforms everything about how we see ourselves and our relationships. When husband and wife unite and bring forth children, they participate in a "tiny created reflection of Trinitarian love"—where two become one and create a third.
The breakdown we see in society—from inner-city violence to the emptiness of modern political leadership—stems directly from losing this foundational understanding. Without recognizing the sacramental nature of our bodies and relationships, we're left with a culture that uses people and loves things instead of the reverse.
Join our growing community of men seeking something deeper than what modern culture offers. Download the Claymore Battle Plan at jp2renew.org, connect with others for discussion, and discover how becoming a person of love transforms not just your life, but rebuilds society from its foundations.
Discussion Questions with Scripture and Catechism References
· How does the creation of humanity as male and female reflect the Trinitarian love of God, and what does this reveal about the purpose of our bodies?
Reference: Genesis 1:26–28; Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 355–357: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them… Being in the image of God, the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone.”
· Jesus points to “the beginning” to explain God’s design for marriage (Matthew 19:3–8). How can returning to God’s original plan for humanity help us navigate moral and sexual confusion in the modern world?
Reference: Matthew 19:3–8; CCC 1603–1605: “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws… God himself is the author of marriage.”
· John Paul II describes the body as having a “spousal meaning” that expresses love and self-gift. How can understanding this truth shape the way we view sexuality and relationships?
Reference: Genesis 2:24–25; CCC 2331–2336: “Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses… is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman.”
· The chapter describes marriage as a “primordial sacrament” that reflects God’s Trinitarian life and love, ‘from the beginning’. How can married couples live out this sacramental calling in their daily lives, and what impact might this have on their families and communities?
Reference: Ephesians 5:25–32; CCC 1613–1617: “By its very nature [marriage] is ordered to the good of the couple, as well
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a
production of the John Paul IIRenewal Center.
I'm Jack Riggert, your host.
This is our special Fridayedition of Claymore Miletus
Christi.
This is our discipleshipprogram, really our journeying
together for young men, old men,young men, all the people that
love them, especially dedicatedto the young men that we're
(00:33):
meeting that are looking forsomething more.
So this is the Claymore BattlePlan.
Hopefully everybody hasdownloaded this.
You just go to jp2reneworg it'sall in the show notes, hit
resources at the top.
You're going to see theClaymore Battle Plan come up.
Print that out.
Make sure you have a copy ofthis.
You don't have to print thatfirst page.
(00:54):
You can start with the secondpage, which is just that simple
Claymore sword, and we put thaton there so you can print it out
without using a lot of inkUnderneath that first page.
Pay attention, your life is notan endless series of open doors.
This is from John Paul II.
Listen to your heart.
Don't stay on the surface ofthings like the whole world, but
(01:16):
go to the heart.
Go to your heart, go to theheart of things and, when the
time is right, have the courageto decide.
Have the courage to decide.
What does he mean?
You know, when I was a youngman 20, 21, 22, I had left home
early, as everybody knowsalready from this, and I'm
searching for the truth, I feltan urgency then.
(01:37):
I feel an urgency now.
And what is John Paul saying?
Pay attention, your life is notan endless series of open doors
.
We have a window here and wewaste so much time on all kinds
of stuff Everybody knows,especially with these social
media stuff blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.
But what are we doing?
This is the Claymore battle planto say, look, you're going to
go out into the world.
You know, by the time I was 25,I was married.
(02:00):
By the time I was 26, we hadour first child already, I was
building businesses already.
The whole thing started tohappen like a blur.
What I didn't understand then,totally I was searching for the
truth.
I wanted to know the truth, butI didn't understand what was
going on in the culture with thesexual revolution and this
twisting and distorting of theculture.
It's really a breakdown of oursociety all across the world,
(02:25):
especially Western civilization.
It's a breakdown of the humanheart.
It's a breakdown of marriageand the family.
It's taking God out and thewhole thing is crumbling and
these young men, all of youlistening, are understanding
that.
And so, when you start to openyour heart up, john Paul is
saying look, let's get thisfoundation in so that when you
(02:46):
go out into the world, whateveryou're doing, starting now, you
have a foundation so you canrelax.
Forget about this anxiety, thisdepression, the suicidal
thoughts.
We're in a battle here.
Right, it's the three corethings, and that's why it starts
with the sword huh, three corethings.
Every man knows that life issupposed to be an adventure.
We're supposed to be outseeking the truth.
(03:08):
What is love right?
Answering those big questionsof the human heart.
Who am I?
What's the meaning and purposeof life?
Why were we created male andfemale?
How do I find happiness here onearth?
How do I find love thatsatisfies forever?
And these are the timelessquestions that came down.
This is the first time inhistory that we're not asking
ourselves these questions.
We don't have time, we'reliving on the surface of life.
(03:31):
The second thing is anunderstanding of marriage and
the family, because you have tounderstand this is the building
blocks of every society.
Without marriage and the family, without children, you don't
have a society and everythingbreaks down in the family.
Without children, you don'thave a society and everything
breaks down.
You see that in the inner cityI'm outside of Chicago we see
these inner city kids, theseminority kids that don't have
(03:57):
solid families.
Most of them are fatherless.
It's amazing how many kidsdon't have fathers, don't have
any leadership, any role models.
So you see them looting stores,beating people up.
You see it on the news all thetime.
You know why would they do this?
It's a civilization breakdown.
It came because it broke downmarriage in the church and they
took God out of their lives.
Nobody's passed this faith downto these kids, so they're
(04:19):
aimless and you see this comingout.
You know it's dangerous just towalk into certain parts of the
city.
You see what just happened inCincinnati, where a couple of
people just got beat up, almostdied over this breakdown, and
we're seeing this all over theplace.
And so this battle plan iscomprehensive.
So I just want to briefly gothrough it.
(04:40):
Everybody should download this,read that battle plan, because
it's an outline of the threenecessary societies.
So think about it as a triangle,just quickly for people that
are new.
Like a triangle, like a pyramidin front of you.
What holds this up is first thehuman heart that understands
who they are, their identity,meaning and purpose in life.
(05:01):
That starts with you and I, ourhuman heart, to understand and
answer those timeless questions.
You have to understand howmarriage and the family come
together.
Again, when you have abreakdown of that, which we do
again now, you start to see thiscrumble and this image of
marriage and the family, of whowe are, has to be connected to
Christ and the church.
(05:22):
I am the way, the truth and thelife.
When you take God out, marriageand the family starts to
crumble because it's no longerfilled with grace.
When you take a disconnectedheart, a human heart, my heart,
your heart, disconnected fromGod, who is again the way, the
truth and the life, you live onthe surface of things and you
(05:42):
never go deep, like John said,to the heart, to understand this
foundational piece.
So this is the foundation yourhuman heart, marriage and the
family on one end of thistriangle, christ and the church
on the other end.
They are linked together andthey hold up everything else.
They hold up your life, yourheart, your happiness is going
(06:04):
to depend on that.
And then what do we do?
We go out into the culture.
That means go out into our job.
The way we act, the way we dothings in life and in the world,
we bring that goodness, thatlove, that beauty that the world
is missing.
We are tasked to bring thatinto the culture, into your job,
(06:24):
again into the gym when you goto the gym, into society, into
politics.
Think about the politicians thatwe have today.
Right here in Illinois we havea Governor Pritzker and this
Mayor Johnson.
These guys are clueless when itcomes to this.
They have no moral compass.
It's all about grasping andtaking.
(06:45):
You listen to them and yourstomach gets sick and you go.
What kind of leaders are they?
Well, they're not leaders, ofcourse.
They're takers.
They have no clue of all thethings we're talking about.
They have no foundation.
They've taken God out of theirlives and just listen to them
and just more money, more taxes,more me, more that.
(07:07):
Okay, I don't want to get intothat anymore, but you start to
see this triangle again, right,unless you lay this foundation,
you don't know how to act in theworld.
And we see these politiciansthat can push abortion.
You know the murder of children.
Marriage is meaningless ToGovernor Pritzker.
You know it's all aboutanything you want.
When marriage means anything,when it has no definition
(07:30):
anymore, it's meaningless, itmeans nothing.
It could be anything, it'sreally nothing at the end.
So this comprehensive battleplan, my whole point, is that
we're laying the foundation forthis whole thing, and so read
that, go over it.
One more quick point it startswith the heart.
Then John Paul would say again,that's where the sword this
(07:52):
whole thing starts, thisunderstanding on the battlefield
of a man's heart between beinga person of love or being a
person of lust, a self-givingperson that's bringing true,
good and beautiful into theworld, or somebody that's
grasping and taking.
And this is the battle thatgoes on in each human heart.
So part three of this are fiveaspects to this individual
(08:14):
formation that all of us need toknow as men, and I'm just going
to touch on the spiritualformation, that first part,
because we have to get ourhearts back first.
And at the same time we'regetting our hearts back, we do
good things in the world.
So that's not like you justhave to do this first and this,
this no.
Once we get our hearts back,you start to understand
relationships between you andsay, a woman or just your
(08:38):
neighbor, and then youunderstand, this has to be
linked to Christ in the church,and so how do you start to lay
those formations down?
Well, it's all outlined in here, but here's just the first
thing you do in the morning.
So, so important, before youlook at that phone kneel with
our blessed mother.
Let it be done to me accordingto your word.
And there's a scripture fromLuke in there.
(08:59):
And so read that, go back andread that.
It's all in the battle plan.
Just read that little snippetfrom Luke.
And that's when the angel comesover our blessed mother and she
opens her heart up and says,okay, let it be done to me.
I don't get it, I don'tunderstand it all, but let it be
done to me according to yourword.
Isn't that what we do?
We're kneeling with our blessedmother, we're opening our
(09:20):
hearts.
So right away we're opening ourhearts and say, yes, I don't
understand at all, but let it bedone to me according to your
word.
Then there's a little phrase inthere do whatever he tells you.
That's from our blessed mother.
That's from John 2, verse 5.
That's the wedding feast ofCana, where they've run out of
wine.
Wine is that symbol for divinelife and love in the world and
(09:41):
we ran out of wine.
We've done the same thing.
Our whole culture has run outof wine.
Jesus comes in.
He changes water into wine.
He brings it in abundance forall of us.
So do whatever he tells you.
So now I start to listen.
What is God telling me today?
Second thing, very, very, veryimportant Temptation is not a
sin.
(10:02):
We've talked about it before,I'm not going to spend a lot of
time on it.
But don't stuff thosetemptations down and don't
indulge them, especially when itcomes to things like
pornography and things.
But that's not the onlytemptation the temptation not to
go to work today or stay in bedtoo much.
There's an urgency to this.
If you just pick away a littlebit at this, your heart will
change.
Over time you start tounderstand these concepts that
(10:25):
we've been teaching and talkingabout and little by little, when
you're reading scripture everyday, when you're doing all these
things, you're walking into thestory just a little bit every
day.
Don't give up on that.
So temptation is not a sin.
Every temptation that's in mymind, in my heart.
Today, I just open those thingsup and say here's the
temptation, it's all yours.
Come into my heart with this.
(10:46):
So temptation, then, is not anobstacle to becoming the man you
want to be.
It actually becomes aninvitation to prayer.
It actually becomes the path ofwalking you into that story.
All right, the next thing isthis app that we're talking
about here.
There's an app and again it'sin the battle plan it's from the
(11:09):
Marian Brothers.
It's the Divine Mercy app.
So just look for Divine Mercyapp from the Marian Brothers.
There's a lot on that app, butthe one I listen to every day
and the one I'm suggesting toyou to listen to every day,
there's a small snippet from theDiary of Sister Faustina, and
this is the divine mercy.
God said to Sister Faustina andJohn Paul said pay attention to
(11:32):
this.
This is the time of mercy.
Jesus hanging on the cross, hewants to shower you with mercy
and with grace.
He came into this story to helpus and he wants to just fill us
up.
And so you listen to thislittle snippet.
It's a dialogue between SisterFaustina and Jesus.
So what I do in the morning,this is all printed out, but I
(11:54):
hit the audio and I just closemy eyes and I listen to this
dialogue.
You can read it, but I'velistened to this dialogue and
then at the end you can scrolldown a little bit.
There's a little prayer that yousay every day.
You do this over time.
You see the relationship thatSister Faustina has with God,
calling us into thatrelationship, and how he wants
(12:15):
to shower us with grace.
Very, very important to do.
And it's free, free app.
And then the next thing, thethird thing that you do you get
up off your knees and you lovethe next person.
You see, you know if that'syour spouse, if it's the clerk
at the local store when you gograb your coffee, whatever that
is, you know you become a personof love.
You have to put this intoaction and this is the whole
(12:38):
thing we're going to be talkingabout today.
Today it's called In theBeginning, all Wonder and a
Cosmic Explosion of Love.
We're going to talk about thatfirst thing the heart, what that
means, what is truth, what islove and how it's connected to
marriage and the family, and thebeauty of this and the
sacramentality of our bodies.
We are body and soul to bringthis love into the world.
(13:01):
We were created to do all ofthat.
So when I'm unpacking this, Ijust want you to see like this
whole picture that we're aimingat here.
All right, I went on a littlebit long, but I needed to do
that, I think, just to set thisgroundwork again.
So I want to bring you into thestory and I'm not going to rush
this.
The beauty of apps, the beautyof all of this is, you know, you
can listen to part of it rightnow and then part of it later on
(13:24):
, and then you're going todiscuss it with others and let
this sink in.
So I'm going to take youthrough this In the beginning
awe, wonder and a cosmicexplosion of love.
It starts out with Jesus sayingthis For the hardness of your
heart, moses allowed you todivorce your wives, but from the
beginning it was not so.
So Jesus here is taking us intothe beginning.
(13:47):
You're going to hear, andthat's before sin into the world
.
Here's the model he's saying.
He says you have to know thebeginning to get your heart back
.
What was God's plan for you?
Yes, we live in the fall.
We live in a twisted anddistorted culture.
You're waking up to that.
So now Jesus himself is goingto take us back to the beginning
.
This is the model, this is theway it is All right.
(14:11):
So let me just I'm going toread a little bit from this.
I'm actually writing a book, ahandbook, to go along with this.
But don't forget, you knowthese transcripts are right.
On any app that you have youcan look at this whole
transcript, the discussion onthis.
The little snippets will be inthe show notes themselves.
As explored previously.
The burning desire if you lookback at Claymore, we did a reset
(14:34):
, so it's number one, two, three.
This will be Claymore.
Number four, if you go back tothe first couple, as in the
previous chapters we talkedabout this, the burning desire
for what is true, good,beautiful, for what is real is
woven into the very fabric ofour being, of who we are, so
cutting through the moral andsexual confusion of our age.
(14:57):
Understanding that is lessabout acquiring newer
information and more aboutreconnecting with the deepest
yearning of our hearts, ourhearts, in other words.
It's not just information, it'sin our DNA.
So, at its core, this yearningis a longing for love and to be
loved.
Its essence is always love.
(15:18):
Even more profoundly, ourbodies tell this story in our
incompleteness.
A man's body, a woman's body.
You know, my wife and I haveall the same organs.
We both have five fingers, fivetoes.
You know, two lungs, a stomach.
All those systems workindependently.
I don't need my wife for any ofthose systems.
There's only one system that mywife and I have to come
(15:41):
together in order for it to work.
It's our reproductive system.
We're going to ask you to joinus by helping us get the word
out.
So if you can make sure yousubscribe and then hit like, no
matter which platform you're on,remember that the Become who
you Are podcast is on audio andany music or podcast app.
(16:02):
We're up on Rumble YouTube.
You can find us on X.
When you do subscribe, hit thelike button.
A couple things to share withpeople Love Ed.
Love Ed is just such animportant apostolate, so it's
within our apostolate, the JohnPaul II Renewal Center.
This helps parents give thetalk to their children.
(16:24):
We're trying to push back onall these gender ideologies and
the porn culture and givechildren the truth and do it
through their parents, and wehelp them do that.
The other one is really takenoff too.
It's Claymore Miletus Christi,soldiers for Christ.
That's where you see the swordbehind me.
That's the big sword.
That's our logo for ClaymoreMilitants Christi, soldiers for
Christ.
That's where you see the swordbehind me.
That's the big sword, that'sour logo for Claymore, that's a
(16:46):
Claymore sword.
And this is for young people,especially young men, gen Z,
high school, all the way through, let's call it, until they're
30 years old or so.
They're starting to reallyunderstand that something
nefarious, very toxic, is goingon in the culture, and so
they're stepping into the churchand we're discipling them.
So we want to help get the wordout about those things and,
(17:09):
lastly, try to consider at leastconsider financially supporting
us.
Everything's in the show noteshey, god bless you.
Thanks again.
We'll be right back to today'sshow.
All those systems workindependently.
I don't need my wife for any ofthose systems.
There's only one system that mywife and I have to come
together in order for it to work.
(17:30):
It's our reproductive system,and our body says that You're
incomplete.
A man's body doesn't make sensewithout a woman.
A woman's body doesn't makesense without a man.
Well, this is a sacramentalsign, and this is what we're
getting at today.
It's really, really importantto let that sink in.
So, seeking another to completethis narrative of our existence
(17:52):
.
Our bodies even tell the story.
Our hearts are yearning what Tobe?
Persons of love, to be unitedwith another person, and this is
a sacramental sign.
This truth is most vividlyexpressed through our creation
as male and female.
So our world has normalized sin, normalized the fall, but Jesus
again is going to redirect usto the beginning before sin
(18:13):
entered human history.
So in Matthew's gospel, thePharisees tested Jesus.
They're coming up to Jesus.
Listen to the story now.
This is Jesus speaking to us.
If we're there, let's just putourselves there.
And they ask him a question Isit lawful to divorce one's wife
for any cause?
Can I get rid of my wife forany cause?
(18:34):
Jesus, instead of limitinghimself to their line of
questioning, points to God'soriginal design for marriage and
he answered have you not readthat he who made them from the
beginning made them male andfemale, and he said this.
For this reason, he takes thisright out of Genesis, chapter
one and two.
So he's pointing back to thebeginning.
(18:54):
This is the beginning ofscripture, before sin into the
world.
For this reason it says inscripture a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joinedto his wife, and the two shall
become one, so that they're nolonger two but one.
What, therefore?
God has joined together, let noman separate.
And they said to him.
Then this is the test right.
(19:15):
Well, why did Moses command oneto give a certificate of
divorce and put her away?
Why did Moses allow divorce inthe Old Testament?
And Jesus said to them listento this.
Because of the hardness of yourhearts, moses allowed you to
divorce your wives, but from thebeginning it was not so.
You know, moses just gave up.
They came into a sinful world.
(19:36):
And he just says okay, well forus.
Christ came back into the worldto restore this and give us the
grace to overcome this.
So here it is.
Over five days this is fromGenesis, chapter one.
Right From the very beginning,over five days, god's creative
work unfolded until the Gardenof Eden emerged.
Just go back and read that.
(19:57):
A breathtaking stage set fordivine drama.
So you picture this God'screating.
How?
Picture a lush forest teemingwith wildflowers, majestic
animals, the songs of vibrantbirds, a scene bursting with awe
, wonder and beauty, preparedfor a wedding feast.
He's got it all ready.
On the sixth day, it's as ifGod draws back into himself and
(20:20):
takes a selfie.
He's got everything ready for awedding feast.
Now he draws back into himself.
What is revealed is an eternalexchange of love.
That's what the selfie'srevealing.
The father pours himself outinto the son.
The son receives that love andreturns that love.
And from their mutualself-giving the Holy Spirit
(20:40):
proceeds.
The two, father and son, areone.
And from that mutualself-giving the Holy Spirit
proceeds.
The two, father and Son, areone and from that proceeds the
Holy Spirit In the divine act ofself-revelation.
God created humanity in thisimage.
So God is not a sexual being,he creates our sexuality.
What to express thatTrinitarian love in the world?
And he says this let us makeman in our image, after our
(21:04):
likeness.
Let him have dominion over thefish of the sea, the birds of
the air and the cattle, and overall the wild animals and all
the creatures that crawl on theground.
God created man in his image,in the divine image.
He created them, how Male andfemale.
He created them.
God blessed them, saying befertile, multiply, fill the
earth and subdue it.
The first commandment.
(21:26):
We think about the 10commandments.
Well, those came after sin.
The actual first commandmentbefore sin is what Be fertile,
multiply, fill the earth andsubdue it.
Go have, join in sexual unionwhere the two become one, open
to life, become three.
This is a tiny creativereflection of what Of
(21:46):
Trinitarian love in the world.
That's how love gets in theworld.
St John Paul II beautifullyarticulates this truth and he
says this the human body, ourbodies, with its sex,
masculinity, femininity, seeingthe very mystery of creation, is
not only the source offruitfulness, of procreation, as
(22:07):
in the whole natural order.
So an animal can reproducewhile we procreate.
And what's the difference?
Well, it contains, john Paulsaid, from the very beginning,
the spousal attribute that is,the power to express love,
precisely that love in which thehuman being becomes a gift and
(22:27):
through this gift, fulfills thevery meaning of his being and
existence.
Let me just think about thisfor a second.
God's got everything ready.
He's got the animals, he's gotthe plants, got everything.
But how is he going to get love?
That's the spousal attribute hegives us.
We bring love into the world.
And what is the sacramentalsign of that?
Each one of us becomes a personof love.
(22:49):
So I make God's visible in theworld.
People will say to me Jack, youknow where's God.
You know we are supposed to bemaking God visible in the
creative world.
That's why he created us tobring truth, goodness, beauty,
love into the world.
The fullest sign of that isTrinitarian love and that's what
happens with the family.
(23:09):
That's why the family is thatsocietal core and when that
breaks down, you break down thiswhole attribute of love.
That's why, when I said thatabout the kids in the inner city
, these young people, they'relacking love from their own
family, young people.
They're lacking love from theirown family, they're lacking the
source of love from God.
So they go out and they becomeviolent.
You become irrational.
You just beat people up, justto beat people up.
(23:31):
You see how this works, youknow, and then all of society
starts to come down.
This truth became vividly realfor me after I was married, when
my wife gave birth to our firstchild.
So, holding our daughter in myhand for the first time, gazing
at my wife who had just givenbirth, I was overwhelmed by the
(23:52):
mystery of this new life.
Think about this when the twoof us boom, the two became one.
A third came into being.
Reflecting on this moment.
Later, on the births of ourother children, I began to grasp
what it.
Reflecting on this moment,later, on the births of our
other children, I began to graspwhat it means to be the image
of God in the world.
In the sacrament of marriage,my wife and I gave ourselves
fully to one another, and fromthat mutual gift of love, god
(24:16):
brought forth a new life.
We became co-creators with him,co-creators of a new eternal
being.
But what was that?
The two, my wife and I, becameone, became three.
There was a time where, again,in the beginning, wonder and
that's what I meant by thecosmic explosion of love came
(24:37):
out in the form of a child thatreflected the love of my wife
and I and this Trinitarian lovein the world.
This is reflecting, again, theFather, the Son and the Holy
Spirit's love.
You know, as a boy, I rememberhearing about the Trinity and
struggled to understand that.
And God is a mystery, and loveis a mystery.
(24:57):
God is love.
God, though, is a communion oflove between the Father, son and
the Holy Spirit.
I start to understand that, butholding my newborn child, I saw
that her existence was thatfruit of love, again between my
wife and I, made possible byGod's gift of life.
So I start to understand.
Ooh, we are the expression ofTrinitarian love in the world.
(25:20):
Again, love does not get intothe world unless we bring it in.
This is why Satan attacks oursexuality, this is why
pornography, this is why we'reusing child sex, trafficking,
all of these things that we'redoing to one another, rape.
We're taking the sacrament andtwisting and distorting it and
(25:40):
everything starts to break down.
So John Paul II went on tostate his whole thesis about
this.
Like the whole summa of this,and if you allow it to sink in,
it not only revolutionizes theway we understand the human body
and our sexuality, it changesthe world.
And he says this the body, ourbody, my body, your body, the
(26:00):
body and it alone, john Paulsaid, is capable of making
visible what is invisible, thespiritual and the divine.
It was created to transfer intothe visible reality of this
world the invisible mysteryhidden in God from time
immemorial, and to be a sign ofit.
Well again, what does that mean?
Just to run through it?
Well again, what does that mean?
(26:22):
Just to run through it?
Though God is pure spirit,invisible to us, he stamped his
mystery into our very bodies bycreating us, male and female, in
his image.
This image reflects the Trinity, a divine communion of three
persons.
John Paul explains thathumanity images God not only
through our individual existence, but through the communion of
(26:44):
persons formed by man and womanfrom the beginning, this
communion of the two comingtogether, blessed with the gift
of fertility, open to life,reveals the spousal meaning of
the body, a call to become agift for one another in the one
flesh, sexual union.
This is right from Genesis 2,verse 24.
(27:06):
In this way, marriageconstitutes a primordial
sacrament, understood as a signthat truly communicates the
mystery of God's Trinitarianlove and love to husband and
wife and, through them, to theirchildren and to their children
and the family to the wholeworld.
That's salvation.
Living that out makes thisvisible, god visible in the
(27:31):
whole world.
When families understand thisand you have all these families,
these building cells allthrough history that understand
this you change the whole world.
It's amazing.
And when you get a twisting anddistortion of that, how awful
it is.
And again you see the breakdownof that.
I remember Bill Gates going toan African nation and he's
(27:53):
explaining to the tribes thereabout contraception, about not
having so many children andyou'll be able to be richer,
that way You'll have more moneybecause you won't have to spend
it on kids.
And they looked at him and theydidn't understand it.
And through an interpreter,bill Gates say what don't they
understand?
And what the tribal people said?
(28:13):
They said that our children areour treasure.
You know you can take the money, you know we can be a little
poorer because our children areour treasure.
They get that.
But we in the Western world wewant to undergird that, we want
to take that away from them.
We want to push contraceptionand abortion and these LBGTQ
(28:34):
things.
It's a sin, it's twisting anddistorting.
You can see what somebody likethe Governor Pritzker's here in
Illinois, the Bill Gates of theworld, even if they think
they're doing something good,right, we're going to reduce the
amount of people in the worldthey say we're going to give
people contraception so that youcan be free.
You know you don't have to havechildren and if you really
(28:54):
understood it, you go.
What are you talking about?
You're taking love out of mylife, out of the world's life,
etc.
And so, as I wind down here,this is really the mystery again
of truth and love, the mysteryof divine life in which man
really participates.
We get to participate in this.
This is why it's so importantfor your spiritual formation to
(29:16):
link yourself with God, becausewe have to be filled with God's
love in order to be persons oflove.
You cannot give what you don'thave.
So I have to go back to thesource.
Jesus would say the branch hasto come back onto the vine right
.
So again, through ourbodilyness, our masculinity and
femininity, we become a visiblesign of truth and love in the
(29:39):
world, which has its source inGod himself and was already
revealed in the mystery ofcreation.
Think about creation again, allof creation.
The sun coming up in themorning, the mountains, the
majestic mountains they're allsmall B beauty, reflecting
(30:01):
something of God himself, big Bbeauty in the world.
But the fullest sign of thatare the sacramentality of our
body.
Our bodies are those sacramentwe said.
The primordial sacrament ismarriage.
What does that mean?
That means that in thebeginning, before sin, we didn't
have the seven sacraments thatJesus instituted.
Now, because he came into afallen world and gave us those
sacraments again to come backinto this relationship with God.
(30:24):
In the beginning, before sin,the way God wanted that
sacrament, his love, to berevealed, was through, again,
marriage and the family.
So this is the primordial, thefirst sacrament.
It's the only sacrament that weneeded.
All of creation is a sacrament,again, reflecting something of
big beauty, god in the world.
But we are the primordialsacrament.
(30:46):
You know where the two becomeone, become three.
That tiny created reflection ofTrinitarian love in the world.
So, together with mankind,holiness has entered the visible
world.
That's why in the scriptures inGenesis, we talk about naked
without shame.
Well, there was no sin in theworld, you know.
(31:06):
Nakedness means we could exposeourselves to one another.
You know, adam and Eve cominginto this beautiful relationship
.
Right, the world was createdfor us.
The sacrament of the world andthe sacrament of man in the
world comes forth from thatdivine source of holiness, from
God himself, and that weinstitute this holiness in the
(31:28):
world.
We were made for holiness andwe were the sign of holiness.
If we take this out, you seethe breakdown that we have now.
Okay, that's enough for today.
So again, the discussionquestions with Scripture and
catechism references.
I'll put those in the shownotes.
I'll just touch on this firstquestion and, again, find
someone to discuss this with.
(31:49):
If you don't have anybody,contemplate it on your own, but
it's so important for us to letthis sink in, and we do this
through prayer.
So the first questiondiscussion questions with your
friend or whatever, over a beeror coffee or whatever.
How does the creation ofhumanity as male and female
reflect the Trinitarian love forGod, and what does this reveal
(32:09):
about the purposes of our bodies?
It's very important in today'stwisted culture to sit on that
question and I put somereferences in there from Genesis
you could read If you don'thave the catechism of the
Catholic Church, get thatcatechism.
It's so beautiful, it's amazing.
But I put the catechismreferences in there so you can
(32:30):
read this again God created manin his own image, in the image
of God.
He created them, male andfemale.
He created them being in theimage of God.
The human individual possessesthe dignity of a person who is
not just something but a someone.
In this crazy culture, we loveour things, our phones and all
(32:50):
our gadgets and all that whenwe're using people.
It should be the opposite.
God gave us all creation to usefor the good of ourselves and
we are to love people.
And then, in loving each other,we start to love creation and
take care of everything, andthen everything starts to fit
together, regardless of what yousee out in the world.
We have to capture thisourselves.
(33:12):
We have to become these personsof love.
That's the way I get to answerthose timeless questions.
Again, I start to answer thatquestion who am I?
What's the meaning and purposeof life?
Why were we created male andfemale?
How do I find happiness?
How do I find love thatsatisfies?
It's all in this little story.
Hey, god bless you.
If you have any questions, letus know.
(33:32):
My email will be in the shownotes info at JP, the number two
reneworg, send me an email whenyou start to put these little
cells together across the nationand other nations.
This podcast goes out to manyother countries.
When you do send us a littlenote there, I'll see that.
(33:55):
That goes right to me, thatemail, and we want to support
these little cells all over.
Sometimes we do Zoom calls withother men.
You might want to be invitedinto that and start to meet some
other guys around the world Ifwe're in your area or you can
invite us into your area andwe'll do a live event there as
you grow.
There's a group of guys about40 guys now Just start out with
(34:19):
a couple guys talking and thenit grows to another guy and
another guy, another guy, andthen they go out and reach it.
This is the discipleshipprogram that helps you help
other men too.
So if you meet somebody that'sstarting to ask questions, you
could say hey, do me a favor,download the Claymore Battle
Plan.
We'll review it.
We'll listen to this podcast onFriday, we'll discuss it
(34:41):
together and you start to leadthem into the story.
Plus, it gives them an actionplan, like I just said.
You know falling to your kneesand doing those three things in
the morning, and then readingscripture.
Hey, god bless you.
Great to be with you guys.
Let me know if you have anyquestions.
Talk to you again soon.
Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a
production of the John Paul IIRenewal Center.
I'm Jack Riggert, your host.
This is our special Fridayedition of Claymore Miletus
Christi.
This is our discipleshipprogram, really our journeying
together for young men, old men,young men, all the people that
love them, especially dedicatedto the young men that we're
(00:33):
meeting that are looking forsomething more.
So this is the Claymore BattlePlan.
Hopefully everybody hasdownloaded this.
You just go to jp2reneworg it'sall in the show notes, hit
resources at the top.
You're going to see theClaymore Battle Plan come up.
Print that out.
Make sure you have a copy ofthis.
You don't have to print thatfirst page.
(00:54):
You can start with the secondpage, which is just that simple
Claymore sword, and we put thaton there so you can print it out
without using a lot of inkUnderneath that first page.
Pay attention, your life is notan endless series of open doors.
This is from John Paul II.
Listen to your heart.
Don't stay on the surface ofthings like the whole world, but
(01:16):
go to the heart.
Go to your heart, go to theheart of things and, when the
time is right, have the courageto decide.
Have the courage to decide.
What does he mean?
You know, when I was a youngman 20, 21, 22, I had left home
early, as everybody knowsalready from this, and I'm
searching for the truth, I feltan urgency then.
(01:37):
I feel an urgency now.
And what is John Paul saying?
Pay attention, your life is notan endless series of open doors
.
We have a window here and wewaste so much time on all kinds
of stuff Everybody knows,especially with these social
media stuff blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.
But what are we doing?
This is the Claymore battle planto say, look, you're going to
go out into the world.
You know, by the time I was 25,I was married.
(02:00):
By the time I was 26, we hadour first child already, I was
building businesses already.
The whole thing started tohappen like a blur.
What I didn't understand then,totally I was searching for the
truth.
I wanted to know the truth, butI didn't understand what was
going on in the culture with thesexual revolution and this
twisting and distorting of theculture.
It's really a breakdown of oursociety all across the world,
(02:25):
especially Western civilization.
It's a breakdown of the humanheart.
It's a breakdown of marriageand the family.
It's taking God out and thewhole thing is crumbling and
these young men, all of youlistening, are understanding
that.
And so, when you start to openyour heart up, john Paul is
saying look, let's get thisfoundation in so that when you
(02:46):
go out into the world, whateveryou're doing, starting now, you
have a foundation so you canrelax.
Forget about this anxiety, thisdepression, the suicidal
thoughts.
We're in a battle here.
Right, it's the three corethings, and that's why it starts
with the sword huh, three corethings.
Every man knows that life issupposed to be an adventure.
We're supposed to be outseeking the truth.
(03:08):
What is love right?
Answering those big questionsof the human heart.
Who am I?
What's the meaning and purposeof life?
Why were we created male andfemale?
How do I find happiness here onearth?
How do I find love thatsatisfies forever?
And these are the timelessquestions that came down.
This is the first time inhistory that we're not asking
ourselves these questions.
We don't have time, we'reliving on the surface of life.
(03:31):
The second thing is anunderstanding of marriage and
the family, because you have tounderstand this is the building
blocks of every society.
Without marriage and the family, without children, you don't
have a society and everythingbreaks down in the family.
Without children, you don'thave a society and everything
breaks down.
You see that in the inner cityI'm outside of Chicago we see
these inner city kids, theseminority kids that don't have
(03:57):
solid families.
Most of them are fatherless.
It's amazing how many kidsdon't have fathers, don't have
any leadership, any role models.
So you see them looting stores,beating people up.
You see it on the news all thetime.
You know why would they do this?
It's a civilization breakdown.
It came because it broke downmarriage in the church and they
took God out of their lives.
Nobody's passed this faith downto these kids, so they're
(04:19):
aimless and you see this comingout.
You know it's dangerous just towalk into certain parts of the
city.
You see what just happened inCincinnati, where a couple of
people just got beat up, almostdied over this breakdown, and
we're seeing this all over theplace.
And so this battle plan iscomprehensive.
So I just want to briefly gothrough it.
(04:40):
Everybody should download this,read that battle plan, because
it's an outline of the threenecessary societies.
So think about it as a triangle,just quickly for people that
are new.
Like a triangle, like a pyramidin front of you.
What holds this up is first thehuman heart that understands
who they are, their identity,meaning and purpose in life.
(05:01):
That starts with you and I, ourhuman heart, to understand and
answer those timeless questions.
You have to understand howmarriage and the family come
together.
Again, when you have abreakdown of that, which we do
again now, you start to see thiscrumble and this image of
marriage and the family, of whowe are, has to be connected to
Christ and the church.
(05:22):
I am the way, the truth and thelife.
When you take God out, marriageand the family starts to
crumble because it's no longerfilled with grace.
When you take a disconnectedheart, a human heart, my heart,
your heart, disconnected fromGod, who is again the way, the
truth and the life, you live onthe surface of things and you
(05:42):
never go deep, like John said,to the heart, to understand this
foundational piece.
So this is the foundation yourhuman heart, marriage and the
family on one end of thistriangle, christ and the church
on the other end.
They are linked together andthey hold up everything else.
They hold up your life, yourheart, your happiness is going
(06:04):
to depend on that.
And then what do we do?
We go out into the culture.
That means go out into our job.
The way we act, the way we dothings in life and in the world,
we bring that goodness, thatlove, that beauty that the world
is missing.
We are tasked to bring thatinto the culture, into your job,
(06:24):
again into the gym when you goto the gym, into society, into
politics.
Think about the politicians thatwe have today.
Right here in Illinois we havea Governor Pritzker and this
Mayor Johnson.
These guys are clueless when itcomes to this.
They have no moral compass.
It's all about grasping andtaking.
(06:45):
You listen to them and yourstomach gets sick and you go.
What kind of leaders are they?
Well, they're not leaders, ofcourse.
They're takers.
They have no clue of all thethings we're talking about.
They have no foundation.
They've taken God out of theirlives and just listen to them
and just more money, more taxes,more me, more that.
(07:07):
Okay, I don't want to get intothat anymore, but you start to
see this triangle again, right,unless you lay this foundation,
you don't know how to act in theworld.
And we see these politiciansthat can push abortion.
You know the murder of children.
Marriage is meaningless ToGovernor Pritzker.
You know it's all aboutanything you want.
When marriage means anything,when it has no definition
(07:30):
anymore, it's meaningless, itmeans nothing.
It could be anything, it'sreally nothing at the end.
So this comprehensive battleplan, my whole point, is that
we're laying the foundation forthis whole thing, and so read
that, go over it.
One more quick point it startswith the heart.
Then John Paul would say again,that's where the sword this
(07:52):
whole thing starts, thisunderstanding on the battlefield
of a man's heart between beinga person of love or being a
person of lust, a self-givingperson that's bringing true,
good and beautiful into theworld, or somebody that's
grasping and taking.
And this is the battle thatgoes on in each human heart.
So part three of this are fiveaspects to this individual
(08:14):
formation that all of us need toknow as men, and I'm just going
to touch on the spiritualformation, that first part,
because we have to get ourhearts back first.
And at the same time we'regetting our hearts back, we do
good things in the world.
So that's not like you justhave to do this first and this,
this no.
Once we get our hearts back,you start to understand
relationships between you andsay, a woman or just your
(08:38):
neighbor, and then youunderstand, this has to be
linked to Christ in the church,and so how do you start to lay
those formations down?
Well, it's all outlined in here, but here's just the first
thing you do in the morning.
So, so important, before youlook at that phone kneel with
our blessed mother.
Let it be done to me accordingto your word.
And there's a scripture fromLuke in there.
(08:59):
And so read that, go back andread that.
It's all in the battle plan.
Just read that little snippetfrom Luke.
And that's when the angel comesover our blessed mother and she
opens her heart up and says,okay, let it be done to me.
I don't get it, I don'tunderstand it all, but let it be
done to me according to yourword.
Isn't that what we do?
We're kneeling with our blessedmother, we're opening our
(09:20):
hearts.
So right away we're opening ourhearts and say, yes, I don't
understand at all, but let it bedone to me according to your
word.
Then there's a little phrase inthere do whatever he tells you.
That's from our blessed mother.
That's from John 2, verse 5.
That's the wedding feast ofCana, where they've run out of
wine.
Wine is that symbol for divinelife and love in the world and
(09:41):
we ran out of wine.
We've done the same thing.
Our whole culture has run outof wine.
Jesus comes in.
He changes water into wine.
He brings it in abundance forall of us.
So do whatever he tells you.
So now I start to listen.
What is God telling me today?
Second thing, very, very, veryimportant Temptation is not a
sin.
(10:02):
We've talked about it before,I'm not going to spend a lot of
time on it.
But don't stuff thosetemptations down and don't
indulge them, especially when itcomes to things like
pornography and things.
But that's not the onlytemptation the temptation not to
go to work today or stay in bedtoo much.
There's an urgency to this.
If you just pick away a littlebit at this, your heart will
change.
Over time you start tounderstand these concepts that
(10:25):
we've been teaching and talkingabout and little by little, when
you're reading scripture everyday, when you're doing all these
things, you're walking into thestory just a little bit every
day.
Don't give up on that.
So temptation is not a sin.
Every temptation that's in mymind, in my heart.
Today, I just open those thingsup and say here's the
temptation, it's all yours.
Come into my heart with this.
(10:46):
So temptation, then, is not anobstacle to becoming the man you
want to be.
It actually becomes aninvitation to prayer.
It actually becomes the path ofwalking you into that story.
All right, the next thing isthis app that we're talking
about here.
There's an app and again it'sin the battle plan it's from the
(11:09):
Marian Brothers.
It's the Divine Mercy app.
So just look for Divine Mercyapp from the Marian Brothers.
There's a lot on that app, butthe one I listen to every day
and the one I'm suggesting toyou to listen to every day,
there's a small snippet from theDiary of Sister Faustina, and
this is the divine mercy.
God said to Sister Faustina andJohn Paul said pay attention to
(11:32):
this.
This is the time of mercy.
Jesus hanging on the cross, hewants to shower you with mercy
and with grace.
He came into this story to helpus and he wants to just fill us
up.
And so you listen to thislittle snippet.
It's a dialogue between SisterFaustina and Jesus.
So what I do in the morning,this is all printed out, but I
(11:54):
hit the audio and I just closemy eyes and I listen to this
dialogue.
You can read it, but I'velistened to this dialogue and
then at the end you can scrolldown a little bit.
There's a little prayer that yousay every day.
You do this over time.
You see the relationship thatSister Faustina has with God,
calling us into thatrelationship, and how he wants
(12:15):
to shower us with grace.
Very, very important to do.
And it's free, free app.
And then the next thing, thethird thing that you do you get
up off your knees and you lovethe next person.
You see, you know if that'syour spouse, if it's the clerk
at the local store when you gograb your coffee, whatever that
is, you know you become a personof love.
You have to put this intoaction and this is the whole
(12:38):
thing we're going to be talkingabout today.
Today it's called In theBeginning, all Wonder and a
Cosmic Explosion of Love.
We're going to talk about thatfirst thing the heart, what that
means, what is truth, what islove and how it's connected to
marriage and the family, and thebeauty of this and the
sacramentality of our bodies.
We are body and soul to bringthis love into the world.
(13:01):
We were created to do all ofthat.
So when I'm unpacking this, Ijust want you to see like this
whole picture that we're aimingat here.
All right, I went on a littlebit long, but I needed to do
that, I think, just to set thisgroundwork again.
So I want to bring you into thestory and I'm not going to rush
this.
The beauty of apps, the beautyof all of this is, you know, you
can listen to part of it rightnow and then part of it later on
(13:24):
, and then you're going todiscuss it with others and let
this sink in.
So I'm going to take youthrough this In the beginning
awe, wonder and a cosmicexplosion of love.
It starts out with Jesus sayingthis For the hardness of your
heart, moses allowed you todivorce your wives, but from the
beginning it was not so.
So Jesus here is taking us intothe beginning.
(13:47):
You're going to hear, andthat's before sin into the world
.
Here's the model he's saying.
He says you have to know thebeginning to get your heart back
.
What was God's plan for you?
Yes, we live in the fall.
We live in a twisted anddistorted culture.
You're waking up to that.
So now Jesus himself is goingto take us back to the beginning
.
This is the model, this is theway it is All right.
(14:11):
So let me just I'm going toread a little bit from this.
I'm actually writing a book, ahandbook, to go along with this.
But don't forget, you knowthese transcripts are right.
On any app that you have youcan look at this whole
transcript, the discussion onthis.
The little snippets will be inthe show notes themselves.
As explored previously.
The burning desire if you lookback at Claymore, we did a reset
(14:34):
, so it's number one, two, three.
This will be Claymore.
Number four, if you go back tothe first couple, as in the
previous chapters we talkedabout this, the burning desire
for what is true, good,beautiful, for what is real is
woven into the very fabric ofour being, of who we are, so
cutting through the moral andsexual confusion of our age.
(14:57):
Understanding that is lessabout acquiring newer
information and more aboutreconnecting with the deepest
yearning of our hearts, ourhearts, in other words.
It's not just information, it'sin our DNA.
So, at its core, this yearningis a longing for love and to be
loved.
Its essence is always love.
(15:18):
Even more profoundly, ourbodies tell this story in our
incompleteness.
A man's body, a woman's body.
You know, my wife and I haveall the same organs.
We both have five fingers, fivetoes.
You know, two lungs, a stomach.
All those systems workindependently.
I don't need my wife for any ofthose systems.
There's only one system that mywife and I have to come
(15:41):
together in order for it to work.
It's our reproductive system.
We're going to ask you to joinus by helping us get the word
out.
So if you can make sure yousubscribe and then hit like, no
matter which platform you're on,remember that the Become who
you Are podcast is on audio andany music or podcast app.
(16:02):
We're up on Rumble YouTube.
You can find us on X.
When you do subscribe, hit thelike button.
A couple things to share withpeople Love Ed.
Love Ed is just such animportant apostolate, so it's
within our apostolate, the JohnPaul II Renewal Center.
This helps parents give thetalk to their children.
(16:24):
We're trying to push back onall these gender ideologies and
the porn culture and givechildren the truth and do it
through their parents, and wehelp them do that.
The other one is really takenoff too.
It's Claymore Miletus Christi,soldiers for Christ.
That's where you see the swordbehind me.
That's the big sword.
That's our logo for ClaymoreMilitants Christi, soldiers for
Christ.
That's where you see the swordbehind me.
That's the big sword, that'sour logo for Claymore, that's a
(16:46):
Claymore sword.
And this is for young people,especially young men, gen Z,
high school, all the way through, let's call it, until they're
30 years old or so.
They're starting to reallyunderstand that something
nefarious, very toxic, is goingon in the culture, and so
they're stepping into the churchand we're discipling them.
So we want to help get the wordout about those things and,
(17:09):
lastly, try to consider at leastconsider financially supporting
us.
Everything's in the show noteshey, god bless you.
Thanks again.
We'll be right back to today'sshow.
All those systems workindependently.
I don't need my wife for any ofthose systems.
There's only one system that mywife and I have to come
together in order for it to work.
(17:30):
It's our reproductive system,and our body says that You're
incomplete.
A man's body doesn't make sensewithout a woman.
A woman's body doesn't makesense without a man.
Well, this is a sacramentalsign, and this is what we're
getting at today.
It's really, really importantto let that sink in.
So, seeking another to completethis narrative of our existence
(17:52):
.
Our bodies even tell the story.
Our hearts are yearning what Tobe?
Persons of love, to be unitedwith another person, and this is
a sacramental sign.
This truth is most vividlyexpressed through our creation
as male and female.
So our world has normalized sin, normalized the fall, but Jesus
again is going to redirect usto the beginning before sin
(18:13):
entered human history.
So in Matthew's gospel, thePharisees tested Jesus.
They're coming up to Jesus.
Listen to the story now.
This is Jesus speaking to us.
If we're there, let's just putourselves there.
And they ask him a question Isit lawful to divorce one's wife
for any cause?
Can I get rid of my wife forany cause?
(18:34):
Jesus, instead of limitinghimself to their line of
questioning, points to God'soriginal design for marriage and
he answered have you not readthat he who made them from the
beginning made them male andfemale, and he said this.
For this reason, he takes thisright out of Genesis, chapter
one and two.
So he's pointing back to thebeginning.
(18:54):
This is the beginning ofscripture, before sin into the
world.
For this reason it says inscripture a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joinedto his wife, and the two shall
become one, so that they're nolonger two but one.
What, therefore?
God has joined together, let noman separate.
And they said to him.
Then this is the test right.
(19:15):
Well, why did Moses command oneto give a certificate of
divorce and put her away?
Why did Moses allow divorce inthe Old Testament?
And Jesus said to them listento this.
Because of the hardness of yourhearts, moses allowed you to
divorce your wives, but from thebeginning it was not so.
You know, moses just gave up.
They came into a sinful world.
(19:36):
And he just says okay, well forus.
Christ came back into the worldto restore this and give us the
grace to overcome this.
So here it is.
Over five days this is fromGenesis, chapter one.
Right From the very beginning,over five days, god's creative
work unfolded until the Gardenof Eden emerged.
Just go back and read that.
(19:57):
A breathtaking stage set fordivine drama.
So you picture this God'screating.
How?
Picture a lush forest teemingwith wildflowers, majestic
animals, the songs of vibrantbirds, a scene bursting with awe
, wonder and beauty, preparedfor a wedding feast.
He's got it all ready.
On the sixth day, it's as ifGod draws back into himself and
(20:20):
takes a selfie.
He's got everything ready for awedding feast.
Now he draws back into himself.
What is revealed is an eternalexchange of love.
That's what the selfie'srevealing.
The father pours himself outinto the son.
The son receives that love andreturns that love.
And from their mutualself-giving the Holy Spirit
(20:40):
proceeds.
The two, father and son, areone.
And from that mutualself-giving the Holy Spirit
proceeds.
The two, father and Son, areone and from that proceeds the
Holy Spirit In the divine act ofself-revelation.
God created humanity in thisimage.
So God is not a sexual being,he creates our sexuality.
What to express thatTrinitarian love in the world?
And he says this let us makeman in our image, after our
(21:04):
likeness.
Let him have dominion over thefish of the sea, the birds of
the air and the cattle, and overall the wild animals and all
the creatures that crawl on theground.
God created man in his image,in the divine image.
He created them, how Male andfemale.
He created them.
God blessed them, saying befertile, multiply, fill the
earth and subdue it.
The first commandment.
(21:26):
We think about the 10commandments.
Well, those came after sin.
The actual first commandmentbefore sin is what Be fertile,
multiply, fill the earth andsubdue it.
Go have, join in sexual unionwhere the two become one, open
to life, become three.
This is a tiny creativereflection of what Of
(21:46):
Trinitarian love in the world.
That's how love gets in theworld.
St John Paul II beautifullyarticulates this truth and he
says this the human body, ourbodies, with its sex,
masculinity, femininity, seeingthe very mystery of creation, is
not only the source offruitfulness, of procreation, as
(22:07):
in the whole natural order.
So an animal can reproducewhile we procreate.
And what's the difference?
Well, it contains, john Paulsaid, from the very beginning,
the spousal attribute that is,the power to express love,
precisely that love in which thehuman being becomes a gift and
(22:27):
through this gift, fulfills thevery meaning of his being and
existence.
Let me just think about thisfor a second.
God's got everything ready.
He's got the animals, he's gotthe plants, got everything.
But how is he going to get love?
That's the spousal attribute hegives us.
We bring love into the world.
And what is the sacramentalsign of that?
Each one of us becomes a personof love.
(22:49):
So I make God's visible in theworld.
People will say to me Jack, youknow where's God.
You know we are supposed to bemaking God visible in the
creative world.
That's why he created us tobring truth, goodness, beauty,
love into the world.
The fullest sign of that isTrinitarian love and that's what
happens with the family.
(23:09):
That's why the family is thatsocietal core and when that
breaks down, you break down thiswhole attribute of love.
That's why, when I said thatabout the kids in the inner city
, these young people, they'relacking love from their own
family, young people.
They're lacking love from theirown family, they're lacking the
source of love from God.
So they go out and they becomeviolent.
You become irrational.
You just beat people up, justto beat people up.
(23:31):
You see how this works, youknow, and then all of society
starts to come down.
This truth became vividly realfor me after I was married, when
my wife gave birth to our firstchild.
So, holding our daughter in myhand for the first time, gazing
at my wife who had just givenbirth, I was overwhelmed by the
(23:52):
mystery of this new life.
Think about this when the twoof us boom, the two became one.
A third came into being.
Reflecting on this moment.
Later, on the births of ourother children, I began to grasp
what it.
Reflecting on this moment,later, on the births of our
other children, I began to graspwhat it means to be the image
of God in the world.
In the sacrament of marriage,my wife and I gave ourselves
fully to one another, and fromthat mutual gift of love, god
(24:16):
brought forth a new life.
We became co-creators with him,co-creators of a new eternal
being.
But what was that?
The two, my wife and I, becameone, became three.
There was a time where, again,in the beginning, wonder and
that's what I meant by thecosmic explosion of love came
(24:37):
out in the form of a child thatreflected the love of my wife
and I and this Trinitarian lovein the world.
This is reflecting, again, theFather, the Son and the Holy
Spirit's love.
You know, as a boy, I rememberhearing about the Trinity and
struggled to understand that.
And God is a mystery, and loveis a mystery.
(24:57):
God is love.
God, though, is a communion oflove between the Father, son and
the Holy Spirit.
I start to understand that, butholding my newborn child, I saw
that her existence was thatfruit of love, again between my
wife and I, made possible byGod's gift of life.
So I start to understand.
Ooh, we are the expression ofTrinitarian love in the world.
(25:20):
Again, love does not get intothe world unless we bring it in.
This is why Satan attacks oursexuality, this is why
pornography, this is why we'reusing child sex, trafficking,
all of these things that we'redoing to one another, rape.
We're taking the sacrament andtwisting and distorting it and
(25:40):
everything starts to break down.
So John Paul II went on tostate his whole thesis about
this.
Like the whole summa of this,and if you allow it to sink in,
it not only revolutionizes theway we understand the human body
and our sexuality, it changesthe world.
And he says this the body, ourbody, my body, your body, the
(26:00):
body and it alone, john Paulsaid, is capable of making
visible what is invisible, thespiritual and the divine.
It was created to transfer intothe visible reality of this
world the invisible mysteryhidden in God from time
immemorial, and to be a sign ofit.
Well again, what does that mean?
Just to run through it?
Well again, what does that mean?
(26:22):
Just to run through it?
Though God is pure spirit,invisible to us, he stamped his
mystery into our very bodies bycreating us, male and female, in
his image.
This image reflects the Trinity, a divine communion of three
persons.
John Paul explains thathumanity images God not only
through our individual existence, but through the communion of
(26:44):
persons formed by man and womanfrom the beginning, this
communion of the two comingtogether, blessed with the gift
of fertility, open to life,reveals the spousal meaning of
the body, a call to become agift for one another in the one
flesh, sexual union.
This is right from Genesis 2,verse 24.
(27:06):
In this way, marriageconstitutes a primordial
sacrament, understood as a signthat truly communicates the
mystery of God's Trinitarianlove and love to husband and
wife and, through them, to theirchildren and to their children
and the family to the wholeworld.
That's salvation.
Living that out makes thisvisible, god visible in the
(27:31):
whole world.
When families understand thisand you have all these families,
these building cells allthrough history that understand
this you change the whole world.
It's amazing.
And when you get a twisting anddistortion of that, how awful
it is.
And again you see the breakdownof that.
I remember Bill Gates going toan African nation and he's
(27:53):
explaining to the tribes thereabout contraception, about not
having so many children andyou'll be able to be richer,
that way You'll have more moneybecause you won't have to spend
it on kids.
And they looked at him and theydidn't understand it.
And through an interpreter,bill Gates say what don't they
understand?
And what the tribal people said?
(28:13):
They said that our children areour treasure.
You know you can take the money, you know we can be a little
poorer because our children areour treasure.
They get that.
But we in the Western world wewant to undergird that, we want
to take that away from them.
We want to push contraceptionand abortion and these LBGTQ
(28:34):
things.
It's a sin, it's twisting anddistorting.
You can see what somebody likethe Governor Pritzker's here in
Illinois, the Bill Gates of theworld, even if they think
they're doing something good,right, we're going to reduce the
amount of people in the worldthey say we're going to give
people contraception so that youcan be free.
You know you don't have to havechildren and if you really
(28:54):
understood it, you go.
What are you talking about?
You're taking love out of mylife, out of the world's life,
etc.
And so, as I wind down here,this is really the mystery again
of truth and love, the mysteryof divine life in which man
really participates.
We get to participate in this.
This is why it's so importantfor your spiritual formation to
(29:16):
link yourself with God, becausewe have to be filled with God's
love in order to be persons oflove.
You cannot give what you don'thave.
So I have to go back to thesource.
Jesus would say the branch hasto come back onto the vine right
.
So again, through ourbodilyness, our masculinity and
femininity, we become a visiblesign of truth and love in the
(29:39):
world, which has its source inGod himself and was already
revealed in the mystery ofcreation.
Think about creation again, allof creation.
The sun coming up in themorning, the mountains, the
majestic mountains they're allsmall B beauty, reflecting
(30:01):
something of God himself, big Bbeauty in the world.
But the fullest sign of thatare the sacramentality of our
body.
Our bodies are those sacramentwe said.
The primordial sacrament ismarriage.
What does that mean?
That means that in thebeginning, before sin, we didn't
have the seven sacraments thatJesus instituted.
Now, because he came into afallen world and gave us those
sacraments again to come backinto this relationship with God.
(30:24):
In the beginning, before sin,the way God wanted that
sacrament, his love, to berevealed, was through, again,
marriage and the family.
So this is the primordial, thefirst sacrament.
It's the only sacrament that weneeded.
All of creation is a sacrament,again, reflecting something of
big beauty, god in the world.
But we are the primordialsacrament.
(30:46):
You know where the two becomeone, become three.
That tiny created reflection ofTrinitarian love in the world.
So, together with mankind,holiness has entered the visible
world.
That's why in the scriptures inGenesis, we talk about naked
without shame.
Well, there was no sin in theworld, you know.
(31:06):
Nakedness means we could exposeourselves to one another.
You know, adam and Eve cominginto this beautiful relationship
.
Right, the world was createdfor us.
The sacrament of the world andthe sacrament of man in the
world comes forth from thatdivine source of holiness, from
God himself, and that weinstitute this holiness in the
(31:28):
world.
We were made for holiness andwe were the sign of holiness.
If we take this out, you seethe breakdown that we have now.
Okay, that's enough for today.
So again, the discussionquestions with Scripture and
catechism references.
I'll put those in the shownotes.
I'll just touch on this firstquestion and, again, find
someone to discuss this with.
(31:49):
If you don't have anybody,contemplate it on your own, but
it's so important for us to letthis sink in, and we do this
through prayer.
So the first questiondiscussion questions with your
friend or whatever, over a beeror coffee or whatever.
How does the creation ofhumanity as male and female
reflect the Trinitarian love forGod, and what does this reveal
(32:09):
about the purposes of our bodies?
It's very important in today'stwisted culture to sit on that
question and I put somereferences in there from Genesis
you could read If you don'thave the catechism of the
Catholic Church, get thatcatechism.
It's so beautiful, it's amazing.
But I put the catechismreferences in there so you can
(32:30):
read this again God created manin his own image, in the image
of God.
He created them, male andfemale.
He created them being in theimage of God.
The human individual possessesthe dignity of a person who is
not just something but a someone.
In this crazy culture, we loveour things, our phones and all
(32:50):
our gadgets and all that whenwe're using people.
It should be the opposite.
God gave us all creation to usefor the good of ourselves and
we are to love people.
And then, in loving each other,we start to love creation and
take care of everything, andthen everything starts to fit
together, regardless of what yousee out in the world.
We have to capture thisourselves.
(33:12):
We have to become these personsof love.
That's the way I get to answerthose timeless questions.
Again, I start to answer thatquestion who am I?
What's the meaning and purposeof life?
Why were we created male andfemale?
How do I find happiness?
How do I find love thatsatisfies?
It's all in this little story.
Hey, god bless you.
If you have any questions, letus know.
(33:32):
My email will be in the shownotes info at JP, the number two
reneworg, send me an email whenyou start to put these little
cells together across the nationand other nations.
This podcast goes out to manyother countries.
When you do send us a littlenote there, I'll see that.
(33:55):
That goes right to me, thatemail, and we want to support
these little cells all over.
Sometimes we do Zoom calls withother men.
You might want to be invitedinto that and start to meet some
other guys around the world Ifwe're in your area or you can
invite us into your area andwe'll do a live event there as
you grow.
There's a group of guys about40 guys now Just start out with
(34:19):
a couple guys talking and thenit grows to another guy and
another guy, another guy, andthen they go out and reach it.
This is the discipleshipprogram that helps you help
other men too.
So if you meet somebody that'sstarting to ask questions, you
could say hey, do me a favor,download the Claymore Battle
Plan.
We'll review it.
We'll listen to this podcast onFriday, we'll discuss it
(34:41):
together and you start to leadthem into the story.
Plus, it gives them an actionplan, like I just said.
You know falling to your kneesand doing those three things in
the morning, and then readingscripture.
Hey, god bless you.
Great to be with you guys.
Let me know if you have anyquestions.
Talk to you again soon.
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