Our Bodies Tell the Story of God's Love | Christopher West on Theology of the Body

[00:00:00] Speaker A: We're gonna talk about the theology of the body today with Christopher west and how your body points to God. This is gonna help you make peace with your body. It's gonna help you deepen your marriage. It's really gonna blow your mind. It's gonna draw you closer to God. All that today and more on the Chris. Welcome to the Chris Stefanik Show. We're here for you every week to give you the tools and inspiration you need to live your everyday life with joy. If you're a missionary of joy, I want to thank you. If you're not, and we're inspiring you every week. What are you doing, man? Hop off the sidelines. Help us out. It's not just me, guys. I'm not getting rich from people giving. Every month. I have a staff of 11 people. We're reaching millions of people every month. We have different programs. We're pumping out to the world. Our core confirmation program. We're helping the poor in Haiti. We send a doctor to Haiti. I'm speaking somewhere different in the country every week. Our media is reaching a million people every week, guys. We need your help to make all this great stuff happen. Link below the video. To become a missionary of joy today, it's your monthly gift. And it's an army of people getting behind this with their monthly gift that keeps this ministry going. I also want to inspire you. Even if you're not a missionary of joy, I still love you. Click below this video. Sign up for the Daily Anchor. We put inspiration in your inbox every day to get you started in the right direction. And this episode is sponsored in part by ewtn. You can catch this and so much more on EWTN streaming. Let's dive in. Christopher West, I love having you back on, man. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Thank you, Chris. It's good to be with you. [00:01:44] Speaker A: It's amazing. You've been speaking for how many years publicly around the world, spreading the messages. [00:01:50] Speaker B: The first talk I ever gave was April on the theology of the Body where somebody said, hey, can you come give a talk on the theology of the body was April of 1994. And the woman who invited me, it was a Catholic university. She was leading up the campus ministry thing there, and she asked so many intelligent questions at the end of my talk, I married her. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Are you serious? Yeah. [00:02:14] Speaker B: No way. [00:02:15] Speaker A: That was from your first. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Very first. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Like, on Theology of the Body? [00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:02:20] Speaker A: That's epic. [00:02:21] Speaker B: I know, I know. She and I knew each other already. We were. We met in college at. She was going to Catholic University in D.C. i was going to University of Maryland and there was a joint, like, campus ministry group that we were both part of. We had been friends up to that point for, like, two years. And I was sharing all that I was learning in the theology of the body at this campus ministry thing. She said, could you come to Catholic U and give a talk on that? I said, sure. And she really was. She was asking really intelligent questions. I was like. It was the first time I. Yeah. So a year later, we started dating and then got married pretty quickly. [00:03:00] Speaker A: That's just too perfect. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:03:01] Speaker A: It's a perfect story. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Praise God. Most legendary talking moment. I'm asking this because you showed me a clip on your phone before this interview that I want to embarrass you in front of the world and show everyone. [00:03:15] Speaker B: Yes, feel free to embarrass me. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Christopher West's most legendary speaking moment. [00:03:19] Speaker B: I have a scar right above my right eye here, like an inch long, and it went pretty dang deep. I was supposed to get stitches, but I didn't want to go to a Mexican. Mexican hospital to get the stitches and deal with, you know. [00:03:32] Speaker A: You were in Mexico. [00:03:33] Speaker B: I was in Mexico. This was March of last year. So 2020. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Well, this is recent. This was this most legendary March of this year after all these years. Yeah, the most legendary moment just happened. [00:03:45] Speaker B: This was just like nine months ago. [00:03:47] Speaker A: All right. [00:03:50] Speaker B: So I'm. I'll describe it. Are you going to put this on the video? [00:03:54] Speaker A: Absolutely. We are 100% going to put this in front of everybody. [00:03:58] Speaker B: So I was so bad for. [00:04:00] Speaker A: For laughing. [00:04:00] Speaker B: I was at this big convention center. I did. I ate it really hard. That didn't work. I was. I came off just. [00:04:10] Speaker A: That was you? [00:04:10] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:11] Speaker A: So you're trying to save the moment, recover some dignity. [00:04:14] Speaker B: Yes, I am. [00:04:14] Speaker A: That didn't work. [00:04:15] Speaker B: That didn't work. So at this convention center. You know what I'm talking about? [00:04:22] Speaker A: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for laughing stuff off the ground. [00:04:25] Speaker B: And the audience is like 35ft away. And I always, as you do, too, you need to make a connection with the group. [00:04:31] Speaker A: I do it to an extreme, guy. I stand on the chairs. [00:04:34] Speaker B: I've been known to stand on strange things, too. And I jumped off onto this amplifier down to the floor, and then I had to leap over this metal rail to make a connection with the audience. Everything went fine on the way out. It's when I had to get back on stage. I leapt over the rail and the top rail caved. And when I hit the ground, the railing went And I didn't even know. I sprained my wrist. And when I got up on stage, I'm like, oh, gosh, I got an hour left in my talk. I'm gonna have to do it with the sprained wrist. And then drip, drip. I was like, oh, what's that? And Mike Mangione does music. At my opinion, he is phenomenal. And he had a song. I'm dabbing it with somebody. [00:05:19] Speaker A: So you're speaking with blood pouring down your face. [00:05:21] Speaker B: Speaking with blood pouring down my face. [00:05:22] Speaker A: That's legendary. That's, like, Roosevelt legendary. And he gets shot. And he kept talking. [00:05:27] Speaker B: I don't know that story. [00:05:28] Speaker A: Oh, he got shot. And he said, I will give this. I will finish this speech or I will die. [00:05:33] Speaker B: What? [00:05:33] Speaker A: He was shot by. Yeah, and it was. He had some, like, cigarette case, so he didn't fully penetrate him, but it did penetrate him. And he's bleeding everywhere. And he's like, I'm finishing this talk. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Good for him. I didn't get shot. [00:05:46] Speaker A: You're up there with Roosevelt. [00:05:47] Speaker B: I know. No, no, no, I didn't get shot. But Mike went off, or Mike came on to do a song, and I went off stage, and they had some paramedics who were part of the big convention center, and they said, you need stitches. We need to cancel the event. You need to go to the hospital. I said, no, the man. I'm not. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Did you tell them, Josoy el hombre. [00:06:07] Speaker B: If I knew some, I might have. No, I didn't. [00:06:10] Speaker A: I will speak. [00:06:11] Speaker B: I said, I am not going to a hospital. I'm not. Just put some butterfly stitches on it and let me go finish. So they typed it together, or taped it together with some butterflies. [00:06:21] Speaker A: Little chewing gum in there. [00:06:22] Speaker B: I don't. That does explain the lump I've had under there for the last. [00:06:26] Speaker A: That would do it. And the sweet smell. And when they get angry, a small bubble comes out. I'm amazed I haven't been seriously injured while speaking. So I do. I always. I ask them, put some chairs in the front, like, right in front of the first pew. Part of the reason is that people are always so afraid watching me. Like, it keeps their attention. And I know, like, if I'm losing them, I'm gonna go stand in the chairs. And I look a little wobbly, because I am. But I used to stand on those, like, metal folding chairs, which was super dumb. [00:06:58] Speaker B: Oh, that is dumb. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:00] Speaker B: Because if you go. [00:07:01] Speaker A: If you go that way and you. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Go down that way. Did you ever go down? [00:07:04] Speaker A: No, that wouldn't be a bad way to die, have you? I would like to die while preaching. [00:07:11] Speaker B: What's the most embarrassing thing you've had during a talk? Like some interruption or. Yeah, I'm not. [00:07:20] Speaker A: Embarrassing moments during talks. It's not coming to mind. I had some terrifying moments. I had some bad sushi once. [00:07:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:07:28] Speaker A: On the way to a talk. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:29] Speaker A: And I got so sick, I probably puked 10 times. Okay. I had this. And I had this friend from high school, Mike Gazdas. If you're watching, it was in Maine. And he was like, are you doing okay? Because he brought me in to speak. I'm like, I don't have. It's not just the physical strength. The emotional strength is gone. I'm still an hour from the parish and I'm on the side of the road and I just puked again on the side of the road, and it was really beautiful. He's like, I'm gonna drive down there and escort you. Okay. So I couldn't leave the rental car there, but just him driving and leading me. He's like, just follow my car. It gave me the strength I needed. But before I spoke, I'm emailing my Carmelite nun sisters, Carmelite sisters of the Sacred Heart of Los Angeles. I'd be dead without you. Like, please pray for me. [00:08:12] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:12] Speaker A: I'm laying down shaking on the ground. [00:08:15] Speaker B: Oh, oh. [00:08:15] Speaker A: As this auditorium is filling. [00:08:17] Speaker B: I'm shaking, brother. [00:08:19] Speaker A: The moment the event started, I felt completely fine. [00:08:22] Speaker B: Wow. I was like, yeah, I've had to leave the stage to go vomit. I've had to leave this stage. [00:08:27] Speaker A: Did you come back and finish your talk? [00:08:28] Speaker B: Yes, I did. And then I've had to leave the stage to get the other thing out too. One time. [00:08:32] Speaker A: Did you. [00:08:33] Speaker B: That's scary diarrhea. It was. It was terrible. It was. [00:08:36] Speaker A: You would have had your first purely truly viral video if you had not made it off the stage. [00:08:40] Speaker B: Another time, I thought I was going on at 9:15, but I was going on at 9:00 clock, and I was in the men's room and I hear they're reading my bio saying, welcome, Christopher West. And everybody's clapping, and I'm like, don't. [00:08:56] Speaker A: Read the bio, people. [00:08:57] Speaker B: And you don't see the guy can't get up there. I don't. I'm not able to move right now. I'm in the middle of something. [00:09:02] Speaker A: Von Trapp Family Singers. Ladies and gentlemen, the Family Von Trapp. He's gone. Most terrifying moment. Speaking. I guess it would have been when you had to leave the stage to go to the bathroom. That was rough National Eucharistic Congress for me. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Oh, you mean like nerves because of what's going on? Oh, I'll tell you, nerves because of what's going on. I'm speaking to the priests of the Archdiocese of New York. And I look out and Cardinal Dulles is there and he's like a legend, legendary, very, very well known theologian. And I was like, whoa. I didn't know I was going to have one of the foremost theologians in the world at my talk another time. And this ended up being a tremendous blessing and gift. And I don't know that I have ever told this story publicly. [00:09:55] Speaker A: This is the first time. [00:09:56] Speaker B: First time I was in Poland giving a parish mission at the Nova Huta parish that John Paul II established. Wow. And I had an audience. It was a three night parish mission. I had an audience that morning with Cardinal Jewish, who was John Paul's secretary for 40 years, and Mikael Waldstein and I. Michael Waldstein is a very well known theologian in the world of John Paul ii. He and I were meeting with Jevish to ask Jevish some questions about the theology of the body that only he would know the answer to. [00:10:33] Speaker A: Wow. [00:10:34] Speaker B: We had a marvelous discussion. We learned some gems from Jeevesh about the catechesis. Just, you know, nerdy stuff that he and I wanted to know. And at the end of our audience, I said, you, Eminence, I'm speaking tonight at Nova Huta, maybe you should come. And I saw this little twinkle in his eye and I thought, I mean, he's a cardinal. He's not gonna. Schedule's not gonna be available that night. I go into the sacristy before the talk, and there he is. [00:11:03] Speaker A: I'm like, that's beyond legendary, Eminence. [00:11:06] Speaker B: You came. [00:11:07] Speaker A: That's legendary. [00:11:08] Speaker B: And he says to me, of course I came. Oh, my gosh, you're teaching on John Paul ii. And then I got a little nervous. I was like. [00:11:17] Speaker A: Because you might know if I do it wrong. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And this again, I've never shared this publicly because it's so tender to myself. I'm a little nervous sharing it. But at the end of the night, he came up to me, embraced me so warmly, and he said, excellente praise excelente. [00:11:35] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:37] Speaker B: I was just like. From JP to himself, you know, like through his. It was, it was, it really. [00:11:43] Speaker A: What a great confirmation from the Lord. [00:11:45] Speaker B: It really was. It was a gift to my heart. It was a gift to my heart. [00:11:48] Speaker A: Oh, man. Praise God. [00:11:50] Speaker B: We need those gifts to Our heart. [00:11:52] Speaker A: We do. Praise God. Theology of the body. Okay, since you know one or two things about that, what was it like as a 26 year old? I mean, you were bringing this message fresh, like you. You were developing what became your ministry. [00:12:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:06] Speaker A: At that time. [00:12:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:08] Speaker A: And saying things that were. That are still radical. You were probably saying them in your most radical way. [00:12:14] Speaker B: I was saying them in the most green way. I was, I was. My analogy. You know, it's like anything in life when you start out doing something, you don't know what you're doing and you're learning. It's like a child learning to walk. You don't know what you're doing and you're gonna stumble. I stumbled quite a bit. [00:12:31] Speaker A: And how's it received by people back then? [00:12:35] Speaker B: I tell you the number one response which I continue to get. In all my travels, I went to Catholic schools my whole life and never heard this. [00:12:43] Speaker A: Huh. [00:12:45] Speaker B: I've been a Catholic my whole life, never heard this. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. [00:12:50] Speaker B: And if I were out there teaching my own thing, something I had come up with, well, no wonder you hadn't heard it. But this is the teaching of John Paul ii. And what he has given us in his Theology of the Body is not something that fell out of the sky in the 20th century. It's the organic development of 2,000 years of the saints reflecting on the Scriptures, reflecting on the experience of the interior life, reflecting on the experience of following Jesus. And what we do have that I would say is something new, is an articulation of ancient truths in a new way that resonates with the way modern men and women think. And so it enables a preaching of the gospel. And this is what I always emphasize. And this has been one of the hardest obstacles to overcome. And I'm always trying to break out of this box. When people hear Theology of the Body, they put it in a box and they think, oh, that's for engaged couples, that's for married couples, that's for the chastity talk for the teenagers. It works great for chastity talks for teenagers and engaged and married couples. Absolutely, it does. But to put it in that box is to fail to see the scope of what John Paul II gave us. And I've never heard it said better than Michael Waldstein. I'll quote him again. He says, this is in the introduction to the English translation that Waldstein and I worked on together. He did all the heavy lifting. I was kind of like, at the end, I helped him fashion it. But he says in his introduction the theology of the body is the John Pauline lens for reading the catechism. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Wow. [00:14:48] Speaker B: That's what it is. [00:14:48] Speaker A: Break that open for us. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So what is the catechism? The catechism is the presentation in a systematic form of the whole of our faith. One of my favorite lines from the Catechism, it's Catechism 16:17, where it says, the entire Christian life. How much of it? [00:15:08] Speaker A: The entire life. [00:15:09] Speaker B: The entire Christian life, bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ for the Church already. The catechism says baptism, the entry into the people of God, is a nuptial mystery. The catechism says. And the Eucharist is the wedding feast. Right. So there you have it. It's like a watermark. The spousal mystery is the watermark, is the watermark behind everything, for everything, for everything. So I consider myself. [00:15:44] Speaker A: I just love that. [00:15:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:45] Speaker A: So thinking of, literally, we could take every single thing. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Everything. My favorite course. [00:15:50] Speaker A: And that's not a disembodied thing. That's not just like this, ideally. No. This is two flesh becoming one. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Exactly. My favorite course to teach. Well, my second favorite course to teach. My favorite course to teach is called Theology of the Body and the Marian mystery. We spend 30 hours over five and a half days just diving into the mystery of what happened in Mary's womb. And the whole faith illuminates. But my second favorite course, we call Theology of the Body and the New Evangelization. And it's just a tour through the catechism with our TOB glasses on. And the pillar on the creed. Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. The pillar on the sacraments. Pa, pa. The pillar on the moral life. And my favorite pillar of the category. [00:16:39] Speaker A: Is that that's how you're delivering the clash the whole time. Yeah. [00:16:41] Speaker B: That's all I say. [00:16:42] Speaker A: Pa, pa, pa. And it's like, shoom. The wave was like. [00:16:46] Speaker B: The surfer dude. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah. You're quoting the surfer dude. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. [00:16:51] Speaker B: But my. My favorite part of the catechism is a section on prayer and. [00:16:55] Speaker A: Wow. [00:16:56] Speaker B: Pope Benedict XVI says when the Christian prays, he's seeking, whether he knows it or not, he's seeking nuptial union with the Lord, The source and summit of everything we believe. The Eucharist. What is it? It's the consummation of a marriage. [00:17:20] Speaker A: Pretend I know nothing about Theology of the Body. [00:17:22] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:23] Speaker A: Where did it come from? Like, where did the phrase come from? It's all, like, seeing the faith through the lens of the nuptial. [00:17:32] Speaker B: It's seeing. [00:17:33] Speaker A: Break it down a little more Barney style for me. [00:17:35] Speaker B: Let's just start with the phrase, as you said, the phrase theology of the body. I remember the first time I heard the phrase and I was fascinated just by the phrase. And I told you a story on our other episode that we did about this young theologian who introduced me said, you need to read this. And theology of the body to me was just music because I had been trying to bring together. We live in such a ruptured world. We have spiritual things over here. We have physical things over here. Well, Christianity is the religion that brings together. It's called the Incarnation, it's called Christmas, right? But in my travels around the world, I'm facing over and over again the idea, the false idea that theology belongs here and the human body belongs here. Theology is talking about God. The body's talking about earthly things. God's in heaven, the earth is here. Again, this is so not only unchristian, it is anti Christian. If we are trying to divorce ourselves from this physical world to reach God, we can make no sense out of a God who has wed himself to this world to reach us. Our God has literally wed himself to the human body. This is what makes our bodies not just biological, they are theological. [00:19:03] Speaker A: Our bodies are not just biological, they're theological. [00:19:06] Speaker B: And here's where the lights come on for my audience when I'm. When I'm giving an introductory talk and I know people don't know anything, I'll use that line. [00:19:13] Speaker A: I'll say, pretend I know nothing. Yeah. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Our bodies are not only biological. I mean, that's the frame. We put our bodies in biology. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Why? [00:19:20] Speaker B: Because that's the way we're raised in school. Right? You study the body in biology class or anatomy class. And I'll say, thank God for everything biology tells us about our bodies, but our bodies are also theological. They tell a divine story. And I give this as an example. I say, forgive me. I draw my music from my 80s catalog when I was a teenager. But most people remember this song or know it. Peter Gabriel. In your eyes the core. Excuse me. They light the heat in your eyes they light the heat in your eyes I am complete in your eyes I see the doorway. Do you know the next level to a thousand churches? [00:20:04] Speaker A: Really Beautiful eye. [00:20:05] Speaker B: This is a guy who sees this woman's body theologically, something sacred. Something sacred. He sees it tells a divine, sacred story. And then I say to my audience, what if we were to reduce that song to something merely biological? It would go like this. In your eyes the Cornea in your eyes, the retina in your eyes. [00:20:34] Speaker A: So romantic. [00:20:34] Speaker B: You see the lines of a thousand bloodshot blood vessels. Right. Everybody laughs. And then I'm making the exact point. I say. Somebody once said to me, christopher, stop it, you're ruining the song. And I said, exactly. If we reduce the human body to. To something merely biological, it ruins the song. And I say, ladies, what's the difference between the way your optometrist looks in your eyes and the way your. Your lover looks in your eyes? [00:21:04] Speaker A: Hopefully there's a difference. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Hopefully. Unless you're married to your optometrist. [00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:08] Speaker B: And then there's a little bit of both. But you. When you're making love to your husband, ladies, you. You don't want him looking at your cornea and your retina and your blood vessels. You want them to see your eyes as the doorway to a thousand churches. Am I right or am I right or am I right? Every woman says, absolutely, that's what I want. So this is. We have this intuition. We have it. It's there. It's not dormant in us. It's not entirely snuffed out. It might be dormant, but it's not entirely snuffed out. And it can be fanned into flame. Where we recognize not just our eyes are a doorway to a spiritual mystery. They are a particular doorway, but the whole body. [00:21:49] Speaker A: The entire body. [00:21:50] Speaker B: What does Jesus say? He says, bring your whole body into the light and make sure no part of it remains in darkness. For if your whole body says Jesus is in the light, then your whole body says Jesus will illuminate you like a burning lamp. That's theology of the body. [00:22:15] Speaker A: And some people listening are thinking, wait, I guess he means even your reproductive parts. And you would say especially. I would say especially because this is the. These are the parts that reveal the mystery that say, you're half, you're half. You're made for an other. Or. That makes no sense. [00:22:35] Speaker B: Yes. [00:22:36] Speaker A: You're made for another, and it makes no sense. And life comes when you find the other. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Yes. [00:22:40] Speaker A: And whether you're married or not, that's the inbuilt vocation. [00:22:44] Speaker B: Exactly, Brother. [00:22:45] Speaker A: Of humanity. [00:22:46] Speaker B: And John Paul II describes that mystery that a man's body doesn't make sense by itself. [00:22:51] Speaker A: I love that. Yes. [00:22:52] Speaker B: And a woman's body doesn't make sense by itself. He describes this mystery as the spousal meaning of the body. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Hey, friend, I want to invite you into something that's changing lives. Every day, single day, people all over the world are rediscovering their faith, finding real joy, and learning how to share the gospel with confidence. And guess what? These lives are forever being transformed because of our Missionaries of Joy, our incredible monthly supporters, Everything we do, the Chris Stefanik show, life changing video series like Living Joy, Rise, Fearless and Renewed, our live events, it all exists because of them. And I want to invite you to become part of this movement. When you become a Missionary of Joy, you're not just donating. You're stepping into a mission that equips, inspires and empowers you to live the gospel in your everyday life and to help others do the same. And that's not all. As a missionary of Joy, you get exclusive access to all our video series and empowerment to share them in small groups with friends. You get exclusive early access to new releases. You get Monday motivation texts direct from me. And you get access to our daily anchor, daily inspiration to fuel your faith. Here's the truth. The world is desperate for joy. People are dying for meaning. And together we could bring them the hope of Jesus. The question isn't if you can make a difference, it's will you Click the link below. Join the mission today. [00:24:24] Speaker B: That our bodies are designed by God for spousal love, for the gift of self. This is my body given for you. [00:24:35] Speaker A: You know, I've heard this a million times. This stuff I've soaked on this thanks to you. If it weren't for you, no one would be talking about theology of the body right now. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Well, there'd be some academics talking about it and it would trickle down here and there. And there have been others, but you've popularized it. I've done a lot of work to help get it out. That's tr. [00:24:53] Speaker A: Grace. There's a grace moment for me as I'm hearing this right now. I'm almost moved to tears and choked up. It's like this. I feel ennobled my whole self. There's something healing about it because all of us are uncomfortable with ourselves in some insecure ways. It's like, no, no. Every part of you, the Lord just wraps it up and it's a temple. Everything, everything is all a temple of the Holy Spirit. [00:25:17] Speaker B: St. Paul, this is so important. John Paul quotes St. Paul here because he knows the obstacles we're facing, right? Ever since the beginning. I'll come back to St. Paul in a minute. Ever since the beginning, when God said, who told you you were naked? Who told you you were naked? Right? We've been listening to the enemy's voice. He's been feeding lies, lies to us about the meaning of our bodies. Why? Precisely because the body. This is JP2's thesis statement. The body and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine. That's why the enemy is after our bodies. Because if we see our bodies rightly. It's a big if. [00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:12] Speaker B: If we see our bodies rightly, what we discover is what St. Paul calls the great mystery of Christ's love for the church. And Paul as a pastor, as one who's trying to reach broken humanity with this good news. He says, it is my mission in life to make plain to everyone the mystery hidden from eternity in God. That's Ephesians chapter three. [00:26:44] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:26:45] Speaker B: It's his mission to make plain to everyone the mystery hidden from eternity in God. How did he make it plain? Two chapters later in his letter, he says, the union of man and woman in one flesh is a great mystery. And what does it do? It makes plain the mystery hidden in God for eternity. What's the mystery hidden in God for eternity? God is an eternal exchange of life, giving love from all eternity. The Father. We have to be very careful here. God is not sexual. God is pure spirit, but from all eternity. [00:27:23] Speaker A: But he is. He has arrows. God. Yes. [00:27:26] Speaker B: We'll get to that. [00:27:27] Speaker A: And you say he's erotic. I mean, what is it? Because we think, Slow down, slow down, Chris. [00:27:35] Speaker B: We're getting there. But if we go there too quickly, and this is. These were the mistakes I made early on. I would go to these places too quickly, and I'd be in the dance. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Probably with your kids, too. Yes, yes, kids, Time for an awkward dinner conversation. [00:27:49] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [00:27:50] Speaker A: When your dad is Christopher west, my. [00:27:52] Speaker B: Kids could give you an earful about how I scarred them in my sincere attempts to reveal the mystery. But, you know, in the dance. In a dance, if you're gonna take your dance partner for a dip, our. [00:28:07] Speaker A: Insurance covers counseling for my kids. I tell my kids, look, I scarred you in many ways. You got to exist. You're welcome. Okay. But, you know. [00:28:14] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:28:15] Speaker A: And we cover the counseling anyway. Sorry, sorry. Go ahead. [00:28:18] Speaker B: If you're taking your dance partner for a dip and you don't look in her eyes to see if she's ready, and you're just like. [00:28:24] Speaker A: She's gonna be like, yeah. [00:28:27] Speaker B: And I was just swimming in this stuff, and I would go for the dip without looking my dance partner in the eyes and saying, are we ready? Is it okay if I take you for a dip? So throwing in the whole, is God erotic. That's a Major dip. And it's a little premature, but this is what I'm unfolding this in a more systematic, gentle dance. Yes, let's dance. So God in himself is not sexual. He's pure spirit, but from all eternity, the Father is generating the Son. He's generating the son right now. 12 billion years ago, he was generating the Son. However many thousands of years we go for it, he will be generating the Son. God is Father, eternally, infinitely Father. He always is generating the Son. And the Son is always being generated by the Father to share in the love of the holy spirit. And JP2 says it's as if the Trinity were having a conversation amongst themselves. When they said, let us make man in our image, male and female, he created them with the power to generate. He blessed them and said, be fruitful. Generate. Our human ability to generate sons and daughters is a reflection, an echo in the created order of the eternal generation of the Son by the Father and in the fullness of time. In the fullness of time, it was no longer just an echo. [00:30:15] Speaker A: But a. [00:30:15] Speaker B: Woman opened her ability to generate, not to an earthly husband and an earthly husband's seed, a woman. A woman, flesh and blood like us, opened her ability to generate new life to the eternal, immortal, invisible seed of God the Father. [00:30:38] Speaker A: That's crazy. [00:30:39] Speaker B: And she generated in her body. [00:30:43] Speaker A: It's amazing. [00:30:44] Speaker B: The eternal Son of the Father in the Incarnation. What happens is divine generation is wed to human generation. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Boy, that's awesome, huh? [00:30:57] Speaker B: And God and man generate a God, man. You know what this is called? Christianity. St. Augustine says the ultimate marriage is the marriage between the divine and human natures in Jesus Christ. And the nuptial union, the nuptial union of those natures is consummated in the bridal chamber of Mary's womb. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. That's incredible, man. Seriously, this is why I get so. [00:31:38] Speaker B: Jazzed about teaching this stuff. Because people, yeah, they say they believe in Christmas, but they don't know really what they believe in. The marriage of heaven and earth was consummated in the bridal chamber of Mary's womb. Christianity begins when a woman opens her womanhood, her femininity, her womb, her ability to generate new life, her desire to be a wife and a mother. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Her eros, properly understood, a non sexual. [00:32:18] Speaker B: Hang on, it's not non sexual, it's non pornographic. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Ah, there you go. [00:32:24] Speaker B: Do not throw that word to the enemy. Sexual is a good word. God made us sexual beings. Mary, when we understand sexuality as the church uses that language means our creation is Male and female. [00:32:39] Speaker A: I think we too quickly link it to the pleasure aspect, which isn't even necessarily pornographic. [00:32:43] Speaker B: We too quickly link it to a twisted, perverse story of what sexuality is. Right. The 20th century didn't have a sexual revolution. It had a contraceptive abortifacient pornographic revolution. Right. And a contraceptive abortifacient pornographic revolution is an all out war against sexuality as God created it to be. [00:33:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:12] Speaker B: Mary opened, when we understand that word, integrally sexuality. Christianity begins when Mary opened her sexuality. And by that I mean her good, beautiful, awesome, glorious creation as a woman, her desire to be a wife and a mother. She opened it directly to God. This is where Christianity begins. And JP2 says, what happened at the Annunciation, which is itself the consummation of the marriage of heaven and earth. Mary's relationship with God revealed at the Annunciation, he says is the model par excellence of the God man relationship. We're all, whether we know it or not or use this language or not, by virtue of our baptism, we are in a spousal relationship with God. [00:34:08] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:34:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:09] Speaker A: It brings the intimacy, drives it home so much. [00:34:11] Speaker B: And yeah, it's the main image. The Bible uses lots of images to help us understand God's love. This is not the only one, but by far it's the main one and it's the favorite one of the saints. And JP2 says it's the favorite image of the saints because it gives us a window into the God man relationship that no other analogy gives us. And it's precisely that insight of intimacy, of union, of total self giving. [00:34:48] Speaker A: The evil one hates this. [00:34:49] Speaker B: He hates it with all his diabolic fury. [00:34:52] Speaker A: It's Catholic tradition that the devil's fall from grace, Lucifer, the light bearer, whatever it is, right, fell from heaven because he saw the plan of God to become flesh and it was beneath him. Known service. [00:35:05] Speaker B: That's right. [00:35:06] Speaker A: And there's people hearing this right now who are even holy, who find this distasteful. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:12] Speaker A: And there's a little bit of Satan's. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Motto repeated in that, and I'm glad you bring that up because it allows me to go back to what I was going to say earlier about St. Paul. He knows he's reaching people who have been listening to the voice of the enemy about the body. Who told you you were naked? Who told you your body's disgusting? Who told you your body is evil or perverse in itself? Who told you that? That's the voice of the enemy. Satan fell out of envy. Scripture says. Well, what does he envy? Well, what do we have that the angels don't have? [00:35:50] Speaker A: Body. [00:35:50] Speaker B: Bodies. Yeah. And guess what happens to the body? It gets divinized. God wed himself to the human body to raise the human body higher than the angels. Guess who didn't like that? Lucifer. He fell out of envy. And all the angels that fell with him. You have the holy angels, you have the unholy angels. The holy angels are in absolute awe of our bodies. The fallen angels are in absolute envy of our bodies. And envy is not just jealousy. Jealousy says, I wish I had what you have. [00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:34] Speaker B: Envy says, and I hate that you have it. And I want you to hate that you have it too. How many of us hate our bodies? [00:36:43] Speaker A: Dang. I hate the devil. What a jerk. Sorry. I just got to say that. [00:36:49] Speaker B: He goes for the jugular. [00:36:50] Speaker A: He does. [00:36:51] Speaker B: And St. Paul is preaching to this world, right? And he says, listen to this. It's so important. JP2 draws this out in his theology of the body. St. Paul says, those parts of the body that you think are less honorable, these parts of the body deserve all the greater honor. [00:37:14] Speaker A: Wow. [00:37:14] Speaker B: Because God has bestowed on these parts of the body the greater glory. [00:37:21] Speaker A: Wow. [00:37:21] Speaker B: That's right out of scripture. So what is Paul saying? He's saying we think these parts of the body are less honorable. [00:37:28] Speaker A: Why? [00:37:29] Speaker B: Because we've been listening to an enemy who does not want us to know who we are. [00:37:35] Speaker A: He attacks that which is most sacred to the heart. Exactly. [00:37:38] Speaker B: Exactly. And why is he particularly after. Just to say it plainly, he's after our ability to generate. Why again, what do the angels, what do they not have that we do have? [00:37:52] Speaker A: The ability to image the Trinity by two, becoming one and becoming three and becoming one. Boom. [00:37:58] Speaker B: Boom. Imagine, Chris, that I don't know. You're looking at the Himalayas. And God gave you the ability to co create the Himalayas with him. And you did. You co created the Himalayas with God. Wouldn't you think that was awesome? Imagine God gave me the ability to co create with him the Milky Way. I would look up having co created that with God, I'd be like, I can't believe God shared that power with me. He's given us something far greater than co creating the Himalayas or the Milky Way. He's given us the ability in our bodies, in our sexuality, in our generative powers. He has given us the ability to co create with him the pinnacle of all of creation, which is another human person. The holy angels are in absolute awe of that. The unholy angels are in absolute envy. They are after our ability to generate that's what the unholy angels are after. And look at the world. Look what's going on. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Hello. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Contraceptive abortifacient pornographic revolution. What are they after? They're after our ability to generate. They're after the image of God in us. They want to render our genitals unable to generate. Do you know what? Forgive me. I keep going on and on. [00:39:28] Speaker A: No, man. One of my most intimate, sacred moments is coming to mind as you talk right now. And I've never shared this before, but one of my children. There was only one. Where at the moment of conception, I knew. Sorry, it chokes me. I'm thinking of it. [00:39:48] Speaker B: Oh, bless you, brother. Sacred stuff. Holy stuff. [00:39:53] Speaker A: The Lord just gave me this, like, instant almost vision where I just saw. I just saw the wheels of the universe turning. And I thought, it will never be the same. [00:40:05] Speaker B: Oh, you're exactly right. [00:40:06] Speaker A: The entire universe will never be the same. [00:40:08] Speaker B: The entire universe was just altered by your ability to generate, by your sincere gift of yourself to your bride. [00:40:17] Speaker A: I think theology of the Body raises up awe in that which has become plain to us, that the world tries to over sexualize because it's almost boring. [00:40:24] Speaker B: It's not only become plain, it's become perverse. Yeah, it's become perverse. We. We think it unholy. That which you think is less honorable deserves all the greater honor. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah. At best it's become boring. Right. But like, you look at your phone, it's like it takes the same world, but makes it brighter. So this looks a little dull next to that. It's like Avatar. It's a little like. [00:40:49] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. [00:40:52] Speaker A: I was just at Our Lady Guadalupe shrine last week. A big pilgrimage. I want to be in pilgrimage someday. But it struck me like it took discipline in my spirit to conceptualize what I was looking at. Because I've seen it a million times. It's like all the beauty of incarnation is the miracle of God becoming plain. And yet it's a miracle to get the right eyes to see. And I think even Jesus miracles. He restored sight to a blind man. He could have given him a third eye. [00:41:19] Speaker B: That's right. [00:41:20] Speaker A: Because no Pharisee would. Would. Would withhold belief if you saw the third eye. Like, dude, it's the third eye. He just restored the ordinary. Because that's awesome enough. [00:41:30] Speaker B: Yes. [00:41:30] Speaker A: And what you're doing in Theology of the Body, what John Paul II did, what you're popularizing, making accessible, is restoring the glory of that which is under our nose. Yeah. And saying this is better than the sexual revolution. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. [00:41:44] Speaker A: Infinitely better than. This is the real revolution, man. [00:41:46] Speaker B: This is. This is. All the devil can do is mock. That's all he can do. All he can do is plagiarize. So he takes the greatest things that God has created that are meant to illuminate or to use Paul's language, to make plain to everyone the mystery hidden for all eternity in God. That's why God made us male and female. To make plain. It's as plain as your body standing there in the shower. To make plain as plain can be the mystery. But the problem is Jesus. Diagnosis of the problem is we look, but we don't see. We look, but we don't see. So what's the invitation right at the start of the Gospel of John? Come and become one who sees. [00:42:32] Speaker A: Hallelujah. [00:42:34] Speaker B: And what will we see? We will see the glory of God revealed through the human body. This is how John Paul II defines purity of heart. Purity of heart, he says, is the glory of God revealed through the human body. [00:42:52] Speaker A: They will see God. [00:42:53] Speaker B: They will see God. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Where. Where he revealed himself. Where did he reveal himself? In the body. [00:43:05] Speaker A: I just. Who needs drugs? [00:43:07] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:43:08] Speaker A: I feel like my soul is about to leap out of my body. I'm like, no, you start levitating is about elevate. That's right. I totally went the opposite direction. [00:43:17] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. See, it's not about escaping the body. [00:43:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:21] Speaker B: See, a lot of people think to reach God, I have to escape my body. Or we. We envision living the spiritual life as. As the body's a prison. And at death, my soul escapes from the prison. Right. To reach the infinite, to reach the spiritual. But yet again, this is the exact opposite of Christianity. The body is not a prison to escape, to reach God. The body is a temple to open for God to enter. And so pregnant Mary. Mary pregnant with God is the icon of the Christian life. To open my empty humanity to be, as St. Paul says, filled with all the fullness of God. Pregnant Mary, pregnant with God is the icon of what it means to be human. Praise God. [00:44:24] Speaker A: I want to ask you how. I hate using political terms, but I don't know how to say this. The right and the left, the conservative and the liberal, whatever, within the church. The attacks come from both sides of you. [00:44:33] Speaker B: Yeah, they sure do. [00:44:34] Speaker A: Some of them have, I'm sure, purified your message. Sure, they pointed out things that were wrong and how you said It. But what do the attacks look like from each side before we go there? What does the glorified body look like? Because I want to put a bow on the beauty before diving into the battle. [00:44:53] Speaker B: I've never seen one. [00:44:54] Speaker A: What's it going to be like? What's your best guess? Because in heaven, you get your body and heaven becomes more complete. I've read Aquinas said that until you get your body back, at the resurrection of the body, he holds you in an unnatural state. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Yes. You're in an inhuman state until the resurrection of the body. Right. [00:45:09] Speaker A: It's not. He unnaturally keeps you there. [00:45:11] Speaker B: Yes. [00:45:12] Speaker A: So then you get it back. It's your first day in heaven. What's going on? If I'm 50 pounds overweight when I died, am I still dragging that around? Like, what's going on? [00:45:23] Speaker B: I'll start with this and then build a little bit. First of all, we have to say, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, what God is ready for those who love. Teresa of Avila, in her prayer, caught a glimpse of Jesus's hands and she couldn't take anymore. She couldn't take anymore. And she said, if all I had for all eternity was to glimpse his glorified hands, it would be enough. [00:45:54] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:45:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's beyond the beyond. We don't know. We know a few things from scripture in regard to Jesus glorified body. Because when he came out of the tomb, he had a glorified body. Yeah, right. It was the same body that was put on the cross. But it's glorified. It's been transformed. He could walk through walls, but he wasn't a ghost. They thought he was a ghost because he walked through. He walked through a flipping wall. If I saw somebody walking through, I'd think he was a ghost too. But he says to assure them I'm not a ghost. You don't believe me? Give me some food and I'll eat it. Look, a ghost does not have flesh and blood and bones like I do. Right. He would always eat to demonstrate he was truly incarnate. He was truly a body. Right. So it's going to be a real body. Real body. We'll be able to eat. It's still. Everything's still functioning. Right. But we're taken to another state. We're taken to another dimension where the limitations of time and space and sickness and suffering are no more. But whatever ails us in this life will not be erased. It will be glorified. Because what does Jesus still have in his glorified? Body. He still has his wounds. [00:47:25] Speaker A: Only their sources of glory. [00:47:26] Speaker B: Now they're sources of glory. So where are our particular sources of shame? Where are they lodged in our bodies? Where are our wounds particularly lodged in our bodies? [00:47:41] Speaker A: It's gonna shine. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Gonna shine. Jesus isn't gonna erase it like it was never there. He's gonna glorify it. [00:47:49] Speaker A: That's awesome. I can only imagine, man. [00:47:51] Speaker B: Oh, it's beyond. It's beyond what we can imagine. But it's fun to imagine. [00:47:56] Speaker A: It is. Yeah. I also think about, like, what is the joy of heaven gonna feel like throughout your body? [00:48:05] Speaker B: Ecstasy. Beyond our wildest imaginings. And we get in God's design, we get a little, little, little, little glimmer when the two become one flesh. The Lord designed the joy of marital love, and I mean marital love. Right. To be a participation in his joy. Jesus himself says, love one another as I have loved you. I tell you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. [00:48:47] Speaker A: That line is like, the centerpiece of our ministry, man. [00:48:50] Speaker B: Mine too. Mine too. [00:48:53] Speaker A: I'm sorry I trademarked it, though. Tm Real Life Catholic. No one else can use that verse. The USCCP has to lift it out of their version of the Word. [00:48:59] Speaker B: It's Jesus words, dang it. I know. But link that. Love one another as I have loved you. I tell you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. Link that with St. Paul saying, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. [00:49:14] Speaker A: Praise God. [00:49:15] Speaker B: Guess what happens? We are meant to participate in the very joy of the Trinity when the two become one flesh and when we just zoom in on the pleasure. So I can. Let me have that pleasure without the commitment or the sacrifice or the suffering that comes with real marital love. I just want the joy. I just want the pleasure. I heard a very wise priest say years ago. It always stayed with me. Sexual sin is always an attempt to rupture love, the joy of love, from the suffering of love. [00:49:57] Speaker A: Just. [00:49:58] Speaker B: Just give me the pleasure. Just give me the pleasure side. [00:50:00] Speaker A: And no self sacrifice. [00:50:01] Speaker B: No self sacrifice, no commitment. No commitment. [00:50:04] Speaker A: The commitment that's implied by the bodily gift. [00:50:06] Speaker B: I'm in the pleasure. I'm in it for the pleasure. I'm trying to separate the agony and the ecstasy to put it in terms that the saints use. Right. I want the ecstasy. I don't want any of that agony. I just want the ecstasy. [00:50:18] Speaker A: Kind of sums up the entire sexual revolution. [00:50:19] Speaker B: It's the entire sexual revolution, and everyone's miserable, which is not a sexual revolution. It's a contraceptive, abortifacient, pornographic revolution. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Amen. Hmm. Okay, so let's take all these beautiful things, rip them down the left, the right. What are they? What comes at you from each side? [00:50:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So what comes at me from the left? [00:50:40] Speaker A: And frankly, how has each made your message better? [00:50:43] Speaker B: How has it made my message better? Yeah, The Lord gets it. Is I say to all kind of up and coming teachers and speakers, listen to your critics. They will sharpen you. And sometimes they're just spouting nonsense. But oftentimes there's some truth in there that you should pay attention to. Maybe don't pay attention to the way they're saying it to you if they're just coming at you like that. But open it up to the father and say, father, is there something this critic is saying of me that I need to listen to? You can say it to me in a way that I can hear it because I know it's coming from love. It's not typically coming from love over here, but I can receive it in love from you. That has helped me tremendously. And the kind of tension of. I agree with you. These are political terms, but we use them because we can't come up with anything better. [00:51:37] Speaker A: The left and the right, the rigid and the lawless. [00:51:40] Speaker B: I don't know how what I get from the left, the lax in their morals, let's put it that way. Well, they don't like that. I'm upholding 100% what the Catholic Church teaches about sexual morality and morality in general. [00:51:58] Speaker A: But they cloak that in more theological terms or demeaning terms. [00:52:03] Speaker B: They will say you. Well, of course we hear this. You're a rigorist, you're a legalist, you're a. Well, Christ is the one who holds freedom and law together. Right? We are called. St. Paul says to be free from the law. But that does not mean free to break the law. It means free to fulfill the law because we no longer desire to break it. And here JP2's language is very helpful. He talks about the relationship between ethic and ethos. These are two very important words to JP2. And ethic refers to the law, the objective law. Ethos refers to the inner desires of our hearts. And he draws this out through his reflection on the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, you've heard the ethic not to commit adultery. [00:53:04] Speaker A: Here's the rule. [00:53:05] Speaker B: Here's the law. Here's the rule. You've heard the ethic not to commit adultery. But the problem is your ethos is off. You desire to commit adultery because your heart is full of lust. Right? So in the beginning, they did not need a law not to commit adultery. Not only because there was no one with whom to commit adultery. [00:53:30] Speaker A: Good luck, Adam. [00:53:31] Speaker B: Not only because there was no one with whom to commit adultery, but because here was the ethic, don't commit adultery. And here was their hearts perfectly united. The law was written on the heart. This is not a trick question. You just answer it at surface value. Do you have any desire to murder Natalie? Do you need the commandment, thou shalt not murder me? Why would you need such a commandment? Here's the commandment and here's your heart united. Now, there are days you're angry at her, and Jesus says, we have to address that, too. But we can safely say most of the time, your heart is really intimately united with that law. Would Natalie ever catch you pounding your fists, saying, why do those old celibate men in Rome tell me I can't murder my wife? What do they know about marriage anyway? Never. We're only bitter towards the law. This is the point. We're only bitter towards the law when we desire to break it. Yeah. Yeah, right. So I say to those on the left, if the law is here and your heart is here, maybe the problem is not with the law. Maybe the problem is just what Jesus said. It was our own hardness of heart. And maybe the solution is not to water down the law so that I can do whatever I want to do with my fallen, twisted up, perverse desires. Maybe the solution instead is to fall on my knees and say, lord, please change my heart. And I say to anybody out there listening, if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Right. So that's the hardness of heart over on this side. [00:55:28] Speaker A: I hope I'm not being judgmental, but I just perceive this almost instantly when people are calling for or watering down, of course. Teaching. [00:55:37] Speaker B: Of course. Of course. [00:55:38] Speaker A: Or they're. They're putting you down or me down. [00:55:40] Speaker B: For being clear on it. I'm thinking, attack the messenger. Because they don't like the message. [00:55:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, what are you doing in private, man? Yeah. And sometimes as church leaders, it's like, I know, bro. You're treating me like I'm yelling at you. Your conscience is probably yelling at you. [00:55:51] Speaker B: That's right. [00:55:52] Speaker A: I guess. I guess it's not judgy because I usually feel compassion. Yeah. You're just a fallen person like anybody else. [00:55:58] Speaker B: Right. [00:55:58] Speaker A: And we all struggle, you know, so. [00:56:00] Speaker B: And what I find to be the doorway to compassion over here. And we'll get over here in a minute. To those on the other side of the spectrum, but an end to compassion over here is they think it's up to them to get from here to here. And in a way, in a way, they're being more honest over here than these people over here. And here's why. Because they recognize I can't do that. [00:56:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:32] Speaker B: Whereas the people over here think they. [00:56:34] Speaker A: Can by their own power. [00:56:37] Speaker B: By their own power. So it becomes a self righteousness over here. Right. And so over here, they're all about freedom, but they hate the law. Over here they're all about the law, but guess what? [00:56:52] Speaker A: They hate freedom. [00:56:54] Speaker B: Freedom. [00:56:56] Speaker A: Wow. [00:56:56] Speaker B: Right? So if you are preaching freedom from the law, not freedom to break it, but freedom to fulfill it, these people are going to hate you and these people are going to hate you. And you're going to get it from both sides. The compassion over here is that they don't know grace is going to take them on the journey to fulfill it. [00:57:18] Speaker A: And don't trust. Really. They're both two sides of the same coin of legalism. [00:57:22] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:57:23] Speaker A: Right. [00:57:24] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:57:25] Speaker A: Because the left wants to tinker with the catechism and change the rules in the books. [00:57:28] Speaker B: Correct. [00:57:28] Speaker A: The right says, throw the book at him, you can follow it. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Exactly. Well said. [00:57:32] Speaker A: It's all about the book. [00:57:33] Speaker B: It's all about the book. It's all about the law. And so on either side, guess what? We have death. Why? Because Paul says the law without grace is death. The death over here is a defeatism. There's no way I'll ever get there. The death over here is self righteousness. I've arrived by my own power, by my own power. [00:58:02] Speaker A: And I have the authority to judge everyone who's not doing it. [00:58:05] Speaker B: Right. That's right. [00:58:06] Speaker A: From you're not holding your hands Right. At mass. And I'm gonna make a whole video on that to, you know, whatever it is, they obsess on that stuff. [00:58:13] Speaker B: And this, in a way, the death over here is more deadly. [00:58:20] Speaker A: It's more dead, more blood. I kind of perceive that too. But yeah. [00:58:24] Speaker B: My mentor, beautiful, beautiful man. Loved this man. He was a personal friend of John Paul II's. His name was. He died in 2014. His name was Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete. Love this man. Love this man. [00:58:41] Speaker A: May rest in peace. [00:58:45] Speaker B: He. That man was free. That man was free. More free than any man I had I've ever known. That man was free. [00:58:56] Speaker A: You just talking about him, just for 10 seconds, makes me feel a presence, to be honest with you. [00:59:00] Speaker B: I feel like. [00:59:01] Speaker A: And it's like, I want to be that. Yeah, I want to be that. I know what you mean. Yeah, I can see it. I want to be him. [00:59:05] Speaker B: He walked in the room, totally disheveled, big, massive, comb over chain smoker. He always had tomato sauce or mustard on his Claire's. That's not what I pictured, but overweight, sign of contradiction. And the wisdom, the glory, the goodness that came out of that man, he was so beautiful. And I wanted to learn. I wanted to just sit at his feet. And I was able to be a friend of his over the span of almost 20 years before he died. But anyway, he said to me when I was launching my ministry, I was young. He saw I had potential. And he said, christopher, if you are faithful to what John Paul II has given us, you will be violently attacked. And the attack will come from within the church. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Wow. [01:00:00] Speaker B: And it will come more from the right than from the left. Wow. And I was startled because I was already doing some work and teaching and I was getting more attacked from over here because I was upholding the morality. And he saw the look on my face, and he said, who came running to Jesus first? Prostitutes and the sinners or the Pharisees who wanted them dead? [01:00:33] Speaker A: The Pharisees were comfortable in their control. [01:00:36] Speaker B: Everything. I mean, with whom was Jesus the harshest? We can look at the parable of the prodigal son. We have it all right there. The young son leaves the father's house because he doesn't believe the Father's gonna meet his hunger. And he takes his hunger out into the world. His hunger caused him to leave. But what brought him back? [01:01:10] Speaker A: My father's love. [01:01:13] Speaker B: But what was the inspiration in him? That's what he wanted. But it was the same hunger. [01:01:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:01:19] Speaker B: He got hungry. Yeah. [01:01:20] Speaker A: If I could just go back home, I could at least eat like the servants. [01:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:25] Speaker B: The same hunger that caused him to leave was the hunger that brought him back. The older brother is doing the Father's will, but he's not in touch with his hunger. And how do we know he's not in touch with his hunger? Because there's a celebration going on where they've slaughtered the fatted calf and he doesn't want to enter the party. And the scary thing, I mean, there's so many things you can take away from that parable, but one of the most scary things is you can follow all the rules your whole life and never enter heaven. Dang because what's the party? A symbol of Heaven. Heaven. And the guy who followed all the rules his whole life didn't want to enter. [01:02:12] Speaker A: He didn't want it. [01:02:13] Speaker B: He didn't want it. [01:02:14] Speaker A: He didn't want the place where he just had to receive unconditional love. [01:02:17] Speaker B: Exactly. Because he thought it was all about earning it by following all of the rules on his own strength. [01:02:24] Speaker A: Wow. [01:02:25] Speaker B: And Jesus entire life is a direct frontal challenge to that Pharisaicalism. St. Augustine puts it this way. This is kind of a paraphrase of his teaching. Those who are lost in their passions. That would be these guys over here. Are less lost than those who have lost their passions. [01:02:51] Speaker A: Oh. Oh. That could be in a business book somewhere. That's incredible. [01:02:56] Speaker B: Yes. [01:02:58] Speaker A: It applies to so many things. [01:02:59] Speaker B: Yes. And why? [01:03:01] Speaker A: Because keep your heart alive, guys. [01:03:03] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Keep your heart alive. Because Christianity is for hungry people. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Yes. [01:03:12] Speaker B: If you are not in touch with your hunger, you won't rejoice in what Jesus has to give you. Because what he has to give you is a wedding feast that's going to satisfy your hunger. If you think it's all about following the rules, Jesus does not have anything for you. What he has is a banquet. [01:03:29] Speaker A: And follow the rules. But it's not about the rules. [01:03:32] Speaker B: It's not about the rules. [01:03:33] Speaker A: It's like playing basketball is not about the lines. [01:03:36] Speaker B: Let me go back to that. [01:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:38] Speaker B: Don't just follow the rules. What we need to do is get in touch with our deepest ache and cry. And if we do, you know what we discover? All of the rules have one aim, one goal. To point my hunger at what really satisfies. All you need is love. Boom. But what is love? What is love? Right, and we're back to Augustine. Love God, do whatever you want, because. [01:04:13] Speaker A: Then you'll want the rest of the. Because you'll want. [01:04:16] Speaker B: That's freedom from the law. Love God and do whatever you want. Because you won't. If you really love God, you won't want to do anything contrary because you know you're shooting yourself in the foot when you don't fulfill the law. But it's not about following the rules, it's about fulfilling them. [01:04:40] Speaker A: What are some of the most significant ways the attacks have purified your message and frankly, your own understanding? [01:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah. If you and I have different definitions for words, we won't communicate. [01:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [01:04:59] Speaker B: And I have realized that when I started this work, I had attached a holy, sacred meaning to the word sexuality. And most people have not attached a holy, sacred meaning to the word sexuality. So when I was saying things about how holy sexuality is when people have a different world in their understanding of that word, they were thinking I was saying that what is perverse is holy. And that was a steep learning curve for me to realize I really have to define my terms. Because if we're not using the same language, you're not gonna. Not only will you not understand what I'm saying, you may attach an entirely contrary meaning. [01:05:53] Speaker A: Wow. [01:05:54] Speaker B: To what I'm saying. [01:05:55] Speaker A: Wow. [01:05:55] Speaker B: And that was a very hard lesson for me to learn. But I'm always of the. I'm mostly of the mind. There are some words that the church, the culture has stolen from us and they're too far gone. [01:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Like the word gay. The word gay used to mean you were happy and full of joy. But, but I'm. I'm often of the mind. We need to reclaim the language. Right. Somebod said what about the word gay? [01:06:25] Speaker A: And I was like, we're probably not going to try to reclaim. [01:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's probably too far. [01:06:29] Speaker A: Confused. I gotta people. [01:06:30] Speaker B: But I'm going to fight for the word sexuality and sex. I'm going to fight for these words. [01:06:35] Speaker A: Die on that hill. [01:06:36] Speaker B: I'm going to die on that hill. Because it's like this. It's a true story. 7 year old boy walks into a Catholic church for the first time with his mom and he never saw a crucifixion. And he looks up and he says, mommy, who's that? And she says, that's Jesus Christ. And he says, mommy, don't say that. We're in a church. Yeah. Wow. Exactly. Because of the environment this kid grew up in. The holy sacred name of Jesus was just. [01:07:16] Speaker A: How has it purified you? Personally, I'm guessing you've had to dig really deep to hold onto your identity as a child of God. The attacks that come from within the church and in some ways I've suffered more from the church than for it. [01:07:29] Speaker B: Right? Yes, yes, yes. [01:07:30] Speaker A: When they come from within, sometimes it's so lacking in mercy. [01:07:34] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [01:07:35] Speaker A: It's brutal each side of the equation that. Yeah, it'll rip you to shreds. There's a cancel thing. Cancel culture is like, let's not dialogue and allow this guy some grace. You're jumping into a complex thing here. [01:07:51] Speaker B: Yes, I am. Yes. [01:07:52] Speaker A: I mean most people haven't even taken it upon themselves to try to make theology of the body accessible because it's so stinking hard. Okay, well, forgive me if I get some things wrong. [01:08:00] Speaker B: Thank you, bro. You know, that is oil on my heart. Thank you. Yeah. I went through a major public scrutiny. You probably remember it, 2009, I was on Nightline, the national news show. [01:08:14] Speaker A: I do remember this. [01:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:16] Speaker A: And they took some clips out of context. [01:08:20] Speaker B: What I had said to the interviewer, who was a decent guy. He sat with me for like four hours and maybe five or six hours. It was a long interview. And they whittle it down to the six minute piece. [01:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:32] Speaker B: And I had told him four hours. [01:08:36] Speaker A: Down to six minutes. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. [01:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So I had told him that I had first been educated about sex by Hugh Hefner and I was re educated about sex by John Paul ii. [01:08:51] Speaker A: Wow. [01:08:51] Speaker B: But the way this national news piece opened up, this was 2009. It said something like this. Christopher west is not your typical sex guru. His two heroes, his two muses. [01:09:08] Speaker A: I'm so sorry. [01:09:09] Speaker B: And they had a picture of Hugh Hefner and John Paul II next to each other. [01:09:13] Speaker A: Wow. [01:09:14] Speaker B: Claiming that I said, these are my two heroes or muses. [01:09:19] Speaker A: So of course, all the Catholic world responded by saying, let's find out what he actually said and have it talk about that. [01:09:25] Speaker B: Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be helpful? [01:09:27] Speaker A: Let's help him clarify what he said, since we can do that. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was expecting. What happened was it seemed that people were just lying in wait for me to stumble so that they could pounce. And that's the way that whole mindset in the war, it's in all of us, right? [01:09:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:52] Speaker B: If we're honest, we all have a Pharisee and we all have a tax collector. Right. It's. We all have the older brother and we all have the younger brother. And that's getting worked out in all of us right here. [01:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:04] Speaker B: And I caught myself one time, you know, the. Of course, you know, the parable of the. The two who went to pray. And the Pharisee was like, thank you, God, I'm not like him. I caught myself one time saying internally when I was getting attacked from the pharisaical element. I caught myself saying, thank God that I'm not like those Pharisees who are just so judgmental and wow. Oh, crap. [01:10:33] Speaker A: God saved me from that prayer. [01:10:35] Speaker B: I am. I just did it. I just did what they do. [01:10:39] Speaker A: It's the devil's jiu jitsu. [01:10:41] Speaker B: And if we are not doing this. And by this I mean we're in dialogue with the father. Right. And I'm not saying I got this right. Or down pat. I don't. I struggle every day to be. To remain in this dialogue with the Father. But if I'm not looking for my identity here, I am going to be looking for my identity here. And I was so rocked by that. It was six months in the Catholic blogosphere of all out war against my work. And thank you, God, I had loads of people come to defend me. Cardinals, theologians. [01:11:18] Speaker A: How do you emotionally cope? And you fully bounce back, I'm presuming, or the parts. You're still kind of limping a little bit. [01:11:26] Speaker B: There's a part of me that still limps from that, but it's a healthy limp. [01:11:29] Speaker A: It is like, I don't. [01:11:31] Speaker B: It's just a reminder of my own weakness. And somebody said this to me once. I really have stayed. It's one of those things you hold onto. I was probably 35 and this guy was probably 55. And he said to me, christopher, never trust a man who doesn't walk with a limp. [01:11:54] Speaker A: That's a beautiful thing to rest on. Makes you proud of your limp. They're features. [01:11:59] Speaker B: Yeah, they're features on the way to heaven. That's right. And it's living that when I'm weak, then I'm strong. Paradigm, which by the way, is the paradigm of the gospel. [01:12:08] Speaker A: Amen. [01:12:09] Speaker B: But during that public criticism, you asked how I survived. And this is worth maybe sharing that, because it took me to the crux of my problem. I went to see Albacete because he was the one who told me, if you're faithful to John Paul ii, they're going to come after you. [01:12:24] Speaker A: Holy free tomato sauce. [01:12:26] Speaker B: Yes, right. [01:12:27] Speaker A: Yes. [01:12:28] Speaker B: And I was expecting he was going to put his arm around me and give me some comfort and oh, that's really hard. Don't listen to those guys. He gave me a four word answer that still rings in my ears. I poured my heart out like, this is what these people are saying. And this is all he said in response. He was Puerto Rican and he had an accent. He said, why do you care? [01:12:56] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, wow. Wow. Yeah. I mean, there's all the spiritual direction you need for the next six months of your life. [01:13:07] Speaker B: Well, it's been. He said that to me in 2009. [01:13:10] Speaker A: There's no holy reason why you should care. [01:13:13] Speaker B: Exactly. And the way my own spiritual director said it to me, this was another eye opener. Like, oh, and we need these eye openers, man. We need to be humbled. He said. My spiritual director said to me, christopher, you know, if criticism crushes you, praise inflates you because it's two sides of the same coin. You know that if this is crushing you this much, you've been feeding off the praise you've been getting for the last umpteen years as well. And that was like. Oh. And that became and remains a constant examination of conscience. [01:14:00] Speaker A: Oh, man. I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole for lack of time, but it's so dangerous that young people graduate college in ministry and just become influencers right away. [01:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah. When we shared about the speaking experiences we've had and going to Eucharist to Congress, that's after like parish ministry. Dawson ministry. Grind, grind, grind, grind. Preaching. [01:14:23] Speaker B: Grind, grind, grind. [01:14:24] Speaker A: Becoming aware of my soul becoming inflated and deflated. And then I get off a stage like that big and I don't feel inflated. [01:14:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:14:31] Speaker A: And the Lord, thank God, didn't let me do that. [01:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:35] Speaker A: Or let me do this. [01:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:37] Speaker A: Until I'm not on that roller coaster which would drive my wife and kids nuts. Yeah. And just to jump right into constantly inflating things without spiritual, without being beat down. [01:14:48] Speaker B: Yeah. To. [01:14:49] Speaker A: It's painful to get to that place. [01:14:51] Speaker B: To the degree you just said. Was exactly what I was going to say. Yes. It's painful to get to that place because to the degree that you came off that stage without being inflated, it's because you have been properly humbled. [01:15:03] Speaker A: Destroyed. Destroyed. [01:15:05] Speaker B: And those destructions are constructions. They are redemptions. What's getting destroyed is our false sense of our identity. What's getting destroyed is our pharisaical belief that I can do this. I got it. Yes, brother. [01:15:24] Speaker A: Send the wrecking balls. [01:15:25] Speaker B: When we. Yeah. [01:15:26] Speaker A: When we be merciful. [01:15:28] Speaker B: When we, when we can get to. [01:15:30] Speaker A: The place, it's like, okay, wait, hold on, hold on. Did I pray that. [01:15:36] Speaker B: When we could get to the point of saying, thank you, God, for this humiliation. I need it. And I can look back. It took me. It took me. I had to go on a six month sabbatical just to regroup. I didn't. I pulled out from public ministry entirely for six months. No emails, no nothing. Didn't do speaking, didn't teach, didn't do anything. I was just a dad and a husband. [01:16:00] Speaker A: Wow. [01:16:01] Speaker B: And my kids were young at the time and they said, why do you call it a sabbatical? This is a so goodical. They loved having me around and I went through. I doubled my time with my spiritual director. I usually meet him once a month and he said, you're in a particularly painful, intense time. I'm going to meet you every two weeks. [01:16:20] Speaker A: Wow. [01:16:20] Speaker B: And I was doing some real open heart surgery during that sabbatical. And at the end of it, I almost didn't come back into ministry because in that open heart surgery, I was seeing more and more of my flaws. I was seeing more and more of my pride. I was seeing more and more of my ego and how it had been involved and what I had been doing. And I had had this dream one night in which I saw the cityscape and it was like dynamite was under every one of the tall buildings and they all just came crashing down. And I woke up like. And then I heard these words. Christopher, everything you have built must collapse. [01:17:03] Speaker A: Wow. [01:17:03] Speaker B: So that what I have built will remain. [01:17:05] Speaker A: Wow. [01:17:07] Speaker B: And I was, as I said, almost didn't come back after the sabbatical. And I was talking through with my spiritual director and he said, christopher, you got the whole thing wrong. You think your weaknesses and your flaws and your sin is an obstacle to this ministry. And it is. If you keep it buried and pretend it's not there. But if you learn how to open it. [01:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a feature. [01:17:43] Speaker B: If you learn how to open it to the merciful love of the Father. Now he's flowing through your broken, wounded humanity as a channel of grace for others. [01:17:53] Speaker A: Wow. [01:17:54] Speaker B: It was a game changing moment. [01:17:57] Speaker A: Wow. That's Paul's approach. [01:17:58] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:17:59] Speaker A: He never pretended. [01:18:00] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:18:01] Speaker A: I do what I don't want to do. I have a thorn in the flesh. [01:18:03] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:18:03] Speaker A: I mean, no one in the ancient world wrote like that. We knew their thoughts. We didn't know their struggles, their heart, their passion. It was a part of the message. [01:18:12] Speaker B: It is a part of. If it's not a part of the message. You're a Pharisee. [01:18:18] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. That's black and white, but it's true. [01:18:21] Speaker B: It's true. [01:18:22] Speaker A: Real life Catholic. [01:18:25] Speaker B: Thank you, brother. Thank you, brother. [01:18:27] Speaker A: Our ministries are pretty dang close. [01:18:28] Speaker B: Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. [01:18:33] Speaker A: Okay, so you step in it and you kick the hornet's nest on both sides. Yes. You're also kicking the hornet's nest in people's hearts. Yes. Because there's that battle between heaven and hell that's not agenda driven within the church. [01:18:45] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. [01:18:46] Speaker A: There's the agenda of the evil one to destroy. [01:18:48] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. [01:18:49] Speaker A: You've been at this for 30 years. [01:18:51] Speaker B: Yes. [01:18:52] Speaker A: People come up to me. One of the blessings of my ministry. I write a book about joy. People come up to me and they high five me. They want me to sign the book about joy. Hey, you're the joy guy. I've met, like, actually famous people who, like, I know you. [01:19:04] Speaker B: That's a good thing to be known for. [01:19:05] Speaker A: Like that. Thank you. So it's usually a happy encounter. [01:19:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:10] Speaker A: And my kids are there for it sometimes, like. Cool. That's like a happy Catholic. [01:19:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:15] Speaker B: That's good. [01:19:16] Speaker A: When people approach you and you're at Disneyland with your kids, it's probably often with this face. Like, Sometimes I have to talk to you about this thing. [01:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I get that a lot. [01:19:32] Speaker A: I'm gonna guess you get a lot. [01:19:33] Speaker B: I get that a lot. [01:19:34] Speaker A: Heavy encounters. [01:19:35] Speaker B: I do get heavy encounters. [01:19:37] Speaker A: And thanks for bearing the weight of that. Cause it prevents you from being normal in a lot of settings. [01:19:41] Speaker B: Right. I have committed to myself that there are occasions where I have to catch a plane and I have to get off the stage and leave. [01:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:54] Speaker B: But I've made the commitment to myself that I want to interact with my audience as much as I'm able. And I have my own limitations, and I have to watch them. And that's part of humility, too, is to watch your limitations. But I want to be there after an event to sign books and look people in the eye and hear their stories. And I do hear. They do come to me with a lot of heaviness. But it keeps me grounded when I'm able to look somebody in the eyes. It keeps me. [01:20:28] Speaker A: Reminds you what you're doing, who you're doing it for. Yeah. How have you seen the battle, the battleground in the heart and mind change over 30 years? What kind of questions did you get 30 years ago? 20 years ago today? [01:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, here's a marker. I wrote my first book in the late 90s. It's my Q and A book, Good News about Sex and Marriage. And it's been the most popular book by far because it gets into some nitty gritty things that everybody wants to know answers to. And we do. The subtitle is Answers to your honest questions about Catholic teaching on. On sex and marriage. And people have a lot of nitty gritty questions. Right. Wendy and I, my wife and I do a podcast called the Ask Christopher west show, and she link below this video. Well, thank you. [01:21:16] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. [01:21:17] Speaker B: She fields all the questions. [01:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:20] Speaker B: I don't look at all of them. She fields them and she tells me what people are asking. And it's really nitty gritty painful wounds that come from a pornographic culture in which we've been raised. This is. Pornography is an utter wrecking ball to marital love. And the only way I can Carry that burden by dealing with this in and out, day in and day out, is this is remaining in dialogue here. Sometimes it does get particularly heavy. I mean, the number of people who are carrying brutally heavy burdens of sexual abuse in their lives. Is this part of your wife's story, as you shared publicly, the two of you, you know the way to that. You know it because you've. You love your wife. That is a heavy, heavy burden. And oftentimes people just bury it and don't look at it, don't know how to look at it. [01:22:28] Speaker A: Theology, the Bible, it's another show. I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't trade it at this point. It's become a defining way. We come together in rawness and healing, thank God. [01:22:37] Speaker B: And that is evidence of the real power of the cross in your marriage. [01:22:44] Speaker A: Amen. [01:22:44] Speaker B: The real power of the cross in your. [01:22:47] Speaker A: Literally wouldn't treat it. I'm like, that's the badge we're carrying into heaven. [01:22:51] Speaker B: You are already tasting the glorified wounds there. [01:22:54] Speaker A: Amen. [01:22:55] Speaker B: And when you taste the glory, you say exactly what you said. I wouldn't change it. [01:23:00] Speaker A: It makes no sense. The paradigm of the cross makes no sense. It's folly. It's folly. [01:23:05] Speaker B: That's what Paul says. [01:23:06] Speaker A: That's it. Was it scandal to the Jews, follow the Gentiles, forget what stumbling block to the Jews? Stumbling block to the Jews falling to the Gentiles? Something like that. Yeah. [01:23:14] Speaker B: But to those who know its power, it's life and joy. [01:23:20] Speaker A: Yes, right. Amen. [01:23:22] Speaker B: That's what you're testifying to, you know, the power of the cross. And it's not an abstraction. It's not, oh, there's power flowing from the cross. No, it's your cross. You have suffered this, and Christ has suffered it with you. I for years, have gone on retreat with a priest now who's in his 90s. And I used to really be bugged by what he would say to me. He would say to me, christopher, you are Jesus. And I'd be like, okay, Monsignor. I mean, I know the theology. Mystical body of Christ. St. Augustine says, we're not only Christians, we are Christ. I get. Okay, okay, I understand the theology, but what are you getting at? I'm not Jesus. What do you mean? And he'd say, your sufferings are Jesus sufferings. [01:24:24] Speaker A: Wow. [01:24:26] Speaker B: Your joys are Jesus, Jose. I was first on retreat with him in 2005, right when I was going through that thing with my wife in the book. And you're in no place to be Writing a book for husbands. And he's telling me this. Your sufferings are Jesus sufferings. You will find Jesus in your sufferings. You don't have to overcome your sufferings to find Jesus. You will find him in. In them. [01:24:57] Speaker A: Oh, man. [01:24:58] Speaker B: In them. [01:25:01] Speaker A: Paul, I no longer live, but Christ in me. [01:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah, Christ in me. Right. And it's the whole Christ. It's the sorrowful Christ, it's the joyful Christ, and it's the glorious Christ. [01:25:13] Speaker A: So in the assumption. I'm sorry, did it cut you off? [01:25:15] Speaker B: No. The main point, I want to say there is when suffering becomes not just something to endure and get over and get through, but it becomes a living encounter with Jesus where you are so united with him in your sufferings that your sufferings are his and his sufferings are yours. Then it becomes also, you taste something of the joy of the nuptial union of the cross. [01:25:48] Speaker A: Amen. Amen. So how have you seen the sufferings people present change over 30 years? Has it changed much? [01:25:55] Speaker B: Yes, it has. So that was the question. Well, here's a marker. I wrote this first book in 1999 or whatever, and I didn't even have a chapter on gender identity issues. [01:26:06] Speaker A: Yeah. It didn't exist. [01:26:07] Speaker B: It wasn't an issue. [01:26:08] Speaker A: We're pretending. We all have to pretend it did exist. [01:26:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But it was not an issue. It was not an issue. I had to revise. [01:26:15] Speaker A: It was like point, whatever, percent of the population that had genuine struggles and genuine crust, and now it's become a social contagion. [01:26:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So I have reworked that book with a new chapter on those issues. And I am an etymologist in a kind of hobby way. I love to study words and where they come from. And the light bulb moment for me when the whole gender, that word started to be used in this really perverse way, I just stopped even using the word. I just. I don't even want to go there. But then again, as I said, I like to reclaim words. [01:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:56] Speaker B: And a light bulb moment came for me when I just looked up the etymology of the word gender. It shares the same root as words like generous generate progeny, genealogy, genetics, genes, genitals. And that Greek root means to produce or give birth to beautiful. So what does the word gender really mean? [01:27:25] Speaker A: What's baked in the word? [01:27:28] Speaker B: Gender means the manner in which you generate new life. [01:27:33] Speaker A: That's awesome. [01:27:33] Speaker B: And that everybody is determined by another gen word, your genitals. Right. The male gender's genitals generate the next generation with sperm. The Female genders. Genitals generate the next generation with ova. And guess what? [01:27:51] Speaker A: Sally sells seashells by the seashore. [01:27:55] Speaker B: Guess what you need for generation to take place. You need genital intercourse. Right. So sperm can meet egg. Guess what? We used to call this the facts of life. But in today's world, the facts of life are totally up for grabs. So this is a profound change in the way I go about proclaiming theology of the body. And I would even say for such a time as this, when we are so confused about the very meaning of being male or female, for such a time as this, did the Holy Spirit inspire this young Polish prelate to write the theology of the body? [01:28:38] Speaker A: I said before our interview, we were having lunch, that maybe the Lord's saying this. Maybe it's just my optimism. I think it's the Lord you just barely begun. [01:28:47] Speaker B: Yes, I believe that. [01:28:48] Speaker A: I believe that and that prophetic word, that the theology of the body is a time bomb to go off sometime in the next. [01:28:55] Speaker B: George Weigel, right? [01:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Some people are thinking, well, Christopher Weiss is barely keeping the thing going, you know. No, no, it's still gotta go off. [01:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:29:05] Speaker A: But this is the issue. It answers. [01:29:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [01:29:07] Speaker A: This is the issue. [01:29:08] Speaker B: The crisis we are in right now is what this answers. [01:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:12] Speaker B: I remember the day he died. [01:29:14] Speaker A: You're Athanasius. Athanasius battled in the Arian heresy about the nature of God. Well, here we battle about the nature of human beings. [01:29:22] Speaker B: I would say that JP2 is ethnic Athanasius. [01:29:25] Speaker A: Well, that's okay. [01:29:26] Speaker B: I'm one of his translators. Yes, yes. I'm one of his translators. I remember the day he died. I was given a seminar, and somebody waved me as in the middle of my presentation on the theology of the Body and just called me over and whispered in my ear, the Holy Father just passed away. And we had a moment, we prayed, I teared up, and we finished the seminar. And somebody came up to me at the book table at the end of the day and said. Just had this look on her face. She said, what are you gonna do now? And I was like, no, no, no, you don't understand. It's just beginning. The grain of wheat has to go into the ground and die for it to bear its fruit. And I really believe we are in an age theologically similar to when Thomas Aquinas was doing what he was doing, or soon thereafter, his death. Right. Where the first generation of his followers realized, this is not just some specialized thing. This has to inform the whole church. And I Think we're at a similar time. If the theology of the body is not just some specialized thing for a few people, this has to inform the whole church. It's the John Pauline lens for reading the catechism. Because the entire Christian life, how much. [01:30:44] Speaker A: Of the Christian life, the entire thing. [01:30:45] Speaker B: The entire Christian life bears the mark of, of the spousal love of Christ for the church. Look it up. Catechism 16:17. [01:30:53] Speaker A: How do people find out more about what you're doing, soak in more of this goodness? I mean, I'm like so uplifted just hanging out with you, man. I am too. I'm serious. It's like watching fireworks. I love capturing the Lord's particular anointing in someone and just sitting back and. [01:31:07] Speaker B: Being like, oh, thanks, brother. Well, thanks for pulling it out of me. [01:31:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:11] Speaker B: Theologyofthebody.com will take people to the Theology of the Body Institute website. I'm the president of the Theology of the Body Institute. We have loads of retreats and courses. We offer them in a five day format in person or online and people can be certified with eight courses as a catechist in theology of the Body. If you want to keep going. We have a relationship with Pontifex University. You can get a master's degree and it's a unique master's degree. It's called Theology of the Body and the New Evangelization. Then we are also in conversation about a doctoral program with Pontifex University in Theology of the Body. So we're trying to cover the whole gamut there. That's not yet fully ready, but we're in the works. My wife and I do a podcast. I think I mentioned that. The Ask Christopher west show, hosted by Wendy West. We have a brand new podcast video based on our YouTube channel called Word Made Fresh. Mike Mangione came up with that. [01:32:15] Speaker A: That's awesome. [01:32:16] Speaker B: And it's two theologians and a musician, an artist. This show is fresh, fresh, exciting, so exciting to me. Two theologians and an artist, musician Mike Mangione. Just talking about culture, music, movies, just day to day life as husbands and dads. How do we see things from dirty diapers to a movie or a song on Spotify? How do we see it with sacramental lenses? How do we tease out the seeds of the word that are everywhere? That's our new podcast, brother. [01:32:51] Speaker A: You step into the center of the culture war and the center of people's deepest pains. [01:32:57] Speaker B: With good news, we're trying to bring the oil. With good news, we're trying to be the good Samaritan who pours the oil on the wounds. That's our mission. [01:33:05] Speaker A: It's even more. It's like literally, it's blasting in with the best news mankind's ever heard. It's the healing ointment. But it's also like, boom. [01:33:14] Speaker B: That's because it lifts you right up the gospel. [01:33:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And it kind of while bypass. While this is received as controversial to a lot of people, you're just bypassing the controversy and just the kingdom is here and it's so much bigger than anything dominating you right now. It's just so much better, man. Thanks for reveling in it with me, bro. [01:33:31] Speaker B: You're welcome, bro. [01:33:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I love you, man. [01:33:32] Speaker B: I love you, brother. [01:33:34] Speaker A: It's always a great thanks. Thank you guys for watching. I love you. Thanks for reveling in the best news in all of human history with us. God actually loves you. He actually found you worth dying for. That nuptial mystery. It's not just about the church in general. It's about you. You are the beloved of almighty God, and it's an honor to inspire you. Thanks for being with.