Pints With Aquinas - Sex, God, Beauty, and TOB w/ Christopher West

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

In this episode, Christopher West of the Theology of the Body Institute comes on the show to chat about Pope St. John Paul II's "Theology of the Body," and a whole lot more — from Descartes to coffee addictions. We sit back and let the conversation flow about all kinds of things, including: How a philosopher who died over 350 years ago is affecting how we think about sex and our bodies The real meanings of hot-button words (do you know where the word “gender” comes from?) Why you need to open up your messy life to God and what happens if you don’t Where to find the marriage imagery in the Bible Where the Church is headed and how to live with hope in a post-Christian world   Download my FREE ebook, "You Can Understand Aquinas," now! https://pintswithaquinas.com/understanding-thomas/    SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Catholic Chemistry: https://www.catholicchemistry.com/   GIVING Patreon or Directly: https://pintswithaquinas.com/support/  This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer co-producer of the show.   LINKS Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PintsWithAquinas Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pints_w_aquinas Gab: https://gab.com/mattfradd   MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

How often do you go live? Do you go live or are you just posting? I haven't been live for a long time, like a year. I dabbled with going live, but I don't go live like you go live, man. Yeah. So you're doing a great job, though, with your podcast right now. My son. You are doing a great job with his podcast right now.

My son is doing a great job with my podcast right now. I'm so glad. It's almost like you've been. Well, the podcast and the YouTube stuff. That's really what I mean. Yeah. I think podcast, we used to say podcast, I mean audio. Yeah.

And now we just, everyone made their podcast. I'm always behind the curve on social media stuff and how it all works. So podcast sounds just audio to me. Yeah. I think it does to a lot of people, but I think today it's more synonymous. This is your podcast. This is a podcast. It's on YouTube.

But we're being filmed at the same time. Exactly. And it'll come out as an audio podcast later. I didn't know that part. So you go on YouTube and you put it on your audio. Yeah. You do the same? No. It's so easy.

My podcast is separate from my YouTube. Okay. Kill two birds with one stone. Yeah. Wendy and I do our podcast, just audio, although we used to film it. But now we've updated what we're doing and we have this new YouTube approach with a new studio. My son Thomas put it all together. Was that a COVID thing, a response to needing to do more things virtually? Yes, yes. Filming the podcast for YouTube was a COVID thing.

And all kinds of stuff we've been doing is a response to COVID. COVID has been a hidden blessing for me and my ministry, really. How so? has been a hidden blessing for me and my ministry, really. How so? We've reached a global audience that we never would have reached because we were compelled to go online. And we had toyed. I've been teaching these courses for the Theology of the Body Institute

for 15, 16 years. And we've had about 6,000 students travel to Pennsylvania to take these five-day courses. You took one. Yeah, I loved it. And we toyed with going online with these classes, but it's theology of the body. I know. That's what I was thinking, yeah.

Incarnational. We were wondering, could it even work? Yeah. But then COVID said... Doesn't matter. We have to do it. This is all you got. We have to go online.

And I have found that going online, there's some drawbacks to it, but it's not an impediment to the Holy Spirit touching hearts and touching lives. So we have truly increased our audience exponentially with going online, thanks to COVID. Yeah, I think it's interesting. You see the quality that this show is and your show with your excellent stuff. And it seems like everybody's upping their game in the YouTube world as far as quality. And I really think if COVID hadn't have happened, that wouldn't have necessarily happened. I think you're right. Because everyone has to find a way to honestly make an income and to evangelize in a way that they couldn't prior.

And so it's been interesting to see that happen. You gave a talk last night at Franciscan. I did. What was that like? How many in-person talks have you been giving? I'm used to doing about 40 trips in a year. That's how I kind of measure it, how many times I go to the airport. Wow. And I'm used to doing about 40 a year. And I think since COVID hit, I've done maybe five or six. Yeah. And there were times in my life I was so in the rhythm of being on an airplane regularly that when I would take, I took a sabbatical 10 years ago for six months, and I was eager, like, get me back.

I have to go do what I do. Yeah. This year has, you know, five trips in a year, I have so enjoyed being home. Yeah. It has been a gift to me. And I don't think I will travel as much. I think I'm saying the same thing. What was different from the first time to this time?

I'm older. I'm 51. And, you know, when I was in my 30s and, well, I started doing this in my 20s. And when I was in my 20s and 30s, I was gung-ho. I want to go out to change the world. Yeah, me too. And I would fly anywhere, and my body could deal with it. Now I can't really deal with it quite as well.

I'm beginning to understand the whole first- culture oh because i've i have flown so often that you get the perks right so i'm usually bumped to first class yep and i'm at the point where the one the one thing i feel like if i'm not traveling as much in the future i'm like oh crap now i'm gonna have to pay exactly for first class yeah but that's that's the the luxury of traveling often you get all those perks and they know how to work the system so that you want the perks, and they do. They help a lot. You know as well as I, when you travel a lot,

those little perks, the lounge, the getting on the plane first, the wider seats, the Mr. West, would you like a drink? Yes, I would. Thank you very much. All of that makes the travel experience easier. So will I travel as much post-COVID if there ever is a post-COVID? I don't know. Isn't that funny?

The idea that nothing might, like you and I are going to be dead and people are still going to be wearing masks and things. I don't like that thought at all. Death or masks? Yeah. I think I don't want to be crass. I get the whole, you know, people are nervous about it, but I'm almost at the point I'm so tired of wearing a mask, and I'm so tired of the way the mask obviously masks you.

Yeah. You know, the whole vision of theology of the body is the body reveals the person. And the only thing we really have left here, because we're covering the rest, to reveal the person is the face. And when we're covering the face, we barely get to see the person. A lot can come through in the eyes, but the face reveals the person, right? John Paul II talks about how in the beginning, this is a funny story from a student of mine years ago. In the beginning, it's as if the whole body were a face.

That's creepy. That's what my student pointed out to me. So your face reveals you to me right here. I'm looking at your face, and this is how I know it's you. I mean, if I knew you better, I might recognize your hands. How I'm holding them. But your face is Matt Fradd to me. But in the beginning, John Paul II says, the whole body had the ability to reveal the person

as the face does now. Push back a little bit. I mean, surely my face expresses when I'm anxious or when I'm jubilant. My testicles don't. Do they not? Well, they might. I don't know. But there's so many directions we can go here. My kneecaps don't, to be less crass about it.

You know what I mean? Like the face expresses what I'm feeling right now, what I want to communicate to you. I would say, and I believe John Paul II would say, there's something we no longer see. We've lost the vision of the body. Yeah. But I wanted to tell a funny story. Yes. And now you're taking me into theological...

Now I went straight into testicles. Go, funny story. Well, we could talk a funny story about testicles too. But anyway, so one of my students was trying to picture this. What do you mean the whole body was like a face? And he says, Christopher, are you saying like in the beginning we were just like a big Mr. Potato Head? Exactly, yeah. Like a whole body... No, no, no, no, no. What the beginning we were just like a big Mr. Potato? Exactly, yeah. Like a whole body. No, no, no.

I said, no, no, no. What the face is able to do, reveal the person, the whole body was able to do. But since you brought up testicles, let's talk about how the genitals, we're going right into it. I guess so. Is this okay? Yep. All right. Genitals. The genitals and the face.

I know it sounds strange, and I know I'm a little weird because I spend my life pondering these mysteries, and not everybody does. So I talk about them rather freely, and not everybody's used to that. Yeah. So forgive me if this sounds strange. To me, it just sounds normal. The body reveals the person. Yeah. And in a very particular way, the face and the genitals reveal the person.

Right. Totally. The moment you were born or before with technology, someone looked at some aspect of your body to identify you. Exactly. And it wasn't your kneecaps. And it wasn't my face. And it wasn't your face. In the womb, yeah. identify you. Exactly. And it wasn't your kneecaps. And it wasn't my face. And it wasn't your face. Yeah. They looked at your genitals to identify you. Yeah. And somebody said, it's a boy. Yeah.

We're losing all of this in the modern world because we have separated the body from the person. And if we want to go down that trail, we can talk about that too. But here's the point I want to make. Another funny story. A student of mine, this was years ago, I was making this point in class, how the body reveals the person, and there's a profound revelation in both the face and the genitals of our intimate person, and he raised the same, said, Christopher, I have a funny story that illustrates this. He says, friend and I were on an abandoned beach, and we were jogging, and we got hot. We had been running for a long time.

Nobody was there. So we said, let's cool off in the water. We went skinny dipping, threw off all our clothes, ran into the beach. Well, a tour bus shows up while they're in the water with like 50 people. And they're in the water, and they're thinking, okay, eventually we have to get out here, and what are we going to do? Our clothes are way up there. And they said, okay.

So the bus is parked, and the people are on the beach. People are on the beach. They don't look like they're going anytime soon. Yeah, they're not going anytime soon. Two naked guys in the beach. What do we do? Okay, we have to get out. So they said, okay, on the count of three, we're going.

And they run out of the water, and one covers his his face and the other guy covers his genitals. And you would think, okay, what's going on here? Why are we, the guy who's covering his genitals looks at his buddy and says, what are you doing? And he says, I'm the smart one. We all look the same down here. They're not going to know who I am. That's a really good point. It's interesting.

The body reveals the person. Yeah. Before we get into more of that kind of stuff, I want to go back to the COVID conversation. Yeah. And just kind of like the Catholic speaker, quote unquote, Catholic celebrity kind of thing. I want to talk to you about that because it's a strange, maybe it's not a strange phenomenon. It is a strange phenomenon. I have gone through different phases with it. Sometimes... What is it we mean for those who are watching that? What is it we

mean by sort of... I think people, you generally understand what it means. Yeah, here's how I put it. Fame, in as much as in Catholic circles people know who we are, it hit me what fame wants, it hit me once what fame is. It's when people know you and you don't know them. Interesting, yeah. And a lot of people know me and I don't know them. Yeah. That's a definition of some level of fame or notoriety.

And it's weird. It's weird to be known and not know people. How old are you now? I'm 51. When did you start speaking on the theology of the body? 93, 94. I was 24 when I started. So you've almost been having this experience for maybe half of your life.

Yeah, about half my life. So for half of your life, you've had the experience of people knowing you and you not knowing them yeah strange eh and there are you know in in my youth there was when I had some more I was more insecure about my identity I was I found I took some Benny's from this that weren't healthy yeah and there there is a danger there is a real danger when you spend your life weekend after weekend going to seminars and you are inspiring people and blessing people and they're waiting sometimes over

an hour in a line to shake your hand and tell you how much you've blessed them and could you sign my book and can I get a picture with you? There is a... It's going to mess with your head. Whether... I don't care. There's no way out of it. There's no way out of it. It's going to mess with your head. Whether, I don't care. There's no way out of it. It's going to mess with your head. And you have to learn how to allow that to sanctify you and purify you, or you will, you'll be messed up from it. What's difficult is we often, I think, for the most part, don't know when we're arrogant. We may see something that we do and be shocked by it

and wonder if that's a sign of arrogance. But I think almost every human being, if you were like, well, you're an arrogant person. Unless you're speaking to a holy person, would say, no. So how do you know when you've become arrogant? And I ask this because I was talking to somebody here in Steubenville. And they said, hey, my daughter took you to the airport when you were giving a talk here. And she said you were kind of arrogant and standoffish and snobbish.

And I was like, oh, shit. I don't. Like, I'm sure I am that. But I'm really good at masking it. I don't know. Maybe I was tired. And it just made me think about how when you know someone and they don't know you when you meet them however they appear to you in that moment is your perception of them so if you were having a great day

then the story circulates that christopher west is a really down-to-earth good good guy you know if you had diarrhea and needed to get away from that situation quickly it's like just a bit of a dick you know and it's like both are true but but then that story circulates. And I can't tell you how many times you've heard stories about other speakers or celebrities, you know, and it's really dangerous, you know. I remember when I realized I was not in a good headspace with my, you know, to whatever degree I have some notoriety, it's when there was some real public criticism of my work, and it sent me in a real tailspin emotionally and personally. And my spiritual director, I've been meeting the same priest for 16, 17 years,

and he says, Christopher, if you are looking for your identity in the wrong place, if you are looking for your identity in the wrong place, criticism will crush you and praise will inflate you. And you know if criticism crushes you, that praise also inflates you. Because if you are looking, and he has... Two sides of the same coin. Two sides of the same coin, right? He does the sign language with me.

Whenever I'm struggling with where am I looking for my identity, he just goes like this. And I know that means, are you looking horizontally for your identity, or are you looking vertically for your identity? Who has the authority to tell us who we are? God alone. Only the author of our existence has the authority to tell us who we are. And we're all looking for who am I? Who am I? Somebody tell me who I am. And when we're looking horizontally, praise will inflate us and criticism will crush us. And when I went through that phase, this was 12 years ago or so, there was a real

public kind of criticism of my work, and it crushed me in painful ways. And it was a real necessary wake-up call for me and with the people who love me, people close to me, my wife, my kids, my spiritual director, helped me to know where my identity really comes from. It doesn't come from what the public thinks of me. I remember another scene at that time, a mentor of mine, beautiful, beautiful man, Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete. He was a personal friend of Pope John Paul II, and I had the privilege of studying under him

at the John Paul II Institute and I had the privilege of studying under him at the John Paul II Institute in Washington DC, and he became a friend and a mentor to me over 20 years. He died in 2014, but he was following what was going on with this public criticism, and I went to see him and I was hoping he was kind of gonna massage me a little bit just to help me get through it. And he said a few words that just stunned me and pierced me. He said, Christopher, why do you care? In other words, why do you care what these people are saying about you? Why do you care what people think of you? And he was a man who did not care. Yeah, he did not give a flying beep. Give us some examples of that.

You've told me in the past, and I just love these stories. Here's some Albacete stories. He met Carol Wojtyla in 1976. Albacete was a priest for the Archdiocese of Washington. He was the theological advisor to Cardinal Baum of Washington, D.C., in the 70s. Cardinal Baum calls him in his office and says, in a few months, I've just learned we have a famous Polish cardinal coming to visit Washington, D.C. to give a series of lectures. I want you to be his driver, and I want you to

spend time with him, pick his brain, learn from him. He's a father of the council. He's a brilliant thinker. You need to learn from this man. And Albacete, who's from Puerto Rico, says, sorry, I can't. I have skipped plans to go to Puerto Rico. And Cardinal Baum begged him, please, please, you must change your plans. I want you to spend time with this cardinal.

He wasn't going to do it. Finally, long story short, he changes his plans, but the cardinal had to bribe him with first-class tickets to go to Puerto Rico another time. So he drives to the airport in 1976 to pick up Carol Wojtyla. And Albacete's life, he was a mess. He was always disheveled. He was overweight. He was a chain smoker. He would come into class with ashes all over his clerics and mustard or ketchup from whatever he was eating. He had this nasty comb over it and it would always be like blowing in

the wind. There are no smoking signs everywhere and he's always lighting up. He shows up to pick up Karol Wojtyla, and his car is a mess. There are french fries all over the seat and the floor where Wojtyla is supposed to sit. What kind of person is picking up a famous Polish cardinal and doesn't clean his car? Doesn't even think to apparently. Doesn't even think to clean his car. Years later, after, you know, Wojtyla's now pope, and that's a whole other story when Alba said he's watching the TV screen and they announce Karol Wojtyla and however many, you know, expletives. Wow, I couldn't believe.

Two days later, actually, he gets a phone call from Cardinal Baum, who was in the conclave electing John Paul II, and he gets a call a few hours after the conclave, and Cardinal Baum says he wants to see you. Who wants to see me? The Holy Father asked for you personally. I've already booked your tickets. You're coming to Rome. Yeah. Well, in 76, they spent five days together, late nights, long conversations, driving to this talk, driving to that talk, unpacking the council, unpacking the state of the church in the world, and Albacete was just soaking it in, and he said, would you write to me,

Your Eminence? Can we continue this conversation? I need to think like you. Will you give me books to read? And Wojtyla agreed. So over the next two years, Wojtyla is sending him these regular letters, but Albicetti, just totally a disorganized human being, never wrote back. Two days after he's elected pope, Wojtyla, in his white clerics now, brings Albicetti into his office in Rome two days after he's elected Pope, and he looks him in the eye. Albacete's tearing up, and he says, I hope now you will return my letters. So years into the pontificate, when they'd be having dinner or something together in

Rome, JP II would joke with Albacete about the French fries in the car when they met. But it's a window into a man who doesn't wear masks, who's not trying to make a good impression. He's not living some appearance. He's like, this is who I am. And he knew he was loved right there. That's more than any lecture he ever gave in the classroom, all of which were brilliant. But the impression this man left on me was he had had some encounter with love, with an unconditional love that gave him the freedom to be a mess, a beautiful mess.

He was a beautiful mess. And I think that's maybe one of the best compliments we can give or receive. Matt, I'm going to give it to you right now. I know you pretty well. Yeah. And you're a beautiful mess. Really, you're a beautiful mess. That's the truth of it.

Thanks. And we can't really hope for or shouldn't expect more than that. And if you're trying to pretend you're not a mess, you're wearing some kind of mask. So what do you say, though, to the person who's listening to you right now? And they're like, okay, I don't know about that. I mean, surely the point of Christianity isn't to continually realize we're a mess. Isn't it about sanctification? And doesn't sanctification make us less messy? In a sense, but I'm thinking of Therese here who says that, I am content. She got to the place of realizing, I am content with discovering ever new imperfections in my life every day. I am content. And we could just supply the word mess too, right? Yeah. I am content with discovering ever new messes in my life. I

remember I was on a retreat, and I would say that's sanctity. Who was it? It was Teresa of Avila who says, you only see the spots on the glass when you hold it up to the light. Right? And we hear the saints saying things like, you know, Mother Teresa, I am the most wretched of sinners. And we're like, yeah, right. It's like the person after a big test at high school was like, I know I'm going to flunk that. You're like, shut up. Shut up.

We all know these straight A's. But when Mother Teresa said, I am the most wretched of sinners, this was not some pious thing she was saying, like I'm supposed to say that. It's because she was holding her glass up to the light. And she knew she was loved in that. Because without knowing you're loved in that, it would just cripple you. And what do you do? If you see your mess absent of the gaze of the loving Father...

You're screwed. You are either screwed and fall into despair or you do what I'm sure I do, is you just keep wearing a mask to hide the mess. Yes. If you are not looking at your mess in mercy, or you're not letting mercy show you your mess, you will either pretend you're not a mess and wear a mask, or you will despair. A saint. Or you'll vacillate between the two. Or vacillate between the two. And I vacillated between that for years. Wow. And the brightest lights in my life, my wife, my spiritual director, Alba Setti, these people I knew personally. I mean, JP2 is a bright, bright light.

I met him a couple times, but I can't say I had a relationship with JP2. But the people in my life I had relationships with, Albusetti, my wife Wendy, my spiritual director, these three people in particular have helped me, not just here, but here, to know, to believe, Not just in a here, but here to know, to believe that a saint is not a perfect person. A saint is someone who knows he or she is perfectly loved in all his or her imperfections. Alba said he knew that. Yeah. My wife knows that.

My spiritual director knows that, and I'm learning that. Where's the room, though, to say to Al Bissetti, I mean, it's great that you're a mess and you're very comfortable with yourself and that you know that you're loved, but it's more appropriate if you clean up a car for the car. Is there room for that? I wouldn't want to change him. I know what you mean, yeah. I mean, there's, what I feel in my bones when you say that,

I hear, like, voices from my childhood. Get your shit together. Get your shit together, exactly. Get your shit together. And my spiritual director once said to me, he said it very, he's like, he's a straight talker and I need straight talk, and it was at this time, 12 years ago, when I was going

through that public criticism, and he said to me, Christopher, you are a recovering perfectionist, and you think a saint is someone who has his shit together. And he said to me, it was a game changer, one of those game-changing moments, he said, no, no, no, a saint is not someone who has his shit together. And he said to me, it was a game changer. It was one of those game changing moments. He said, no, no, no. A saint is not someone who has a shit together. A saint is someone who has all of his S-H-I-T open to the merciful love of the Father. And I grew up with a lot of pressure to get my shit together. And it was crippling. Yeah, me too. Me too. And it's, is there a place to clean your room? Of course there is.

And, you know, thinking of Jordan Peterson, he's changing lives by simply telling disorganized people to clean their room. Three times a day. Wake up at a decent hour and be consistent with that. Clean your room. And so, yes, there's a place for that. Absolutely. But it shouldn't be, it shouldn't come from I'm not lovable if I don't. I'm not doing this to be lovable.

I mean, I love Albacete, and I love that he was comfortable in his mess. I am a man of organization. I need an organized place. My office is organized. My bedroom is organized. Is that true? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who's more organized, you or your wife?

I am, no doubt. And my kids know that messes will trigger me. Oh, dude, me too. Me too. And I have spent a lot of time, a lot of time in spiritual direction working through this obsession with messes. I have an obsession with messes. Why do I have an obsession with messes? Here's what I've learned. Tell me, because it's probably the same thing for me. And I'm saying, Matt, years of working through this stuff.

I believe there's a big lie in here that my messes make me unlovable. And if I believe that, if somewhere deep in my psyche, I believe that messes make me unlovable, I cannot bear being unlovable. That is unbearable. So what's my solution? Clean it up. Clean up.

Everything's got to be cleaned up. Yeah. Because the alternative is be cleaned up. Yeah. Because the alternative is I'm not lovable. And it has caused an obsession in me that has been wounding to my wife, wounding to my kids. I remember, I don't know, five, six years ago, I walked into the living room. And for the umpteenth time, there were playing cards scattered. Yeah. And for the umpteenth time, there were playing cards scattered.

And I know, okay, this is the 300th deck of cards that's no longer going to be complete because the cards are scattered everywhere. And Beth and the kids were playing with the cards, and I said, Who the French are you? And this is my daughter's response. She was 13 at the time. She says, my kids call me Papa. She said, Papa, don't freak out about the cards we're just playing with the cards and that you hate when your kids speak logic into your emotional chaos

you're like exactly you're right exactly and i could you know some might say i was i would be justified as a father to assert my authority and don't talk back to me, clean up the damn cards. But we have to learn also from our children. And she was teaching me something. I'm a kid and it's okay for me to play with the cards. And you're on your freak out, and you're on your freak out, you're in freak out mode. And I had to take, I knew there was a, I'm not freaking out, I just want the cards. Well, I am freaking out, right?

Why am I freaking out? Because way down in there, deeply in my heart, as a kid, I believed this lie that my messes make me unlovable. I had an older brother who was, to put it frankly, pretty a slob. His room was a total mess, and he was always in trouble. Well, guess what? I got all kinds of kudos and approval from my parents because my room is—

You're not like him. I'm not like him. My room is clean and organized. Give me that. Give me that. Give me that. How do I win that? How do I win that?

Clean, organized. Give me that, give me that, give me that. How do I win that? How do I win that? Clean, organized. When I meet Albacete and he walks into the classroom and his comb over is flying in the wind and he's smoking a cigarette and there are no smoking signs everywhere and he has ashes all over his clerics and spaghetti sauce on his clerics, I'm like, who is this man? And then not only brilliance comes out of his mouth, but I get to know him, and he has encountered some love. He knows he's loved right there. I did not know that. I did not know I'm loved in my mess. So yes, there is a place of common courtesy to living with other people, try to clean up your messes. But if it's coming from a place of obsession, and if it's coming from a place of, I believe

that I'm not loved if I'm a mess, okay, work through that. Work through that. And don't lean on organization and cleaning everything up for some sense that you're lovable, because you're just reinforcing the lie that you're not lovable in your real broken humanity. How do you know you're doing that? How do you know you're doing that? How do you know you are kind of trying to get everything together so that you'll be lovable? Because I think one of the defenses that will go up while listening to you from people and even myself is,

okay, fine, but that's not why I do it. I actually just like to be organized, and that could actually be true. Yeah, I don't think I will ever not like to be organized. I mean, the first thing that came to my mind was I think when I am in a good place, I know I'm loved and I don't have any weight on my shoulders, which hasn't been a great deal lately. I'm a lot gentler with other people. I think that meekness, I think, is probably a sign that you're not striving for approval.

Because when you're striving for approval, you're hard on yourself. And when you're hard on yourself, I don't think you're gentle with the messes of your kids or your wife. True. Yes, I think that is a very important window. I know when I am more at peace with the messes my children make, I'm more at peace with myself. My dog is a great barometer for me. I was about to say that.

Yeah, me too. How I treat my dog is a window into how I'm treating myself. And my dog is another story. When I was a boy, I loved this dog. It was one of those moments where you're looking in the pet shop window, I'm six years old and I see this puppy and I'm begging my dad, please, please, please. And he's saying, no, no, no, no. A few days later, I come home from, how old are you? Or what grade are you in when you're six years old? I don't know.

21st century come home from how old are you or what grade are you in when you're in six when you're six years old i don't know like second first grade first first second road at whatever grade i come home and there's the puppy my dad had surprised me with this puppy and this puppy leaped into my arms and leaped into my heart and then a few years later i'm nine i guess nine or ten and my parents had redone the house gotten new carpetsets. And this dog was never really house trained very well. So it would make messes on the carpet. New carpets. Well, my parents get rid of the dog because they don't want the messes on the carpet. They talk to you about that? No. I come home from school one day. I used to walk down the back alley behind my house, and our dog was on a line, and she would run out to see me every day.

Cluck. Yep. Cluck. Every day. Do back flips. So this was just normal. I would hear the dog bark, and she'd smell me from down the alley, and I didn't hear anything. I'm like, where's the dog? And I had named this dog, you know, I'm six years old and I get to name the dog. I named the dog Snuggles because I was so close with this dog, she would snuggle up to me. Well, Snuggles was gone and with no explanation other than we got new carpets. So I'm nine years old and this is absolute trauma for me. Why was I traumatized well not just because I

lost my dog but there was this some the lie went in deeper what happens in our family if you make messes on the carpet that's what happens and I remember like maybe two years later I was probably 11 years old I got sick in the middle of night and I didn't make it to the bathroom and I vomited all over the carpet. And my mom had to clean it up in the middle of the night. And I was terrified. I'm lying in my bed, 11 years old, terrified. And did I know any of this was going on? I had no idea what was going on at the time. This is what's coming out 30, 40 years later in spiritual direction, right? Where I'm working through my adult pains. I'm working through my adult wounds. I'm looking honestly at why am I causing my wife and my kids pain when I don't want to. I want to love these people, but I'm causing them pain. Why am I causing them pain? Because I'm in pain.

Where's my pain come from? I don't know. But in spiritual direction, you go on an archaeological dig and you start looking way in there at what's going on and where your pain comes from and why you're so quick to dump your pain out on everybody else. And then you bring the Lord and the giver of life and the one who was born our pain into the pain, and you slowly begin a healing process. And the less you're dumping your pain on others, the more you know you're healing. And that's what you were saying earlier about you're exactly right. If you're more gentle with your own kids about their messes, then that's a sign of your own inner healing.

What do you say to people who say all of this, and I don't mean to be overly cynical. I obviously agree with what you're saying. But I think I've heard people say, this all just sounds like kind of psychology being imposed upon Christianity. Like where's the language of repentance and sanctity and all of these words it seems like we've gotten rid of in place of a lot of these uh ted talk sounding things like uh yeah i think empathy i think there is a valid criticism there matt i think we can there's no doubt we can we have and some of it's good psychology you know as a catholic we know all things in themselves are good and whatever

we can learn from the science of psychology... Study of the soul is what it means, yeah. Yeah, psychology, the study of the soul. We can and should benefit from that, and there is a marriage we can have between the interior journey, a journey of the interior life, and psychology. Psychology can help us here. But what I'm talking about here is not mere psychology. I'm talking about the power of grace to transform our inner life.

That's what I'm talking about. And honestly, if you can't find language that you're at home with to describe that, that's not a sign that you've done the journey. Like if the only language I need to use to express my relationship with Christ is antiquated language, which still may be in use, but which I don't use on a day-to-day basis, that may not be a sign that I'm actually in touch with it. You know, if this is a living reality in my life, then I'm going to use language that I use elsewhere to describe this real thing happening. Yeah. And I'm happy to, more than happy, this is what I do.

I'm trying in my whole life to bring the language of the faith and put it in a language that the people in front of me can connect with. Yeah. Right? That's the new evangelization. Here's an example. So the mystical tradition would describe what I'm talking about as the purgative, illuminative, and unitive way.

The purgative stage of the journey, and this is straight out of John Paul II. He has his book, Memory and Identity. Have you read it? It was the last published work that John Paul II gave us. Wow. Right before he died. What was it? It was a memoir, kind of looking back at his experience as a European, as a Polish man,

the experience of the church. It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. And in there, he talks about, he summarizes beautifully, 2,000 years of the saint's reflection on the journey of inner healing. The purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way. The purgative way, he says, is where we all begin the journey, where we want to follow the commandments. But we recognize, I want to do that, but there's another force at work in me that's pulling me in another direction, and we need to be purged. We need to be purged. So I walk in the house,

need to be purged. We need to be purged. So I walk in the house. There's a mess. I want to be tender and gentle with my kids about it, but there's something in me that needs to be purged, needs to be healed, needs to come into the light, right? That's the purgative stage of the journey. But as we continue the journey, John Paul II says, as we enter into the illuminative stage, we grow in virtue. We acquire virtue. The lights come on. That's why it's called the illuminative stage. And we start to see the world more and more as God sees the world. As it is. As it really is. Yeah. And you start to encounter signs of sacramentality everywhere, meaning the world itself was created by God to illuminate his own mystery. And you start to see the world more and more in that way. But it also illuminates when you see the world as it really is, you also see your brokenness, your sinfulness as it really is.

You said, what about repentance? Heck yeah, there's no such thing as inner healing without repentance, right? Why are we broken? Because of original sin. Because of the sins that we commit and because of the sins that have been committed against us, we are broken. And because of the sins that have been committed against us, we are broken. And the pain that other people dump on us, if we're not dealing with it, if we're not going through this purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of the journey,

inevitably, we are going to dump that pain on others. If you're willing to look at the pain you've dumped on others and go to the root of it, now we're on the journey, really, of being purged, of being illuminated. But there's more than just the lights coming on and seeing the world as it really is, and holding that glass up to the light, you start to see your spots, right? But as we continue that purgation and illumination, and this is important, it's not like we graduate from the purgative stage once the lights are coming on, and it's not like we graduate from the illuminative stage once we're in the unitive stage. They always circle back. So Mother Teresa, John Paul II, they lived most

of their lives in the unitive stage of the journey, and that means, by and large, day to day, what they are experiencing, what they are feeling in their hearts, is a profound union with the Lord in all of their joys and all of their sorrows. And they're living no longer I, as St. Paul says, it's Christ in me. You are living the heart of Christ. You see more and more as he sees. You feel more and more as he feels. That's the unitive stage of the journey. But nonetheless, there's still need even there for more purgations and more illuminations. And even when you're at the purgative stage of the journey, you're just starting out in the Christian life, you do get tastes of the lights coming on and union with the Lord.

So you see what I'm saying? It all overlaps. You don't get a certain... It's not like neat categories. For the first five years I was there and then I progressed and never slipped back. Correct. But as I was saying, you see this pain in your life, you see the pain you're causing others, and if you really look at where it comes from, this will take you on that journey. And you can. You can wed the best of psychology with the best of spirituality and you can really grow and really heal yeah but even as i say that word

spirituality i know what people are thinking out there we we are we're basically gnostics in the modern world we have ruptured the spiritual and the physical the spiritual life is not an attempt to divorce yourself from the physical world and certainly not from your body, right? Christian spirituality, and I said this loudly and clearly last night when I gave my talk here in Steubenville, Christian spirituality is always incarnational spirituality. If we're trying to live a spiritual life divorced from our bodies, guess what we are? We're dead. Because that's the very definition of death. What does that look like when somebody tries to live a spiritual life divorced of their body? What are some examples of what that might look like?

Sex is bad, tainted, dirty, and evil. I'm not going to think about that because I want to be holy. But to be fair, I'd never met a Christian who said that. You have not? Never in my life have I encountered a Christian who thought sex was bad. Are you kidding me? No. I don't believe you. I mean, I think it's true that...

They may not say it. Okay, well, that's different. So I'd be open to believing that. I encounter this awe. Who would actually say... Not that they would come out, but interiorly, they believe there's something innately. So how would somebody detect within themselves if they do have this secret belief that sex or sexual desire is somehow tainted? So they wouldn't admit it openly. Well, it is tainted. It's tainted by original sin.

But here's the principle we always have to stand on. You've heard me say it a million times, I'm sure. The devil doesn't have his own clay. Yeah. Right? The only clay that exists is God's clay. And God looked at the clay he made and said, behold, it's very good. Sin and the evil one gets his hands on that clay, and that clay gets twisted up.

So you've heard me say pornography is a hellish mockery of a heavenly reality. It takes this good clay and twists it up. I remember I got a letter from someone. Gosh, this was 20 years ago. And she was very critical of my work. And she said, Christopher, you always talk about the body. Why are you always talking about the body? Why don't you talk about the soul? Why aren't you talking about the soul? Christ came to save souls. Christ came to save souls, Christopher. Why are you always talking about the body? Wow.

That's an example of this rupture. She says it's all about the Spirit. You're always emphasizing the body. Why don't you talk about the Spirit? Did Christ come to save souls? Yes, but when we hear that word soul through a little context here, what we could call Cartesian lenses. Rene Descartes gave the modern world, and here I'm quoting John Paul II, Rene Descartes gave the modern world this distinctive dualistic character, this rupture between body and soul. When he said, Descartes, I think, therefore, I am, he posited human identity in thought.

And who we are becomes a thought, a consciousness. The body becomes something we think about. It becomes something we dissect. But it is no longer who we are in this Cartesian worldview. And when we have these Cartesian lenses on, and here I'm quoting Peter Kreeft, Peter Kreeft says, as we wear these Cartesian lenses, we inevitably read our own modern categories back into the authors of the Bible. For example, when we hear St. Paul say, live by the Spirit and not by the flesh. With our Cartesian dualistic glasses on, we think

he's saying, this is the good part, this is the bad part. Spirit good, body bad. This is not what he's saying. To live by the Spirit does not mean we reject the flesh. To live by the Spirit means we open our flesh to the indwelling of the Spirit, so that what we do with our flesh, with our bodies, glorifies the Lord. That's what Paul himself says. If the Spirit of the one who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, then that same Spirit will give life to your mortal flesh also. He says, this is our faith. Always integration. Integration of the spiritual and the physical.

If we are bent on divorcing ourselves from this physical world to reach some spiritual God, world to reach some spiritual God, we can make no sense of a God who is committed to wedding himself to our flesh to reach us. This is our faith, the marriage of the spiritual and the physical. This is our humanity. This is our identity. And we're kind of coming full circle here back to our first conversation about when you were in the womb, you were identified by your genitals. In this modern ruptured Cartesian world, we are playing it out in all this gender confusion. We have totally ruptured the very word gender. We've ruptured it from the body. Right?

So what's happening now? Here's what's happening. I mean, partially. It's not the whole story. But Rene Descartes' dictum, I think therefore I am, is playing itself out. And it's become, I think therefore I am whatever I think I am. Identity is posited in what I think about myself rather than any objective reality such as the body. I want to ask you where you think this will end up. I mean, I remember when Biden and Trump were kind of doing the circuit and somebody asked him about whether Biden whether they asked Biden whether he would agree that a parent could give their child hormone blockers and even, I'm sure she didn't use the word castrate or mutilate, but that's what she was asking.

Biden essentially says yes. You think, God, how worse can this possibly get? So here's a question. How worse can this possibly get? I mean, where does it go practically practically we're not at the bottom yet what's the bottom i mean the bottom there's a long way down what the bottom is because we are capable of of great horrors uh i would say we are we are on the last lap of the sexual revolution. And I think we can recognize, but it's going to be a long last lap. And see, this is another way that we've misunderstood sex and the body and spirit thing.

Because when we say last lap of sexual revolution, it's almost like people think that has to do solely with sex. But it doesn't. It has to do with who we are. This is exactly the point. Look what the sexual revolution has done. It has robbed us of our identity. Was it the first or second Vatican Council? I think it was the second. You correct me. When God is forgotten, the human being, human person becomes unintelligible. Second Vatican Council, yeah. When we lose sight of who God is, man no longer has any intelligibility. We don't

know who we are. And I want, can I zoom in on this word gender for a minute? Please do. And then I want to come back to that last lap of the sexual revolution and why I think we're on it. Well, let's just look at that word gender. I love studying words. I am an etymologist in that sense. Where does etymology come from? Well, you'd have to do some etymology on that, wouldn't you? It's the study of words, right? Not to be confused with entomology,

which is the study of insects. They're cool too, but I'm not an entomologist. I love words because words get us in touch with reality, or at least they're meant to. When words are used to disconnect us from reality, we are in trouble. And that's what's going on in the world today. All the good words are getting co-opted. Love. That's a beautiful, wonderful, essential word. It's getting co-opted. Freedom.

That's a beautiful, wonderful, essential word. It's getting co-opted. Choice. Choice. Same thing, yeah. We already said love. Marriage. Gender.

Let's talk about gender. Let's look at the root yeah gen comes from uh the greek word gen means to produce to give birth to we see the same root in words like generous generate genesis progeny genitals genitals genealogy right gen to produce give birth to gender what does the word gender mean it means before it became deconstructed in the modern world gender means the manner in which you generate new life that's the meaning of the word. And that is determined by the other gen word you mentioned, your genitals. Your genitals determine the manner in which you generate new life. That's your gender, right? When you understand the meaning of the word gender, the manner in which you generate new life, well, you can only do that with sperm or with eggs

right there are only two ways to generate new life well actually one way because you need but you need the two right genders to join their genitals to generate the next generation, right? The male gender generates with his genitals the next generation with sperm. The female gender generates the next generation with her genitals that produce eggs. You need sperm and egg to generate the next generation. When we understand that that's the true meaning of the very word gender, the manner in which you generate life. You know there are only two genders. When you disconnect gender from the body, now you have an infinite number of gender identities and sexual orientations.

LGBTQ, it never ends. Where does this go? It's funny that B is in that. Have I said that to you before? Like how did B get into LGB? Didn't we kind of give it away there? Binary? Isn't that interesting?

We've got to get rid of that. It's a very bigoted, maybe, yeah. I don't mean to be flippant about it, but it's so incoherent. And I don't mean to be flippant either here. We're talking somewhat abstractly here, but let's get more concrete. flipping either here. We're talking somewhat abstractly here, but let's get more concrete. There are real men and women who are in real agony because of the sexual revolution, which has ruptured. I mean, I'm one of them. You are too.

There's not a person in the Western world who has not been, in one way or another, profoundly wounded by the lies of the sexual revolution. And as a Catholic, I am not entirely down on what the sexual revolution was about. I'm down on all the bad that's happened. But let's look at some of the roots here of why the sexual revolution took place and I'm fascinated by people like Hugh Hefner I'm fascinated by people like Elvis I've been watching a lot of Elvis documentaries yeah fascinated by this man really He was a key player in the sexual revolution. And why am I fascinated by these people? Because I am trying to reach the world.

I'm trying to evangelize the world that they created. Elvis goes on national television in 1956, and he starts swinging his hips. Some would say gyrating. And it unleashed the pent-up passions of a generation. And that generation gave us the sexual revolution of the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and now we're we we are reaping a horrific harvest as a result but in order to understand all of that elvis gets on national tv in 56 shakes hips, and these passions get released. I mean, one twitch of Elvis's shoulder or lip on stage, and I'm talking about, I've been doing a deep dive on Elvis.

This is what COVID will do to you. Yeah, exactly. What am I going to do? 1973, I think it was called the Aloha concert or something. Elvis is in Hawaii, and it's the first international satellite broadcast concert ever. And something like 1973, something like a billion people around the world watched Elvis. Crazy. And Elvis is singing this song called Fever, which

is about this woman, you give me fever. You know? And he does this little twitch of his lip. this power goes out from his body. And you can feel all these female screams. Ah! Power goes out from him.

And then he does this little thing with his shoulder, power, and the passions just get, I'm telling you, it's a phenomenon. And why does this interest me? This man ignited the passions of the world, of a generation. And I want to go back to something St. Augustine said in order to put this in context

and to put the sexual revolution in context and why I don't think the whole thing, it doesn't do it justice to say, that's bad, that's evil, that's wrong. No, something was happening in the sexual revolution that we have to pay attention to in order to understand the world we're in now and in order to reach it with compassion

that's the key word with compassion to suffer with so here's what augustine said he says those who are lost in their passions are less lost than those who have lost their passions. It's very important. What do you think he's getting at there? Those who are lost in their passions. Because they're no longer in touch with their yearnings, their desires, their heart. Even if their desires are disordered, they can still be reordered. Correct.

This is so important. And it's a point when we're living in that spirit good, body bad paradigm. And you said earlier that you had never met a Christian. And I get what you're saying. You'd never met a Christian who would actually come out and say... Yeah. I think what I said, the reason I'm pushing back on that is I think you're making a great point. Too aggressively, maybe? Yeah. It might be a little too blatant. And I think most, no one has really heard. I've never heard a Christian say sex is bad. Have you, Joseph?

Ever heard a Christian say sex is bad? So I want your point to hit home. So I want you to nuance it more. I guess I'm saying, maybe not that I would say it, but it's an attitude that we have deep in there that sometimes we're not even aware of. Yeah, I've got something to say, but I don't know if I'll say it on camera. But yeah, I'm going to say it. You go. I'm afraid. You go. Who knows what'll come out? Go. I want to get back to Augustine and Elvis and the sexual revolution and why we're on

the last lap. Yep. All right. So those who are lost in their passions are less lost. You said it well. They are less lost than those who have lost their passions. Christianity is for hungry people, right? If you do not feel the hunger for the wedding feast of eternity, you're not going to see the gift and value of Jesus Christ, right? Christianity is for hungry people. The source and summit of everything we believe is a wedding feast. people. The source and summit of everything we believe is a wedding feast. It's to feed our ache, it's to feed our hunger, right? Christianity is not a starvation diet. It's an invitation to a wedding feast, right? Think of the prodigal son. What caused him to leave the house of his father? Yeah, he wanted to live a passionate life in the negative sense.

Yeah, because he didn't believe his father was going to do it for him, was going to satisfy his desires. So he leaves. We could say his passion or his hunger, his ache let him out. But what brought him back? Yeah, I mean, his hunger for something better. For something better. That he always had, in a sense.

He went to the bottom of the barrel and said, even the servants in my father's house are well fed. His hunger led him away. His hunger brought him back. But this parable, by the way, is really about the older brother. Because it says right at the start of the parable, Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees. That's a really interesting point that I hadn't made before, hadn't connected.

Yeah, yeah. So who are the Pharisees in the parable? The older brother, yeah. They're the older brother. They're the ones who've been following all the rules, but they're not really in touch with their hunger. And the key that we know this older brother wasn't in touch with the hunger is there's a celebration going on.

There's a feast happening. And he won't enter. Because he reduced living in the father's house to following the father's rules. Right. Right? Are we to follow the father's rules? Yes. But what's the purpose of the Father's rules? The purpose of the Father's rules is to direct our passion,

our hunger, our yearning, our thirst, towards the feast, towards the celebration. The real scary thing of that parable is the one who followed all the rules and did the, quote, right thing, didn't enter the celebration, and that celebration is heaven. didn't enter the celebration, and that celebration is heaven.

The one who left but came back enters the celebration, right? This is what Augustine is saying when he says, those who are lost in their passions, that younger brother was lost in his passions, are less lost than those, older brother who lost his passion because that passion took him the whole way to the bottom of the barrel but it also brought him back an analogy might be if you have no hunger for anything you're far more screwed than if you if you're binging on the wrong source of food correct yeah correct both will kill you because you can die from starvation and you can die from food poisoning.

But the one who's eating the bad food at least is in touch with the hunger. And so when the banquet presents itself, they're more readily prepared to enter the celebration because they're hungry. They feel the hunger. I want to ask you a question before we get to the last lap of the sexual revolution thing. I forget who it was, so whoever it is will forgive me for not remembering it. But they said something,

when we run from our shame, we legitimate its claims against us. That's good. When we run from our shame, we legitimize its claims against us. And I just, you know, given what we're talking about, I think all of us at some point or another, or more often than not, more often than we would like,

have these desires that well up in us, and maybe they're terribly perverted, and they scare the hell out of us. And maybe we wouldn't even voice it to another human being, because we'd be afraid of being rejected. And it might just be on the kind of periphery of our consciousness occasionally, and we're not sure why it's there or where it's coming from. Maybe speak to that a little bit. Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up because it's tying a lot of our loose ends together here. It has to do with that attitude, and I'm glad you called me on it because I've been wounded by these people with these attitudes

because they see me as perverse. They see my talk about the body and sexuality as perverse. Well, if you give your life to that, you must have some issues, you know. I do. I've got plenty of issues. And that's why I've given my life to this because I have so many issues and I need it, right? One way to learn John Paul II's theology of the body is to teach it all the time, and I need it more than anybody, and I think maybe that's why the Lord tapped me to teach it all the time, because I need it. I desperately need it myself. But when we think being holy means you don't look at that because that's just bad and shameful. Then we end up living split lives. We have this quote, end quote, holy part of us over here where we go to mass and we pray our rosary. But we have all the shameful stuff over here that we've done or has been done to us

or we're tempted by porn or we indulge in porn, but we keep it all. Yeah. That's just, I can't talk about that. I can't think, I got to be holy. Yeah. I've got my little ribboned books, my little ribboned prayer books and my... My nice little neat, neat, right? No messes allowed, neat and tidy Christianity over here, but over here... Shit, don't go in that room.

Shameful, shameful, shameful, hidden stuff. The only path for this person to authentic holiness, and I'm speaking from my own life experience, this stuff over here, the dark, painful, shameful stuff, has to be opened up to the light. And that good clay that got twisted up has to be untwisted. That is the purgative, illuminative, and unitive journey. When we don't look at that, because, bless you, brother, I love you. You're a beautiful man.

You're a beautiful man. Thanks. Damn it, you're a beautiful man. Thanks. Damn it, you're a beautiful man. That's the real deal. That's the real deal. When we don't look at this, the only alternative is to wear a pious mask. Yeah.

And then we end up, whether we'd say it or not, we end up thinking spirit good, body bad. Yeah. I'm going to make my life look like this. I want to look like this because I want to impress people. And it's like a white knuckling. It is a white knuckling. And I want to say to you, my brother, and I need to hear it myself, and I want to say to you my brother and I need to hear it myself and I want to say to everybody watching this you are loved

right there in that shameful shithole you are loved he comes into it he descends into our hell to pull us out of it and if he doesn't you and I are screwed this is

our faith this is the descent into hell he comes into our hells he comes into our shame he comes into our worst nightmares he comes into our most painful memories and he's with us in them to pull us out to begin the long and painful journey of true inner back home journey back journey back home let's go inner sanctification inner healing whatever you want to call it. I'm thinking of Song of Songs, like, my beloved. Yes. The rain has gone and passed. Oh, glory. What is it? The song of eternal love.

The springtime has come. The flowers are blooming. The birds are singing. Woo! So we're spoiling the vineyard. I'm thinking, Matt, as you're speaking, of the woman who cracks open that jar of nard and pours it out all over Jesus' head. This is such an important story.

Jesus himself said how important it was because he said, wherever the gospel is preached, her story must be told. So this has to get us to the heart of it. And I want to come back to Elvis in the last lap of the sexual revolution, but I want to talk about this. I guess I also want to say in here too. Please do. Yeah, I was Sister Miriam, James.

Yes, love her. Love her to death. There's a real story of a real woman. She's everybody who meets that woman knows she's not wearing a mask. Can I tell you a quick story before I tell you the anecdote? I was speaking to a priest friend of mine

and the priest friend was recounting a conversation he had with another priest. And the other priest said, dude, I'm in love with Sister Miriam. He's like, yeah, me too. He's like, no, no, I think I'm in love with her. And then my friend said, yeah, deli counter, take a ticket. We're all in love with her. Isn't that beautiful?

But one of the things she said. Have you ever had feelings for a nun? Every nun I've ever met. I feel like I've had feelings for. That's a quote from Nacho Libre. Oh, yes. I want to watch that with my children. It's a beautiful movie. She said, and this gets back to that point of when we run from our shame,

we legitimize its claims against us. And I said to my wife wife because she's been dealing with a lot of suffering lately and i've seen my own impatience and oh just and the shame that comes with that you know it's just like what you probably don't need is a little bitch of a husband that's making it all about him um what you probably need is someone who's like strong and consistent and silent and loving and just that shame. I even said that to her. I'm like, I'm sorry.

Like, I'm sorry you didn't marry someone better. You really could have and you didn't. And I'm so sorry. And she's such a good woman, you know. She's like, honey, I've never thought that. I've never said that. But I'm just like so ashamed of my selfishness, my lust, all of that. And Sister Miriam would say that instead of shaming ourselves,

we should be more curious and gentle. So those things that we're so ashamed of, just be a little more curious about that and ask questions because you'll find. That beautifully summarizes, like with a word, puts its finger on what I'm trying to say about when we realize I'm causing these other people pain. Why am I causing these other people pain? Where does this come from in me?

That curiosity, I love it. It's a really good way. We have to be curious about where does this come from in me? And gently, she's so right, gently, and I would put it this way. I would say the same idea because you can't be gentle with yourself unless it's gentle jesus taking you on that journey yeah my spiritual director says christopher never journey in there without him he says go within with him never go in there by yourself there are creepy crawlies in there when we start turning up those rocks, right?

You turn up a rock, all those creepy things under there, or you dive deeply into the ocean, there's those strange creatures down there in the darkness that haven't seen the light. That's an image of our inner life. Don't go in there without him because you'll shame yourself more and you'll loathe yourself. If you go in there

with him and you start lifting those rocks, here's what happens. And this loops right back to the woman who cracked open that jar of nard. Nard. Why nard? If we know biblical typology and we hear this reference to nard, it should take us right back to the song of songs the bridegroom in the song of song says open to me my love my dove my perfect one open to me open to me you she says you are fragrant you smell of cinnamon you You smell of all these other spices, aromatic spices. And he says, you smell of nard, nard. Yeah, what is that? Nard, nard. It's one of those words that you keep saying it,

and you're like, that's not a bloody word. Nard, nard. Well, you in Australia say nard. I'm looking up Song of Songs too. Yeah, I learned this from Mikael Waldstein, a dear friend of mine and brilliant scholar, that, okay, I already knew this, that the Song of Songs is at the center of the Bible, right? The Bible begins with the marriage of man and woman, it ends with the marriage of Christ and

the Church, and right in the middle is this glorious erotic love poetry. But what I didn't know is that the very center, the very center of the Song of Songs is these two instances of the word nard. Huh. The very center of the Song of Songs, and if the Song of Songs is the center of the Bible, then the center of the Bible is right between these two words, nard, nard. That's the center of the Bible. All right., nard, nard. That's the center of the Bible. All right. So nard, nard. I think it's like, if I'm right here, it's like holy of holies. They didn't say it's very holy.

They say it's holy, holy. You wouldn't say he's really the king. He says he's the king of kings. He's the lord of lords, king, king. So nard, nard. It's like really nard. Oh, it says that. Yeah, it says nard, nard. Two instances of the word nard. Oh, king. So nard, nard. It's like really nard. Oh, it says that. Yeah, it says nard, nard.

Interesting. Two instances of the word nard. Oh, I see. Back to back, yeah. And this is the fragrance of the bride. This is the fragrance of the Lord's beloved. And he's saying, open to me, open to me, open to me. So what does the woman in the gospel do?

She opens the jar of nard and she pours it out all over Jesus. Spike nard, also called nard. And I'm ruining your story. It's quite all right. If you put one drop of spike nard on your wrist, you'll have a hard time washing off the fragrance and you'll smell it for a couple of days. Sheep poor, how much does the Bible say? Like a quart of it or something on his head. All of Holy Week, Jesus smelled of nard. What does he smell like? He smells like the bride. What's the Holy Week? The Eastern Church, well, you're Byzantine, right? No, well, I used to go for six years. I went to a Byzantine church, yeah. Well, do you remember what they call Holy Week? The Eastern Church, well, you're Byzantine, right? No, well, I used to go for six years.

I went to a Byzantine church, yeah. Do you remember what they call Holy Week? No, I forget. The Week of the Bridegroom. I didn't know that, yeah. The Week of the Bridegroom. Why? Because this is the week of consummation.

It all goes to Calvary, the marriage bed of the cross, as St. Augustine said. So he goes into the week smelling of the bride. Gosh, that's beautiful. The bride having opened up to him. And to me, this is an image, and not just to me, I mean, how many saints have commented on it, and how many biblical scholars will tell you the same thing. When she opens this jar, it's the symbol of the opening of her heart. And I think to myself, this is my own kind of self-loathing and self-condemnation and shame. Lord, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, I don't want to crack open the stone in my heart

because there'll be a stench, you know, like Lazarus. No, no, don't remove the stone. There'll be a stench. Smells like sewage in there. Smells like death in there. Yeah. But to the Lord, He already receives us, sees us, smells us, if you will, through the mystery of what He's done for us in His death and resurrection. Yeah, it's honest and right and true that when we crack open our sinfulness, our sinful, broken, wounded hearts and pour it out, it's going to smell bad.

It's going to smell like sewage. There's a, you know, if we're going to talk theology of the body, talk about the theology of all of it, because Jesus himself talks about the latrine and getting it out in the latrine, right? And that's an image of confession. Really, what are we doing in the confessional? We're getting our S-H-I-T out of us, right? But a lot of us, if you live that ruptured life, spiritual life over here, bury all that shameful stuff over there. Don't bring that out into the light. That's too scary. That's too painful,

and it ruins my impression of myself, and I'm'm no longer holy if i really looking at that you know what it is it's it's it's asking somebody to step out from the foothold they finally found on the mountain right like this over here is the okay i got something here I got something here. I got something here. And when you say, you know, go into the depths with our Lord, you're saying full. Like the one thing that has produced some order in your life, you're now asking me to let go of. It feels like death. It does.

And it's in this what Christ is telling us. Christ is saying, follow me. You have to die. You have to die. You have to die. And we keep spiritualizing this. I use that in the perverted sense of the word to remove the actual reality of our lives. It's like we're role-playing. Christianity sometimes can just become a role-play where it's like it doesn't actually hit you.

It just becomes this identity you assume to try to make sense of the world, but it can't because it hasn't yet penetrated to the core yet. It's on the periphery. I would sum all that up. And Adam, I think, did when he said, I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid myself. That fear is in each and every one of us. And that woman who cracked open that jar and poured it out over Jesus, she worked through that fear. And she said, I'm going to open it all. I'm

going to open it all. And it smells like death to us. It smells like sewage to us, but to Jesus, when we crack open all the... We're talking about our crap here, really, and it is the right image. It's the right image, because what else would you choose as an image for your sin? Yeah. Like, could you think of anything more foul? If you can, we would use that. Right. But it's not just, let me find some analogy, It's the theology of our bodies. Our bodies, those who, and this is a story of my own life. For years, you could put it this way, I was spiritually constipated. I was holding all that in because I thought if I brought it to the light, it would make me unlovable.

I'd have to finally admit that I am unlovable. Because as we were saying at the earlier part of our conversation, I spent a lot of my life wearing masks because I thought my messes or my crap made me unlovable. So you become spiritually constipated. You don't want that out in the light. It smells bad. Tighten. Tighten, exactly.

Freud was on to something when he talked about anal retention, right? He's seriously on to something when he talked about anal retention, right? He's seriously on to something. We are anally retentive here and are spiritualized because we think getting it out makes us unlovable. I think we talked about this on my last interview with you, like two years ago when I was on your show. I think we were talking about it. I think I have a memory of it. Oh, yeah. We were talking about...

Airport? No, no, we were talking... You were in the toilet, that one? No, not that one. We were talking about the commercials for that spray stuff in the bathroom. Yeah, you were saying you like it. I don't. No, I hate it.

Oh, clearly you should tell me the story again then. I hate those commercials. It's exactly the opposite. Because they play on all our fears that the smell of our feces makes us unlovable. Hide it, bury it, make it smell good. You know, what the point here, if I can circle back. To Elvis. No.

I will get to Elvis. I will. I haven't forgotten. Okay. And I'm pointing over here because I was saying when we live this split life and we're trying to be nice and clean and pretty and pious over here, but we're not looking at the real crap in our lives over here. We are spiritually constipated.

And the integrative journey is one of getting the constipated spiritual crap out of us. We get it out into the light where we discover we are loved right there. We're loved right there. I used to... Gosh, it's almost offensive. It feels offensive. Like, it's Peter. Get away from me.

Get away from me. I'm a sinful man. And can I just share one of my sort of reflections from the Song of Songs? I don't have my glasses here, but I have spent so much time with this, Get away from me. I'm a sinful man. And can I just share one of my sort of reflections from the Song of Songs? I don't have my glasses here. But I have spent so much time with this, and it has just blessed me tremendously. You have the beloved talking to the bride. That's you and I. And I have this image of the journey to holiness is the dove having finally the courage to remove its beak from the rocks

and to begin to turn to look at our Lord. And it's like our Lord says, arise, my love, my beautiful one. But before that, it's interesting when the Lord comes, behold, there he stands. And then the author of Scripture has three barriers that gradually lessen. At first, he's behind the wall. I can't see him. I can't hear him that well. Then there's the windows.

So if we think of a modern window, at least, I can see him, but there's still a barrier. That's good. And then there's the lattice. Yes. Oh. So there's now. Is this you?

This is my brilliance, Christopher. This is brilliant. This is rich. Yeah, yeah. There's a passageway now. I can see him and I can hear him. He's making his way toward me. And then he says beautiful things to me.

And in my experience of the spiritual life, when our Lord says beautiful things to me, I want to give him the finger. I want to swear at him. And when people don't understand what I mean by that, I think, are you even on the spiritual life? How is this novelty? Who has not had the experience of someone loving them at their core? And you've been so embarrassed. We don't know how to receive it. You want to tell them to piss off because it's too good and nothing can be this good.

But then he speaks beautiful words to you and me. In our shame and in our darkness, my love my beautiful one come away with me behold the winter is past the rain is over and gone the flowers appear on the earth the time of singing has come and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land um arise my love my beautiful one come come away. And I think sometimes, you know, that lovely line where he says, come, let us catch the foxes, the little foxes that are ruining the vineyard. I mean, this is just one thing that came to me one time I was praying with this,

that maybe, I'm sure this isn't exactly what the author meant, but for me, I think of the demons and the evil thoughts that ruin the vineyard. That is the image of the foxes. Absolutely. You're right on it. Let's catch those little bastards. Catch those. Yes.

Catch them. Because the field is the soul, which is meant to be an abundant field without weeds or thistles. Yes. And he says so lovely things. So I'm giving him the finger, right? And he says, let me hear your voice. Piss off. Your voice is sweet.

Go to hell. Your face is lovely. Catch the foxes for us. The little foxes that spoil the vineyard for our vineyard. Vineyards are in blossom. And then this is a beautiful thing. I would encourage people to pray this. If you're looking for something to repeat throughout the day,

so my kind of history in the Byzantine church led me to the Jesus prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. But if you go to Song of Songs, Chapter 2, Verse 16, My beloved is mine, I am his. That would be a lovely thing to breathe in. My beloved is mine, and I am his. Matt, you're on it. Brother, you're lovely thing to breathe in. My beloved is mine and I am his. Matt, you're on it. Brother, you're on it. Love that. Let's bring this around to Thomas Aquinas before we get back to Elvis.

Thomas Aquinas died in a Carthusian. No, not a Carthusian. Was it? He died in a monastery. And while he was dying, the monks asked him to narrate or dictate to them a commentary on the Song of Songs, which we don't have. Wouldn't that be great? I know. You know, the saints have written more commentaries on the Song of Songs than any other book in the Bible. I did not know that. No.

I think I heard that John of the Cross had it read to him as he was dying. Yes, he did. I'm wondering here, I'm making a connection with your insight about the three barriers. I'm wondering here, I'm making a connection with your insight about the three barriers. I wonder if there could be a parallel here with the purgative, the illuminative. Doctoral thesis. Seriously. Yeah.

I think you're really onto something. And I'd invite the listeners here to just ask the Lord, what are the barriers to this union in my life? Yeah. And what are they again, Matt, in the song? So we have the wall. The wall. The window. The window. And the lattice. And the lattice they again, Matt, in the song? So we have the wall, the window, and the lattice. He makes his way towards us. That's powerful. Yeah, it really is. The other thing I loved about this verse, Song of Songs 2, was when he talks about as an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among young men. And I thought to myself, like, prior to coming to Christ, I was fascinated by these large, loud, gigantic things, which couldn't feed me. And then in reference to the large, gigantic thing, the apple tree looks rather humble.

Yes. But it's the only bloody thing that can... Do you know the song, Christ the Appletree? No. Look up the lyrics. All right. This is brilliant. All right.

I use... When I teach my Theology of the Body Level 2 course, which is largely on the Song of Songs, I often use this song, Jesus Christ the Appletree, because it's taken right from the Song of Songs. Really? Oh, wow. Can you read some of the lyrics?

Yeah, let me find it here. right from the Song of Songs. Really? Oh, wow. Can you read some of the lyrics? Yeah, let me find it here. The tree of life my soul hath seen, laden with fruit and always green. The trees of nature fruitless be, compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel. By faith I know, but never can tell, the glory which I now can see in Jesus Christ the apple tree. Do you want to keep going? Keep going, keep going. For happiness I long have sought, and pleasure dearly I have bought. I missed of all, but now I see. Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

Pause right there. So there's someone who feels the passion, right? Feels the hunger, and is going in search of it. What can I, read that verse again, what can I seek? The happiness I long have sought and pleasure dearly I have bought. I missed of all, but now I see tis found in Christ the apple tree. I'm weary with my former toil. Here I will sit and rest a while.

Under the shadow I will be of Jesus Christ the apple tree. With great delight I'll make my stay. There's none shall fright my soul away. The sass, the sass of the Christian, giving the demons the finger. Among the sons of men I see there's none like Christ the apple tree. I'll sit and eat this fruit divine. It cheers my heart like spiritual wine. And now this fruit is sweet to me that grows on Christ the apple tree. One final stanza. The fruit doth make my soul to thrive. It keeps my dying faith alive, which makes my soul in haste to be with Jesus Christ the apple tree. That's beautiful.

That's the search. We take it to all the wrong places, or let me put it this way, that's not even the right way to say it. We idolize the things that the Lord has created to lead us to him. We think the shadows of our satisfaction are our satisfaction. Who created all the pleasures of the world? God. God. They're his. They belong to him. Why did he create all these pleasures? Why did he give us taste buds? He created all these pleasures as so many glorious icons that are meant to be windows that open us to heaven. But we, because we don't really believe in the gift that God wants to give

us, we think the icons are what we're looking for. We think that little taste of heaven, that little glimmer, is the real satisfaction. And so we latch on and we cling to it, and the icon becomes an idol. And when the icon becomes an idol, we could say it conceals rather than reveals the divine. Yeah. That's interesting because if you think of the distinction of pornography and iconography,

pornography conceals what ought to be revealed and icons reveal. Icons reveal. And why, throughout history, why is sex one of the number one idols? Because it's the closest you'll get. Because it's the number one icon in the Bible. In the Bible, the union of man and woman is the number one icon of the covenant love of God with humanity. Whenever God establishes a covenant with his people, there's always the call to be fruitful and multiply because that's the main icon of the covenant between heaven and earth. The enemy knows darn well the theology of our bodies.

He knows darn well that the union of man and woman is the main icon. And that's why we go after the distortion and so that it conceals rather than reveals the divine mystery. What does Paul tell us in Ephesians 5? He says the one flesh union is a mega mystery, a great mystery, and it refers to Christ and the church. It refers to the covenant between heaven and earth, the marriage of heaven and earth.

Tell people about the baldachino. Is that how you pronounce it? The baldachino? Yeah, because this is what we're talking about. Yeah, over the altar? Yeah, St. Peter's and other churches. Yeah, so the big kind of drapery that's usually sculpted over an altar, that's the canopy over the marriage bed.

Because what does baldachino mean? I don't know what the word baldachino means. But it's what's above a bed. You see a four-post bed with a canopy over the marriage bed. Because what does baldacchino mean? I don't know what the word baldacchino means. But it's what's above a bed. You see a four-post bed with a canopy over the top. That's the baldacchino. So it's here that we become one flesh with the bridegroom. The church has always understood that the Eucharist is the consummation of the marriage between Christ and the church. And that's why only a man can be a priest.

You need the bridegroom and you need the bride. That's why he trains at a seminary, because he gives the seed. This is where the gender difference matters, right? Sperm and egg, that's where it matters. If a woman were to attempt to confer the Eucharist, the relationship is now bride to bride, and there's no possibility of a holy communion, and there's no possibility of new life. Jesus himself bases entrance into the kingdom on the mystery of generation. Nicodemus,

you cannot enter the kingdom unless you are regenerated, born again. And nicodemus is all confused what what and he says you're a teacher of israel and you don't get this you don't know how many times i want to say that to the teachers of catholicism you're a teacher of catholicism and you don't get this get what jesus says to nicodemus nicodemus if you don't understand the natural reality of generation, how are you going to understand the heavenly supernatural reality of regeneration? You've got to understand the natural reality to understand the supernatural reality. Why? Because grace perfects nature.

Grace perfects nature. Why is the enemy after the natural reality of gender and generation? Because he's after the supernatural reality. If he skews the natural reality, if we don't understand the natural reality, we're not going to understand the supernatural reality. That's what the sexual revolution was all about. And that brings us back to... Final lap. Elvis, which is the first lap, I would say. Yeah, right. And then how did we get from Elvis and Hugh Hefner to where we are today? Can we talk about that?

Yeah. So let me say a few more things about Elvis and why I've been on this Elvis trip. So with one little twitch of his lip, one little twitch of his shoulder, this power goes out for Elvis, and he awakens the passions of a generation. And those passions had been repressed. That's, you know, a hundred years ago, the sight of a woman's ankle could cause scandal. The sexual revolution is like an explosion of that approach, right?

We repress, we press down. John Paul II says it himself in Love and Responsibility. If your approach to purity is to press down into the subconscious all of your sexual desires and reactions, it's only a matter of time before it comes up. And that's what the sexual revolution was. That's who Elvis was. I'm not holding this in anymore. was. It was, that's who Elvis was. I'm not holding this in anymore. I got this fire in me. I'm a hunk, hunk of burning love and it's coming out. Right. But when he released those passions, you could say they stayed horizontal. And if we just direct those passions horizontally, where do you end up? You end up backstage in all the Elvis debauchery of what happened after a show

where women idolized Elvis. Elvis awakened their passions and they thought Elvis could also satisfy them. And this is where we get it wrong. The things God has created. Who created Elvis? God. God. God created Elvis. Elvis is meant to be be as we all are icons of the divine he's made in the image and likeness of god icons can and are meant to awaken our passions for the divine but icons cannot satisfy our passions as i say. As they say in the East, right, they're windows to heaven. Windows to heaven. Yeah, no Catholic has ever stopped at an icon and went, no, this is actually it.

If you stop at the wood and paint of an icon and think this is it, now it's an idol. Yeah, and you're an idiot, yeah. Let's look at Elvis as an icon, right? He awakened people's passions. If you take your passions back to Elvis backstage, which happened all the time in all kinds of debauchery if you watch the documentaries it was horrible horrible what where that idolatry led and it always happens idolatry first leads to debauchery

and then debauchery leads to a despising of our sexuality. And we could say it this way, you will always, or eventually, you will despise whatever you idolize because the idol, you think at first, it will satisfy you. So you go to it. And it does give us some semblance of satisfaction, otherwise we wouldn't go to them. But it cannot satisfy what it has awakened, because what it has awakened is a passion for infinite joy, infinite fulfillment. Christianity holds out precisely this promise,

that there is a banquet. If this is real, we we got to tell the world. There's a banquet that really corresponds to the hunger. Matt, if that's real, we have to do what Jesus said, which was go into the main streets and tell everybody to starve to death. That's not what he said. He's going to the main streets and invite everyone to the wedding feast. We could put it this way. Okay, if Elvis is the king, there's one greater than Elvis here now. there's one greater than Elvis here now. He's the king of kings, right? If Elvis awakened your passions but could not satisfy them,

the king of kings, if the king can awaken your passions but not satisfy them, the king of kings can awaken your passions and satisfy them. And he does so with his body. He does so with his body. Elvis set off a revolution because of the power that went out from his body. But think of the power that went out from Jesus's body. Think of the woman who reached out to touch him with the hemorrhage, right? If I just touch him, if I just touch him, I'll be healed. Power went out of him. Power went out of him. Somebody touched me.

What do you mean somebody touched you? There's a hundred people crowding all around you. They're all touching you. No, no. Power went out from my body. And we don't tend to think of this because we don't like to because we're afraid because it's too intimate. It gets too close. But where was she bleeding? She was bleeding in her womb.

Power went out from his body into what part of her body? Into her womb. Into her womb. into her womb. There's a kind of mystical nuptials taking place here. Virginal, mystical nuptials. Power from the bridegroom's body went into her womb. And it says that she had suffered greatly at the hands, it says, at the hands of many physicians, many doctors.

And we can read into that maybe a bit and imagine what kind of abuse might she have been receiving at the hands of these men. We don't know for sure, but we have permission in reading Scripture to bring our own issues into it. And if there's women out there who have had men's hands cause them great, great pain in their most intimate places, this is a story of profound healing for those who have suffered at the hands of men. And look how intimate it is.

This is that tender touch of the bridegroom. This is where, if we just live that ruptured spirituality, we think this whole even meditation that I'm offering is impious or something. No, no, no. This is the healing our real humanity needs when we don't allow our real wounded places to be touched by the Lord. Our real wounded places to be touched by the Lord. Then all we have is a pious mask to wear, and we keep our real wounds hidden. And we remain in that place, I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.

I would say the journey of the interior life, the purgative, the illuminative, the unitive, must become for all of us. And I know how difficult it is and scary it is. And if there are people out there listening who feel in any way that I'm scolding or shaming, I am not. I'm inviting. I want to invite those who've lived this ruptured life, spiritual life over here, shameful stuff over here.

over here, shameful stuff over here. I want to invite them to trust in the Lord's perfect love and to know that that perfect love casts out that fear and that the journey of the interior life is precisely the reversal of that fear. It's a transformation from, I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. It becomes, and this is what I learned from Albicetti, really. I was at peace because I knew he loved me, so I exposed myself. I exposed myself to his love I poured it all out and it may have smelled like shi-t to me but it smells like glorious nard to him and I

believe we're at the last lap of the sexual revolution because we are now despising the body in this new wave of genital mutilation. Inevitably we will despise what we idolize. The sexual revolution began with Elvis and Hugh Hefner and many others in the 50s and 60s with an idolizing of the body, saying, this is what you want, this is what you want, this is what you want. And I get it. I get it. Here's my metaphor, my working metaphor, is when Christianity is presented as a starvation diet,

your desires are bad, you need to repress all that, just follow these rules. Well, inevitably, we're going individually and collectively, by and large, people will become converts to what I call the fast food gospel, which is the secular culture's promise of immediate gratification for your hunger. And don't lie to me, those chicken nuggets and Big Macs taste really good going down, to me those chicken nuggets and big macs taste really good going down especially when you're really hungry yeah but eventually that's your diet it's going to cause you a lot of grief you're going to not be healthy you're going to be sick in fact you're going to your body's going to start to shut down and you're going to start to despise what you've idolized okay we've idolized sex we've idolized the body We've idolized the body.

We've idolized masculinity and femininity. We hate it because it couldn't give us what we thought it would. Exactly. Say that loudly again. Say it again. We hate it because it wouldn't give us what we thought it would, what we thought it promised it would, because it could never give us because it wasn't God.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And that's what's being writ large. Far out, yeah. Men are going under the knife because they hate their testicles. They hate their testicles. It is all out hatred of their bodies.

And they're mutilating. And I'm not saying this to scold or shame. I'm saying it with profound compassion. They are suffering. They are suffering. They are suffering. When we lose sight of what Scripture calls the great mystery of our sexuality, it inevitably becomes a great misery. And that's where we are right now.

But here's the good news. Here's the good news. Our God is rich in misericordia mercy misericordia latin for mercy it means a heart core dia that gives itself to those in misery beautiful and this is i believe on this last lap of the sexual revolution, it's going to get worse. I think what's coming next, and it's already here, is if I can become a woman, well, what if I want to be a cougar? What if I want to be a lion?

You know, I think even people are starting to add the word F, or not the word, but the letter F to the LGBTQ acronym. Sometimes you see F, and I think if I'm right, it stands for furry or fur or something. We are transmutating now into other species, trans-speciesism, if you will. Which will lead us either to dehumanize humans or to elevate animals or both. Because if you're now a dog and I can keep you on a leash and walk you around yes if i shouldn't be doing that then either i should be able to do that because you are a dog or i shouldn't be doing that to a dog that's actually a dog correct yeah it's got to get freaking awful i have no hope that's going to get better when you say last do you really have

no hope i have no hope yeah i think well i i want to press into that yeah i think america is going to just totally self-destruct well if there's no coming back from this i think well i i want to press into that yeah i think america is going to just totally self-destruct well if there's no coming back from this i think there's um there'll be a remnant saved and i think when you say last lap i think what you might mean is there's now going to be a willingness to to to hear the truth about our human sexuality that may not have been in the past and a true repentance that many will will undergo but there will be a significant, I think the majority of people will continue to go down this thing and the whole thing's going to fall apart. Absolutely. I think you're right there. If it takes its natural course, the end result...

And I don't just mean natural, I'm incorporating grace into this. I think that the grace of God is pouring out and people are waking up and healing and are becoming missionaries in a true sense to a pagan culture. But I think, I mean, it's funny. We went from a pagan culture to a Christian culture in Augustine's day, and now we're kind of doing the reverse. I think for those who didn't know Christ and then came to know him, that's one thing. But when a culture knew Christ and then rejected him, it's going to be far worse. Yeah, I think you're onto it. We're not just living in an unchristian.

We're living in a post-christian world. And that's far worse than an unchristian world. It doesn't deserve to exist. It may because of God's mercy, but America doesn't. When you're paying male prisoners in penitentiaries

to have sex operations with taxpayer dollars, that's just not a country that deserves to exist. Is that a shit thing to say? It's a bit of a shit thing to say. But maybe I'm just trying to say it to get to it. The real situation needs to be spoken. And it is. We are headed for destruction.

How the hell do we keep hope during this? Here's what I want to do. I want to take a three-minute break so you and I can urinate. Not together, unless you want it. And then we'll come back and we'll talk about how we can continue to live these Christian lives in a post-Christian world. Yeah, sounds good. Cool. We'll see you next time. Thank you. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. so yeah i love doing long chats It's just so much fun. It's like the exact opposite of what we did 10, 20 years ago on EWTN shows. It was like, give me a soundbite. But I just cannot sit still for three hours without taking a piss.

I was talking to my colleague, Jason Clark, yesterday, and he was listening to a Jordan Peterson podcast in which Jordan Peterson said these long conversations are the antidote to the current climate in the media. Yeah. And it gives people a chance to actually hear an extended human conversation where you can be vulnerable and you get to know a little bit better the people who are talking, whereas politicians who just do their soundbites, they often, in fact, they have been invited onto Jordan Peterson's long conversations,

and a lot of them refuse because they don't want to be that vulnerable. They don't want to have their real humanity exposed. So it's a gift. What a gift we have to be able to do this and to have the technology and that people even care. I mean, I don't know how many people watch all of this. Maybe we'll just listen to a little bit of it, but I don't care. Matt, I just enjoy being with you. You're a good man. I love it too. If no one watched this. In fact, no one is watching this. Joseph isn't even running the cameras. I kind of feel like nobody's watching it anyway because we're just having a good old conversation. Can you just drive to Steubenville and chat with me?

That just felt... I'm going to ask you to do something weird. I think my coffee's ready. I want to get it. Do you want to get it? Do you want to get it? Yeah. I just made Christopher Wesker get my coffee.

Is it there? If it's not, press the button and then we'll start. Hey, and in the meantime, I'm going to do an ad read. So we're all good, Christopher. The top one. G'day guys. How are you? So if you are single and you feel like you might be being called to marriage, please go check out catholicchemistry.com. A friend of mine, Chuck Gallucci started this a few years back because he himself was single and longed for a Catholic dating site in which the people who were on that platform took their Catholic faith very, very seriously. CatholicChemistry.com is where you want to go. There is a link in the description below. Be sure you click that link as opposed

to just typing it into the URL, and that way they will know that we sent you and they will like us more because we drove traffic towards them. Catholicchemistry.com. It's not working, is it? I pushed your button, but it's not. All right. You talk to them. I'm going to go get it. I talked to them. What am I going to say? Do I just look? Hey, everybody, we are live on YouTube and Matt Fradd is getting his coffee and I'm just hanging out here in the studio. Fred is getting his coffee and I'm just hanging out here in the studio So it's kind of fun for me to be here because of course I've seen his show and the last time I was on a show I was in his other studio Where Matt where were you when I was on your Atlanta, right?

So when was that that I was the last on your show? Two or three years ago. I'm sure it's still on YouTube right they can find it Two or three years ago. I'm sure it's still on YouTube, right? They can find it. I'm embarrassed about it. Embarrassed about what? That interview. Matt says he's embarrassed about that interview. Why are you... I cut you off all the time. You know, I do remember that, but I didn't take it personally or anything.

I'll tell you why I did it in a second. I thought it was a decent conversation. Is this getting awkward for you then? Yeah, it's getting a little awkward. Are you coming? Yes, come on. These people who are addicted to their caffeine, come on. Oh, man.

So close. I'm sorry, Christopher, you don't need this shit. This is the most casual YouTube channel I've ever participated in. Isn't it better when it's casual? Yeah, I like it. This is one of the reasons I wanted the studio to look so cool. I wanted it to feel... I don't know if you remember the place we did the chat in.

I do remember. It was very sterile. We had a little setup, but after that... This is home here. This feels more human. Those tiles on the roof that no one can see predate... I don't know when they're... 1914, I think that's when. Wow. Pre-date, I don't know when they're, 1914?

Wow, cool. Anyway, forget my coffee. I don't even give a crap. I don't even want the coffee. I don't believe you. Here's why I cut you off, though. Did I ever tell you this? I feel bad about it.

No, I don't know. But I don't think you'll be offended by it. Because I talk too much. Well, it's not... I just go... No, I think what it is is you have been thinking and speaking about the theology of the body for decades. So when somebody has a question like, hey, what's the theology of the body?

You've got all this gold that you've stored up, which is why I'm so glad on your YouTube channel you're now dissecting these into clips. It's like the Lord's been preparing you for this moment. Most people have to study for the nearest next YouTube video they're going to do. I could speak literally about a thousand things. And I had heard you on Catching foxes a couple of weeks before, and I did think you spoke too much. Um, and, and, and I wanted to break you out of talking points. That's what I know. And so rather than just saying, Hey, Christopher, I would rather this be a conversation. Um, and so I'd love us to stay away from

like talking points. Not that they're not sincere yeah yeah I have the same thing right I call it my files I have these files in my brain I can reach into a file and just but instead of saying that to you I was just like kept like derailing I felt like such an idiot but anyway speaking of criticism right like yeah yeah yeah now you're right like I totally did I'm sorry yeah so anyway quite, brother. I have actually gotten a habit when I'm doing an interview, and I should have said it to you before we started, that I know that I get on roles, and I can just go on and on and on and on,

and other people feel like they can't get a word in edgewise. So if you ever feel like you're not... No, I feel very comfortable with you. I'm happy to cut you off. You have a lot of good things to say, though, you know? That's all right. All right. Well, this is fantastic. Should we...

Oh, we need to talk about hope. Yes, we do. Because I don't believe that you're hopeless. Yeah, maybe I'm not, but here's a... You wouldn't be who you are if you were hopeless. I mean, maybe you struggle with hope. Maybe I think... I think I'm being real, and that sounds a lot like hopelessness.

Okay, realistic is different than hopeless. Yeah, and I think that's probably what I mean. You know, it's funny. I was giving a talk at this Legatus conference in Austin recently, and somebody came up and asked me about the music industry and how we might be able to reform it. I mean, we can't reform it. Everything's on fire.

Just save your children from being exposed to it. It's ridiculous. And as I was leaving, you'll like this, as she was leaving, she touched my arm and said, I want you to know I'm going to pray for you that you'll have hope. And I went, thank you. I realized, yeah, like there's that hopelessness. It's almost kind of become addictive where you just sort of say,

yeah, screw it. Because screw it, saying screw it is easier than how do we navigate this like joyful Christians ought. That's hard. Becoming part of the woke elite or everything's on fire effort, that's kind of easier. But how do I navigate this so that I'm wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove? That's hard work. Yeah, I struggle with that

as anybody does. I can be really pessimistic about what's going on, not just in the world, but in the church. It's dark. It's dark in the church. And people like you and me who've done a lot of traveling, spoken for a lot of dioceses, been at a lot of conferences, met a lot of people around

the world, you start to see the underbelly of the church, and what you see that is on the outside is bad, but when you start to get into the underbelly and see what's going on in parishes and chanceries, it's... A lot of it's coming to the light, right? The underbelly is... It's coming out, but it's not pretty, but it's still his church, and I think the church at large is going through the same kind of lesson that we've been talking about here for how long have we been talking like two hours already whatever it's been we've been what have we been talking about we've been talking about bringing our crap out into the light that's what's happening and that this is how we heal And there has been a culture in the church, no doubt of bury the crap because we're the church.

And I think the church at large. Yeah. It's almost like us personified, right? It's like the church at large. I believe. The problem with the church is the problem with me. I keep hiding my stuff instead of dealing with it maybe. Yes.

And we see that all over in the church is the problem with me. I keep hiding my stuff instead of dealing with it, maybe. Yes, and we see that all over in the church. And so I would say it is a mercy of God to have the darkness, the blackness, the shame that has been buried and hidden and not looked at in the church to come out into the light. That is a grace and a mercy. And we can foster that in the church to come out into the light. That is a grace and a mercy. And we can foster that in the church. I'd even say the way we can help the church heal, well, the church is made up of her members. We have to, instead of just being mad at all those people who don't bring, you know, have buried all their crap and scandal this and scandal that, and there's a place to be mad, there's a place for righteous anger there's a place for calling to justice i'm all that's fine and good i'm for it

but let's not be too quick to just say the problem is over there yeah oh it's yeah let's be let's be willing to look at the problem that's right here it It's addictive, isn't it, to point out the flaws in other people? Yes. It makes us feel better about ourselves. It's so obviously childish, and yet I continue falling into it. See, I nearly said we, because that feels better. But I continually fall into it, you know? It's like, it's hard stuff.

There is an opportunity, I would say, at this moment in the Church's history for the bride who has been, who's covered in blemishes, to bring her blemishes out into the healing light so that she might become without blemish, without spot, without wrinkle. This is the trajectory. I mean, this is where it goes. Between here and the beatific vision, if we are to participate in it, all of our S-H-I-T, every variety of it has to come out into the light. Years ago, I had a little bit, a bit that I did in my talks where I would quote this survey from kids.

Yes. I know what you're going to say. Oh, you do? I think I've even stolen it from you and used it in my own talks about what is love. Yeah, what is love? And these are like kids in kindergarten or whatever. And some of the responses were like, love is when a guy wears cologne and a girl wears perfume and they go out and smell each other. So good.

Or love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt and then he wears it every day. But my favorite one was love is when mommy sees daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross. Spot on. And it's funny, but it's also quite profound. It is. This is, I mean, I don't know. I just know, I'll speak for myself.

I need to know I'm loved right there. I need to know I'm loved in my smelliest places. I need to know it. We all do. We all do. And that's why I hate those commercials about... Poopery. Yeah, poopery, cover up the smell.

Because it's basically saying you're not lovable there. Cover it up, cover it up, cover it up. No, I say get it out, get it out, get it out. And learn the hard way. And it's scary as all get out to... Because if you're programmed to think, if my smell is out there, I'm unlovable, it's scary as all get out to endure getting it out there, to get it out there.

And okay, am I loved? Am I loved? But how liberating in as much as we discover, guess what? We are. Here's a question for you that I'm actually interested in. Somebody who has younger children, you know, raising them in a post-Christian society, it seems like you have two obvious opposite and negative extremes. You know, the one is just, don't worry about it.

Kids, they'll be fine and give them an iPad and let them do whatever they want and send them to public schools and things like this. Whereas on the other hand, and I know some public schools may differ, but whereas on the other hand, you have this sort of, I can see people. Do you want to pull that plug for me, actually? Yeah, because we don't need that sound. I shouldn't have smoked a cigar. That was my fault. You can see maybe you've experienced parents parenting their children, and they appear in a defensive crouch against society at all times.

There's a sort of, yeah. What was that like for you, raising children in this society? I mean, things have changed so much and so drastically since I was a kid in the 70s teenager in the 80s uh it's a it's a drastically different world and I thank God I am not a kid or a teenager in this current world because I would be a goner yeah uh yeah I as a, as a kid, I had to, I had to seek out porn. You had to find it at the neighbor's house or in a dark alley or whatever. But now porn is after our children. It's comes after, it comes after them. It's seeking them out. Yeah. I would have been a goner. So thank you, God, I'm not growing up in this world.

But see if you can articulate for me what I was trying to say there about those kind of two opposite extremes. I mean, I think we all get the first one, but sometimes it feels like just being a helicopter parent in a Catholic sense is the only way to see to it that they... It's not Catholic. It is not Catholic to be that. And here's what I mean by that. Is the secular world depraved? Yes, it is. Is it utterly depraved? No, it is not.

Why do we know it's not utterly depraved? Because utter depravity is an ontological impossibility. Speaking of Thomas Aquinas. Exactly. How do we know it's not utterly depraved? Because the devil doesn't have his. Exactly. Yeah. How do we know it's not utterly depraved? Because the devil doesn't have his own clay. Yeah. That's why in the Dei Mala, Aquinas has this work on evil. And one of the questions is, is evil always in good? And the answer is, yes, of course. It can't not be.

Evil is the distortion or the privation of a good. Yeah. So what is the good that has been deprived? Or what is the good that has been deprived or what is the good that has been distorted? You know, I have one of my adult children right here getting a coffee. I don't know what he's doing. Is he getting my coffee or is he getting himself a coffee? There's no coffee. There's none. I'm looking through all your cabinets. Oh man, you can go down to Leonardo's. That wasn't a joke, but okay. He we... He laughed at that. Maybe Thomas. Thomas, you want to come on camera here? Okay.

All right. So this is my son, Thomas, 21 years old. Can you see him there? You might want to crouch down, see a head level. Love him dearly. And I have two adult children. John Paul is 23. Thomas is 21.

And these were my guinea pigs for all my parental theories you did all right thank you you're welcome i thought you did a you did a really good job i mean but we've had our we've had our conversations as as an adult you know it's it's really fun to have adult children yeah it's really fun to enter into adult conversations with my own, with the fruit of my loins, to quote the scriptures. And we're done. No, but the point, I mean, I have learned a lot from my adult children, and my next in line is 17, Beth, and I'm beginning those conversations with her where I am getting reflected back to me where some of my theories didn't necessarily prove so helpful.

So I'm still learning. We have two younger ones, a 14 and a 12-year-old. So we go from 23 down to 12, five children, three boys, two girls. And I went into parenting 23 years ago basically thinking, I'm just going to look at where I think my parents got it wrong. That's what we all do. And do it the opposite. Like for me, I think my litmus test, and I'm only now realizing this,

is my kids can't see porn. Because that was the number one trauma in my life as a kid that's wrought so much damage in my life yeah yeah so it's i haven't recognized it but it's almost like this if i can prevent my kids from seeing porn for as long as possible well i can yell at my kids and be upset with their messes and and be too strict on them and that's fine but it you know, you know, I think we all do that. We look at the trauma of our childhood and try to reverse it. I'll tell you a story of my son Isaac. He's now 14.

This was probably a year and a half ago. And I have had this, oh, God, please spare my kids exposure to porn. Please, please, please, I beg you, God, spare my kids exposure to porn. And Isaac is on the computer a lot for school he's also a musician he does a lot of music on the computer and I've just worried something's gonna pop up or whatever and he came to me one time this is a year and a half ago or so and he was crestfallen and he was confessing to me like he was scared that I had created such this atmosphere of fear of how bad it could be

if you got exposed to what's really going on on the Internet, which isn't entirely wrong to create a little bit of that. But I said, Isaac, let me give you an analogy. But it's like there are landmines outside planted in the ground and I'm trying to make sure you don't step on them because if you step on it it's going to blow your leg off and he said to me kind of tearing up a little bit I said but but you've made it so I'm almost afraid to go outside at all. And I was like, oh.

Like there's the, so something was off, right? I don't want him to, there's so much good that can happen. The honesty of kids. Yeah, the honesty of his heart. He just laid it out there. And I realized, oh, man, I got that one wrong. So I needed to adjust my approach, you know, to help guide him to benefit from the good that's online, but also beware, there are indeed landmines that can blow your leg off, and you need to be aware and be careful. I don't know if this is true of parents today in a way that it wasn't

of our parents, but it feels like we are a lot less merciful with ourselves, you know, like, you know, you talked about kind of getting upset with with ourselves. You know, like, you know, you talked about kind of getting upset with your kids with the mess, and I did too. And then it kind of haunts you all day, you know, and you kind of beat yourself up for it. I don't know if my parents did that. Maybe they did.

No, you know, I can hear you. We're just so afraid. There's like this fear in all of us, and not just Catholics, but secular parents as well, like got to do this right, damn it. This kind of perfectionism that leads to this rigidity. Yeah, I have that for sure, Matt. It was maybe a month ago. Somebody had let the dog out in the morning. Isaac was up early and he let the dog out. And then the dog barks at the door and wakes me up. And I'm like, rig them, frig them, rig them. Nobody's getting the dog. And I headed over and I let Isaac have it.

And I woke up other people who were sleeping because I let Isaac have it for not letting the dog in the house. And I beat myself up all day long for doing that. And then I think it was Beth who said, she came to me. She said, please don't beat yourself up for that. Your daughter? Yeah. How did she know you were doing that?

Because she knows me. Yeah, my kids are like that. I don't even know that I'm stressed. Sometimes the way I know that I'm stressed is my daughter is now massaging my shoulder. Oh, I guess I am. Yeah, she knows me like that. Yeah, gosh. So she said that to you.

Don't beat yourself up. Don't beat yourself up don't beat yourself up yeah and i i did apologize to i think i apologized to her because i had wait what i had awakened her i had woken her up whatever yeah because i was screaming right next to her bedroom door yeah get the freaking dog up your honesty is so beautiful and so appreciated. It's hard to be honest. It's hard to be honest online because everybody is very critical, especially on YouTube. And the temptation is, well, I'm not going to say that I ever shouted at my kid because then God knows what they'll say.

And so then nobody admits to ever shouting at their kid. And so then when you do shout at your kid, you're under the impression that nobody who is decent would ever accidentally or on purpose do that and it just makes you feel even more alone and isolated and therefore angry the people i really appreciate well thanks brother i i i i have taken this approach in my work to be honest because i know the people who have blessed me the most have been the ones who have been most honest yeah most real and sometimes I maybe say things in a podcast that I think Wendy should I have said that that was a

little too that's good though right like that's a sign that you're that real things are being said yeah and and maybe it's objectively true that you shouldn't have said it but the fact that it's slipping out accidentally and it shows that you're trying to encapsulate something and encapsulate something and and convey something afresh you're not just sticking to the the old words and ways of speaking that would make it safe, you know. Just the other day, this has got me in trouble, you know, the honesty thing. I just tend to be honest. A dear friend who's been a friend of Wendy's and mine for 25 years, she's married to Jason Clark, who is the executive director of the Theology of the Body Institute. We've been in ministry for a long time together.

He and I and his wife, we go back a long ways. And I was talking to Jeanette after Mass the other day. And even as I say, am I going to tell this story on YouTube Live? Is this too much? Well, okay, you're just inviting me to be honest. It's just an example of it. So I saw her, she's talking to me, I'm like, seeing her face is reminding me of something. Oh yeah. I had a dream about her last night and it was a, it was a dream where, you know, you don't want to necessarily broadcast to the world the strange dreams you have. And I had a strange dream about her. And all of a sudden I realized I'm telling her the strange dream I had about her last night. It was not a sexual dream or anything, but it was just weird.

Yeah. It was a weird, awkward, not something you would necessarily. And I found myself, oh, crap. These words are now coming out of my mouth and I can't pull them back. I'm going to wrap this up somehow. It's weird that I'm telling you what my dream about you was last night. And then I had to go tell Wendy that I had told Jeanette the strange dream I had. And then I had to go tell Jason that I told his wife this weird dream I had about his wife the other night because it was just awkward and strange and weird.

And that was also awkward and strange and weird that I just told you and all these viewers. No, it's not at all. You know what it is? It's like I think you have the material to be a good comic. I think a good comic is able to articulate their experience. And usually it's really funny because we never knew other people experienced that. Yes, yes. And I think this is probably why a lot of comics,

you talk about having depression and feeling alone and awkward and isolated and not very good at social interactions. I think it's because we find ourselves alone in these experiences and they're bizarre and awkward and we have awkward encounters regularly. But what happens though is when you say it, that's why they're funny. Everyone laughs because it's like, you're not that special. You're not in the sense that you're not original. They're just putting in words what nobody else is putting in words. And that's what makes us laugh. And I do.

I study comics. Yeah. I have gained in terms of. Who's your favorite comic? Mine's Norm MacDonald. Oh, yeah. I like Norm MacDonald. He is outrageously funny.

If I looked back at the span of my life, I'd say for the last 10 years, I've really enjoyed Brian Regan. Yeah. But if I look back at the whole span, I love Martin Short. I don't even know who that is. Martin Short. I'm sorry. You don't know who Martin Short is?

Saturday Night Live in the 80s? I mean, I grew up in Australia in the 80s as a kid. Ed Grimley. You don't remember Ed Grimley on Saturday Night Live? He was kind of Norm MacDonald, a little before Norm MacDonald on Saturday Night Live. Do you know his character, Jiminy Glick? See, I didn't even watch Saturday Night Live. Even now, I have no experience with Saturday Night Live. People tell me about it. They tell me? See, I didn't even watch Saturday... Even now, I have no experience

of Saturday Night Live. People tell me about it. They tell me that Will Ferrell was on it, that Alex Sandler was on it, but I've never really watched Saturday Night Live in my life. Look up... Jiminy Glick was not a Saturday Night Live character. He was later. And I only discovered Jiminy Glick recently. So Martin Short puts on this fat suit.

Oh, I know who you mean. He does those very awkward interviews. Yes, exactly. That's Jiminy Glick. Yeah, he's very funny. My brother, I know who you mean. He does those very awkward interviews. Yes, exactly. That's Jiminy Glick. Yeah, he's very funny. I have been, my brother, Nathan, who has quite a great sense of humor, makes the whole family laugh.

I'll tell a quick story about my brother, Nathan. Okay. He was four years old, three years old maybe, and had fallen asleep in the car. And my mom went through a drive-thru and not a drive-thru a car wash drive-thru car wash and so it had been a bright sunny

day now he wakes up and all this turbulent brushes and water spraying on the car and he wakes up and imitates the cowardly lion from from The Wizard of Oz and says mighty unusual weather we're having, ain't it? And that's just like three years old. And he has had this sense of humor that just makes us all crack up. That's wonderful, yeah. So he turned me on to Jiminy Glick recently, and I have been on a Jiminy Glick, what's the word?

Binge, thank you. Gliminy. Gliminy Jiminy Glick kick. Jiminy Glick kick, yes. And I like, he does some slapstick stuff, like falling out of his chair and shoving donuts in his face that I don't like so much.

But the way he reads the person he's interviewing, so he's doing a spoof of a late night talk show. Yeah. And he has all the celebrities on. Yeah, he had Jerry, I saw the one he did with Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah, it was brilliant. And I thought that it was a real interview the first time I saw this.

And so Jerry's being vicious to him. Right, right. And it was very uncomfortable. Actually, I'm not sure if Jerry was joking or not because it was pretty bad. The way he reads people and then comes at what he's reading from them from this angle. Yeah. And he incorporates everything into what he's reading from them from this angle. And he incorporates everything into what he's doing. I have learned as a public presenter that to retain,

it's not easy to retain, if you have 500 people in front of you for a six-hour seminar, which sometimes I have, to retain their attention for a Saturday, you have to know how to work an audience. For sure. And I have learned so much from musicians and comedians on how they work an audience.

But see, you had it before you learned it from them. Because if somebody has to go to them to learn how to do it, they shouldn't be up on stage. That's true. I had the inclination. I had a gift there that I didn't even know I had. But I've been a movie buff since I was a little kid and a music buff and a comedian buff.

So I had absorbed, without even knowing it, I had absorbed what they do. You know who I love as a comedian, who I know I probably shouldn't love because much of it is inappropriate, is Larry David. I don't know who Larry David is. Oh, gosh, you know who Larry David is?

What? Joseph. Doesn't matter. Let's go on to another subject. Larry David is the co-creator of Seinfeld. Oh. And he has a show called Curb Your Enthusiasm. And don't get me wrong, much of it is depraved and right.

And how you would live if atheism were true and you knew that. But. A lot of it's about awkward social interactions, which is what I like the most. So one example is, you know, he's waiting in line for an ice cream and the lady's there, I'll have it, I'll try some of that.

And I'll try some. He's like, oh, for God's sake, how many, this poor woman is working here. And yeah, how many samples do you need to get? And you get three tops, three tops, you know, something like that. And I just love those awkward interactions because that's how I commonly feel.

Have you, how have you... What would I have to do to get your son to go get us two coffees from Leonardo's? I'll give you a tip. No, you have to plug the YouTube channel. I would do it right now while you go get us two coffees. I don't need one.

I don't need one, but this man needs one. Good, that way it's not just Matt Fradd making someone go and get a coffee. Speaking of asshole Catholic celebrities. Matt Fradd. Can I pay you back? I don't have any money on me. For sure. Just a large black Steuben brew would be the shiznitz.

Thank you so much. Do I need anything to get back in the building? Nope. Just come up to level seven. The doors are open. Yep. Thanks, man. Yep.

Is that inappropriate? No. See, this is a good awkward interaction. Should I have done that? Is that weird that I did that? I don't know. I felt weird, but at the same time. Seems funny.

I want to keep going and I'm going to need sustenance. You need some, you need a drip. Yeah. Like a drip of, as I've aged, I've found it more difficult to drink more coffee. I'm not sure I should be drinking. When did you start drinking coffee? You know, it's funny. In Australia, we grew up and it was instant coffee.

That's all people had. And I remember having a fascination for real coffee at a young age when nobody in Australia sold it. When I say Australia, I mean my small country town in South Australia. I even remember going to Kmart, thanks America, and buying a drip coffee thing. But it was never very good. But I was just fascinated by the concept of it and just love coffee, love the feeling of coffee, love having coffee with another person. But as I'm getting older, I'm finding like one coffee is good for me for the day.

This would be my third. I made a conscious choice early on. This is not – Why is that funny? I said one's enough. This would be my third. I made a conscious choice early on. This is not... Why is that funny? I said, one's enough. This will be my third. Who's laughing over there? I made a conscious choice, I don't know, years ago that I really like the taste of coffee. And I could have become addicted and I just didn't want to do it. I just, I saw, even today, if I I get coffee I'll get decaf because I don't caffeine and I don't get along so well I willingly remain addicted to it because I enjoy the satisfaction that comes from

satiating my craving for it let it become an icon that opens you to the glories I wake up in the morning and that's what I'm like I'm so excited you know another thing I learned from Alba Setti this is this has helped me tremendously he used to talk about the presence of the logos in everything the logos the word was made flesh and through the incarnation everything has some trace of the logos and if you love coffee then if you go to the bottom of your coffee cup, if you really press into what you love about coffee, as you were just beginning to reflect, you love the taste, you love the aroma, you love how it makes you feel. At the bottom of your cup of coffee is the logos. To that point, there's a comedian called Carl Barron. And I won't be able to do this as well as he does.

But he says, I love having a cup of of tea sometimes you have a cup of tea and you look down you think oh it's almost gone and you feel sad then you think yeah and then you think that's alright I'll just make myself another cup same that's what he's talking about he's looking for Jesus well I talk about the same thing at the end of a meal I talk about how I'm so sad at the end of the meal and why am I sad at the end of a meal and then this is maybe ten years ago I'm getting to the end of my meal and I'm like licking every single thing off the plate that I possibly can because I want to take, I don't want it to end. And then inevitably you get the

last little schmear and you've already had thirds. So I have the choice in this moment, in the sadness, do I go back for more? Okay, that's gluttony at this point I've already had thirds what do I do then with the sadness yeah and it has become and my kids and my wife can vouch for me here that they'll see me at the end of a meal just kind of giving myself permission to feel the sadness yeah wow and then allowing the sadness, and I am, I'm sad. I don't want that pleasure to end. What does that tell me?

Yeah. It tells me I am made for a feast that doesn't end. Yeah. And the sadness can become a stretching of the yearning. We were talking earlier about the Song of Songs

and I love what you said. I'm going to take this with me. It's beautiful. The three barriers. From our Lord, so it's all yours. And then comes in the song, the bride is naked in bed.

She has taken off her robe. She's in bed. She's longing for the union. The bridegroom comes into the chamber. And you know what happens next? I mean, I can guess, but what happens? Yeah, but it's not that.

He's not there. He leaves. That's right. She opens the door. Have you seen my beloved? And she walks around the city asking people. And you're like, what the bleep? Right in the moment of yearning?

That's John of the Cross right there. That's the no say nada. It's John of the Cross. It's Teresa of Avila. It's Augustine the Cross right there. That's the... It's John of the Cross. It's Teresa of Avila. It's Augustine. It's Bernard. He feeds me with hunger.

Who said that? Me. I don't know. Oh, that's good. Something like a Metallica lyric says something like that. I'm not joking. For real? Yeah, something to that effect. Feeds me with hunger.

That's powerful. That's what it is. The little flower says, ardent thirst is itself the most delicious drink. Who was she learning from, right? Because I'm learning from you and Sister Miriam and Bob Schutz. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. She didn't speak the way Therese speaks. You mean Teresa?

Well, let me just say this for a second. Obviously, both Carmelites both learn from each other. But there's something we can learn here. each other but there's something we can learn here therese of lisieux did not feel it necessary to sound like true a replica of theresa isn't that refreshing and yet you and i so often do we read the great saints and think i need to sound like that in order for it to be real and sometimes we end up not actually saying what we think or getting to the heart of the matter. I don't mind when people use my content if they make it their own. Yeah.

But what troubles me, I'm not like annoyed by it personally, but I'm sad for them when they imitate me in a presentation or something. And just kind of regurgitate it in the exact same way that I do it. Because what makes me sad is, where are you? Where's your personality? Yeah. And I would even say that when you see a religious order of neutral personalities and you don't see lively differences in personality among people in a religious order, something's wrong.

Yeah. Something is wrong. That's why the mother of the bridegroom nuns. Oh, aren't they brilliant? Oh, there's women who are free. They are true women. Can I, so the song by Metallica. I just want to say, these women, I gave them a retreat on the Song of Songs a couple years ago, and I came away thinking, these women are supermodels in the true sense of the word.

Yeah. They are supermodels of what it means to be human. I just want to give their monastery a donation if they'll let me come and just let, they can hug me. Maybe I can curl up on one of their laps and they can just pat my head well you could say you just need a retreat of some some love and tenderness okay yeah we have some isolated cabins for you no no um what i was after mother i was actually hoping this might sound weird yeah it does but yeah look up look up the what's the name of their monastery?

It's Bridegroom, the Bridegroom, Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. Google them. They're beautiful nuns. But you're going to tell me these lyrics. So what's interesting about this Metallica song is it's called Devil's Dance. And let's see here. Snake, I am the snake, tempting that bite you bite to take.

Let me make your mind, leave yourself behind, be not afraid. Listen to this. I've got what you need. Hunger I will feed. That's Satan. Feeds us with hunger in a different sense that we're talking about now. He wants us to keep going down the dead end road and not turn to God. He's saying, here's what you want.

He's not going to feed you. I will. He won't. I will. He won't. But what we get are the husks that were meant for the pigs yeah albacete used to say every temptation comes down to this one fundamental temptation it's the temptation to believe that the satisfaction of the deepest desires of our heart Let that sink in for a minute. Say it again. Every temptation comes down to one temptation. It is the temptation to believe that the satisfaction of the deepest desires of our hearts is totally up to us.

Yeah. In other words, we don't believe grasp the grasp of the apple we grasp we take we take it because we don't believe the lord wants to give it to us and i i i mean you can put it in lots of different ways but it's it's a posture either of grasping or of open receptivity you told remember you tell the story of john paul son. Oh the cookie, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one of my bits, right, it's in the files. Yeah, and it's just this simple observation I had as a young father, he was four or five years old and asked for a cookie for dessert and sure you can have a cookie but before I could unwrap the darned Oreos he grasped at it.

Classic John Paul. I'm just joking. I don't know. And I got the, I was like, oh my gosh, there it is. John Paul II describes the original sin as the denial of the gift. We don't believe the Lord wants to grant us the desires of our heart, so we grasp at it. And I remember thinking, paul whoa whoa whoa

yeah you've been teaching that you're denying the gift yeah i i want to give you this cookie as a gift if you trust it in my love for you and i want that i want to give you this cookie as a gift all you'd need to do is open your hands to receive it as a gift and then receiving the desire of your heart as a gift, you would naturally want to say, thank you. When we live in receptivity to the gift, sonship is another way to say it. Bridal receptivity is another way to say it. And we receive the gift, then our life becomes thanksgiving, becomes Eucharistic. But sometimes we receive gifts we don't really like. We receive sufferings. We receive traumas.

We receive... I've been working through in my own prayer journaling lately, working through traumas from 1987 when my family moved from my hometown I was a teenager I was going into my senior year of high school and my family moved two hours away to to another state and it was traumatic that move was here comes your coffee old a man thank you I ran like every single direction except the right one. And then I was like, oh.

I'm sorry. No, it's all right. It's very kind of you. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Trauma, moving. And this is not a long story. I mean, it could be if I made it one, but I won't.

We need to talk about your YouTube channel because he got me your coffee. Oh, and you never said anything about it. Oh, yeah, that's right. We will. So, yeah, so I've been, here I am. I'm 51 years old, and as I'm just looking at stuff going on in my life, looking at stuff in my interior life,

this wound keeps coming up of this traumatic move in 1987, and I have, here's, I'll share this grace. For one of the first times in my life, I'm seeing how traumatic experiences in our lives can become, and I believe are meant to become, hymns of praise. And what do I mean by that? It's not a pious thing, but it's entering into the real sufferings and recognizing, maybe with some life perspective, the good that God has brought out of a trauma.

And there's no doubt in my mind, if my parents had not moved in 1987, I would not have my wife, I would not have my children, I would not have my ministry, I would not have encountered Christ and come to faith as I did. ministry. I would not have encountered Christ and come to faith as I did. That trauma played a major, major role in my conversion, in my faith, in meeting my wife. And when you begin to see those fruits of a trauma, how the good that the Lord brings out of it, it can become praise. That makes sense and then i would also add that even when we don't see it it gives you a little bit more trust that even if i don't see the right now right now i will i will i think part you know we're talking about parents being uh very critical with themselves and afraid

that they're screwing up part of it i think is when you start to become aware of your own childhood traumas and then you start to realize okay, some of those traumas weren't even intended. I misread them. And that I believe something about myself that wasn't necessarily intended. Maybe it was. And you start to realize there's no way my kids get out of this without me traumatizing them. And that is a very, that can really. It's relieving. Well, it can be relieving, but I think the first thing it does is it scares you stiff. If you're like, nothing, everything I'm going to do,

something's going to scandalize them. So I need to not do that. So how the hell do I do that? But I remember I asked my best friend's dad after the birth of our first son. I said, Shane, were you ever, Shane Bennett, I don't know if you know Shane Bennett, he's from Australia, good bloke, he's part of the Emanuel Covenant community down there, I think they had you in a few years ago in Brisbane.

I said, Shane, were you ever afraid of screwing up your kids? And he went, oh no, I'd hate to deprive them of healing. It's good, isn't it? Yeah, when I said it's relieving, it's something isn't it yeah when i said when i said it's relieving it's something like that i mean it's it's relieving in as much as oh my gosh there's nothing i can do really to spare my kids of trauma so i don't need to be so meticulously trying all the time drop my shoulders, eh? To spare them of the trauma. Yeah. Because in the end, all will be well. That's my line. If death and resurrection is real.

All manner of things. All will be well. And all will be well. And if I'm trying to spare, and actually my son Thomas has taught me this. Thank you, Thomas. These are some of the more adult, as he's become an adult, more of the real nitty-gritty conversations we've had. He has seen this pressure I've put upon myself to try to spare him. Drop or decrease?

That's why I said you did a good job when I was on there for a second. You put too much weight on yourself. Yeah, I put too much pressure on myself to spare my kids things. I am where you are. Where you were 20 years ago, that's exactly where I am. I wish I could hurry up and get to where you are. I'm trying. Brother. But even that's the pressure.

Yeah, exactly. Relieve yourself of that pressure. Be where you are. There's something you said maybe an hour and a half ago that is now coming back to my mind. When you said to Cameron, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I wish you could have married somebody better. I should be better for you. And there is a certain, I get that, because I've had that sentiment a million times with Wendy. Did you? Yes, a million times and more. I've thought, I wish you had married somebody who loved you better than I do. But I've also come to see it was not only the Lord's plan for me to marry, for Wendy to marry me, but for me to marry her. It was not only the Lord's plan for me to marry, for Wendy to marry me,

but for me to marry her. It was not only the Lord's plan for me to have her as my wife. It was the Lord's plan for her to have me as her husband. It is the Lord's plan for Cameron to have Matt Fradd with all you are, the good, the bad, the ugly, the shameful. It is God's will for her to get her to the beatific vision to have you as her husband. Unfortunately, she's very well aware of this. You are her path to holiness.

But all of it, all of it is. There's a temptation to throw off the cross, and my wife and I have been honest about this. I remember a couple of years ago just going through a particularly hard time saying to my wife, like, those dads who go out for cigarettes and piss off, I totally get it. I want to do that.

There's a part of me that wants to abandon this and find greener pastures, just find somewhere they won't hurt as much. Now, you say it out loud, you see that it's a futile endeavor. There's no escape except to embrace the cross. It's a good exercise to say it out loud. It is.

And I'm so glad I said it. I'm so glad I had good friends who said, it's so important that we're honest. I mean, I think if somebody's been married for like 10, 15, 20, shit, five years and has no idea what that could possibly mean, I think either you're fooling yourself or you're not doing this right. But growing up, I had a very good friend whose father abandoned their family. And I'll, of course, keep the details hidden here. This person went, you know, fat guy, dyed his hair blonde, moved to some other country. He was public knowledge. He was sleeping with prostitutes and things like this. And like, that's the throwing off of the cross. But I remember he came back and he's living in a little town in one of those little ugly little townhouses, fat dude,

blonde hair. And it just, I mean, I understand that I'm speaking about this without mercy. I don't mean it towards him as I, I mean it towards the, I want to be merciless with the idea that throwing off the cross and seeking salvation will lead to salvation, right? Because everyone just looked at him and went, that guy's like gross. And again, God bless him, you know, like I'm him, you know. But this is just that temptation. Those in the monastery would be happier, they think, if they were married. Those who were married want to live as if they're in a monastery

or with another wife, then they'd be happy. Like somebody else always has to be the problem because it's not me. Because either you're the problem or I've got to deal with this stuff, and dealing with this stuff is a lot more difficult. Yes. I get it. I get it. There is right there in the do I deal or do I not.

Do I what? Do I deal with the stuff in me or do I not? That's the difference Do I deal with the stuff in me? Yeah. Or do I not? That's the difference, as we've been saying throughout this conversation, between, I keep pointing over here because I started it, wearing the pious mask, and will I expose what's really going on in me? I remember a student who came up to me after a certain session in one of my level one courses, theology body courses. And he said, thank you.

You've helped me understand my father for the first time. And in this way, he said, my father is now on his eighth wife. And he said, after number six, I blew up at him. And I let him have, I said, dad, what is your problem? Why? Why are you going from woman to woman to woman? And his dad's response was very honest he said I've just never found a woman who could satisfy me and there is a very very important truth there when we treat the icon as an idol right marriage is meant to be in God's plan an icon of what of the heavenly marriage the marriage of the Lamb which is our ultimate satisfaction

when we expect the icon to do what only the reality to which it points can do as we've been saying the icon becomes an idol it will never satisfy He was honest in recognizing these women aren't satisfying me. But what he didn't realize is that the next one wouldn't either. Couldn't either. Couldn't. Correct. And that she'd be crushed under that desire. Correct.

You know what I've been feeling in this world of temptation of come over here, you'll have it better over here. Yeah, yeah. Aging has been surprisingly, for me, difficult. Oh, God, me too. I mean, I'm younger than you, but it's all relative. Yeah, it's all relative. Yeah, I feel myself getting older. Somebody said the other day they wanted me to come and speak to their brotherhood at Franciscan,

like to the guys there. That'd be great just to get like an older man's advice. I'm like, you bastard. But you're exactly right. It's a hard thing. Because you don't go from like, you bastard. But you're exactly right. It's a hard thing. Because you don't go from young to old. If that were the case, you'd be like, oh, yes, I understand that this transition has now taken place. It's a slow transition where you keep hoping that you're not old yet, and you are becoming that.

You know what happened to me last night? What happened? The daughter of a couple who were dating when I first spoke in steubenville they were a couple they were dating here they were students in steubenville i gave a talk here in the 90s they were there they got married couple years later their daughter was at my talk who's now a student at steubenville last night and i i was like what what wait what because to me that was just like a couple years ago but now their daughter is a student at Steubenville and I I was it was just a marker of wow I'm older than I want to admit I am to myself yeah but going gray you know my gray beard my gray hair

these age spots that I didn't used to have I can't nearly do as many push-ups as I used to do. My bones are creaky when I'm waking up in the morning. The sadness to me of it has really tested my, do I really believe in the resurrection of the body? Yeah, or is it just downhill from here all the way? Yeah. Down, yeah. from here all the way down there. And then I start looking at what I call pre-wilted flowers. Yeah, you just wait.

Yeah, exactly. But you have this illusion that youth... In its prime. If I'm aging, if the trajectory is this way and this is causing me pain, that the solution is somehow to look back here and pine over that pre-wilted flower. You know, oh, I'm so sad. I don't have that youth anymore. And then you wake up and you realize, oh, my gosh, I'm attracted to this woman, and she could be my daughter for Christ's sake.

What the heck? Yes, yes, yes. And there's that line in Scripture that says, you know, man is like grass, the flowers of the field here today, and the glory wilts and fades. But then there's the line in the Scripture that says, Zion, something like Zion, announced from the mountaintop the word of the Lord. And I was working through this Scripture in prayer one day, and this whole wilting flower thing, and why am I so sad that I'm aging? And the next line of Zion proclaiming the word of the Lord, I had this image of Mary. And Mary, of course, is the fulfillment of daughter Zion.

You know, the Lord dwells in Zion, right? That's the mystery of pregnant Mary, right? She's the fulfillment of Zion. She's the temple. The Lord truly dwells in her midst. The Lord dwells in the midst of Zion. Did you know the word midst? I learned this from Benedict XVI. The word midst is closely related in the biblical language to the word womb, and they can be interchanged. So the Lord dwells in your womb, Zion, is what it's really saying. Again, that's fulfilled in Mary. And so Zion, in that scripture about the wilted flowers, she proclaims to the Lord the everlasting word.

And I had this image of Mary on Mount Zion just pointing to her womb, saying, here is flesh that does not know corruption. This is what you're looking for. This is what you're yearning for, the flesh that does not know corruption. My flesh is literally corrupting. I'm getting gray. I'm getting age spots. I'm getting wrinkles. That is a reminder that I'm headed to death and something in me revolts. I don't like it. But if the resurrection is real, then the solution is not to look to pre-wilted flowers, but to look forward to glorified flowers, if you will, the resurrection of the flowers, if you will.

And then I had that image of Hugh Hefner in his 80s, surrounded by all these pre-wilted flowers, right? Yeah. And it just hit me. That's fear of death. That is Hugh Hefner's fear of death, to surround himself as an 80-year-old man with all these women in their 20s. There's a saying in Australia that's very inappropriate, but it gets to the same point. And they say it jokingly, you're only as old as the woman you feel. Right. Inappropriate, but it's exactly what

you're saying. It's this desire for youth and vitality. We're looking, whether we know it or not, we're looking for the incarnation in all of these things. And here I want to quote a beautiful passage from a retreat that Carol Wojtyla gave in 1962. It has yet to be published in English, but we got the permission from the Vatican. The Theology of the Body Institute is going to be publishing this retreat later this year. We're going to release it on JP2's feast day. Oh, I can't wait to get it. October 22nd. And the retreat is called God is Beauty.

And it's marvelous. it's really profound but my favorite section of it is when artists and he's telling these artists in 1962 of an experience he had as a young priest when he was studying in rome and he goes to the Diocletian baths where all the Greek sculptures are, these nudes, nude sculptures. And he says, I took several hours to study these masters of sculpting the human body. And he says several times, it was a great labor.

I took great effort. I wanted to understand what these great Greek sculptures were seeking. They were something they were seeking in this idealized, perfectly beautiful body. And he said, as I made that interior effort and I struggled to understand it, he says, I came to understand the gospel anew. And I came to understand the gospel better. Pause right there. That's so profound.

Studying these Greek sculptures, this nude art. The man who would become Pope and St. John Paul II says, I came to understand the gospel better. And this is what he says. He says, I realized they were looking for perfect beauty in the body and that this is what the gospel proclaims. This is what the incarnation is. God is perfect beauty. And how did he make it visible? How did he make it something we could see and touch and experience and even take into our own bodies through the incarnation, through the human body? St. John says, it's that which I have seen with my hands, seen with my eyes, and touched with my hands

that I proclaim to you the very word of life. I proclaim to you, I've seen it, I've touched it. Incarnation, incarnation. In this idolatrous quest for the perfectly beautiful body, Voitiva says they were looking for the perfectly beautiful body, Wojtyla says, they were looking for the incarnation. This is a healing balm, B-A-L-M, a healing oil on our own wounds of going to porn, going to whatever,

to look for that perfectly idealized beauty. We're looking for the Word made flesh. We're looking for the incarnation. We're looking for perfect beauty manifested in the flesh. Gorgeous. This is our faith. Amen. All right. So we're going to take some questions here in the live chat and from patrons. So feel free to send your question. Also, if you're going to take some questions here in the live chat and from patrons. So feel free to send your question. Also, if you're watching right now, please do us a favor. Click that thumbs up button.

And if you're enjoying the show, if you think more people should be exposed to it, maybe consider sharing it on social media. Now, before we get to questions, speaking of social media, you have a YouTube channel. I have not yet put the link in the description, but I'll do it as soon as we're done the interview. So it'll be right at the top for people to click that link, head on over to Christopher's YouTube channel. What is it, Thomas? Christopher...

You type in Christopher West. Just type in Christopher West to YouTube. And you and I, I think, are going to do a video for your channel. Yeah, we're going to do a little video for my channel after this. And when will it be released and what will we be talking about? It'll be released tomorrow. Tomorrow at noon. Okay, tomorrow at noon, Christopher and I.

A little bonus part of this conversation will be on my channel tomorrow. Awesome. So people can go check that out over on Christopher's YouTube channel. I did a YouTube video recently where I talked about some of my favorite YouTube channels, and Christopher's is definitely one. I said that in the video. So please be sure to go over there and subscribe because if you're liking the wisdom that is flowing unceasingly from the mouth of Christopher West, that's a great way to kind of get... Did you hear that line in the first reading at Mass this morning, that Philip opened his mouth? Yeah. That's really struck me. I mean, that's what you and I do. We just

open our mouths, and we hope that something comes out. Before we get to questions, though, I want to say thank you to Hello. Hello is a Catholic prayer app. Have you heard of it? I've heard of it through you. It's actually really good. Yeah. I know I say that like, how could it be? It's excellent.

We used to say things like, well, I hate having to say it's good for a Catholic such and such because Catholics were never really good at things. This is very well produced. It's 100% Catholic. So instead of downloading these mindfulness apps, which may have some good content, but might also have some problematic content that could lead you into new age practices and ways of thinking, go to hallow.com. That's H-A-L-L-O-W. If you click the link in the description below, it'll take you over to the page. It is the number one Catholic downloaded app from the Apple Store, and for good reason. They have Lectio Divina that they can lead you through.

You can kind of listen to these meditations on the gospel from a guy or a girl's voice, lovely soothing pipes, and you can put Gregorian chant or synth music behind it. It has nightly examines. It'll help you pray the rosary. It even has sleep stories from people like Father Mike Schmitz. Oh, Mike Carley at the Theology of the Audie Institute. Bill Dunahee has one of these sleep stories. He has a good voice, yeah. hallow.com slash mattfradd. Click that link in the description below. And when you sign up at

hallow.com slash mattfradd, you'll get a month free to everything on their app. They have a lot of free content on their app anyway. That link will see to it that you get everything on their app. They have a lot of free content on their app anyway. That link will be, see to it that you get everything on their app. So go check it out. Halo.com slash Matt Fradd. All right. So Christopher, this is something of a lightning round because we have a gazillion questions. All righty. So I have to be concise.

Yes, we can try to be concise. So I mean, if you think something needs more time. It's not so easy for me, but I will try. Let's try because there's a lot of people who would love to have their questions answered, I think. Now, forgive me for butchering this name, but Hanyu Nguyen, I'm so sorry. Thanks for being a patron, says, I really struggle with paragraph 14 of Humana Vitae and why it wouldn't forbid sexual foreplay. It says, quote,

sexual foreplay. It says, quote, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it. Is this to mean that it is sinful to engage in any use of the reproductive organ for sexual activity other than for its procreative end? Sounds like maybe a misunderstanding. Yeah, I think there's a misunderstanding going on here. I would recommend that this person read my Q&A book, Good News About Sex and Marriage, where I get into, to quote Nacho Libre, let's talk about the nitty gritties. I get into all the nitty gritties of these questions. What is not in keeping with God's plan for our bodies as male and female. Earlier in the show, we were talking about gender means the manner in which you generate new life. That is determined by your genitals.

We always have to keep in mind the end, the purpose. Eyes are meant for seeing. That's not controversial, is it? Ears are meant for hearing. That's not controversial. Lungs are meant for breathing. Genitals are meant for hearing that's not controversial yep lungs are meant for breathing genitals are meant for generating the very purpose it's it's more specific and clear in the male sexual climax the giving of seed the purpose of the male climax is to give the seed and it is also true that the female climax is meant to draw the seed up into the woman's body.

So we're designed this way. If I can put it delicately, a man's seed belongs nowhere but in the garden. Yeah. If you are depositing your seed elsewhere, that is a disorder of the marital embrace. All of the affection of a husband and a wife that leads to the marital embrace can be beautiful, so long as the intention of husband and wife is a beautiful intention, and that can be all fine and good. I get into all those nitty-gritties in my Q&A book, and I'll leave it at that. Yeah, so just to kind of answer the question a little more kind of bluntly and less helpfully maybe, you know, the genitals can be kissed, but as you say, climax has to take place. The seed belongs in the garden. Can I tell you a

hilarious story about Cardinal Pell? Sure. I don't mean to make fun of him. I love him. He's a saint. He really is. Sure. He was on Catholic Ansolic answers live somebody asked about contraception and what people don't understand in the catholic world is just because you're a cardinal it doesn't mean that you're like an eloquent apologist and he said well and with the australian thick accent you just you gotta do your business inside and something like that that sounds just like him. That sounds just like them. That sounds just like them. So that's your answer. Oh dear. Oh right, my goodness, we have like

dozens of questions. I can see these. We also have some super chats here, so I'll get to these. May I suggest also to your listeners that my wife and I have a Q&A podcast. Is it the same as on YouTube as well? We used to film it. We're not filming it currently

because we're doing some other things on YouTube. But if you go to wherever you listen to podcasts, just type in Ask Christopher West. We have over 100 episodes. We answer about three questions an episode. So you have lots of content there. The reason I just went, oh, is I saw that this bloke called Ryan Verostek said,

gentlemen, just wanted to cover the coffee. Beautiful show. And he gave us $10 on YouTube. That's very nice. That's very nice. I'm going to keep that for myself and not give it to him. No, I'll definitely give it to you. Okay.

Nick Cotman says, I work in high school chaplaincy, and this is a question I often receive from staff after explaining what marriage is and why it can't just be anything. Even if we don't call it marriage, what is harmful about permitting a secondary type of committed union for same-sex couples? Even after having the discussion on the sexual act being both unitive and open to life, they simply say, well, what are the detriments of allowing same-sex couples some kind of designation?

How would you pastorally respond to this? Sometimes the conversation just feels like it goes in circles. Sure. These are not soundbite responses. Anything I can say right now will be food for thought that I hope will encourage someone to learn more. And again, forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but I go into great detail here in Good News About Sex and Marriage. But when we zoom in on a question like this, it's kind of like doing algebra without having done some basic math first. Like, we need to rewind. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Go way back. And we have to ask the question, what does it mean to be human? Why did God make us male and female in the first place? If we don't ask those basic

anthropological questions first, and we get into ethical questions right away, good ethics flow from good anthropology. When we have bad ethics, it's a sign of a bad anthropology. If we don't address the anthropology, meaning what's a human being? What does it mean to be human? Why are we male and female? Why did God make us with genitals in the first place? What are they for? We have to ask all of those questions, and then the ethical questions start to fall into

place. The sign of zooming in on, there's nothing wrong, da-da-da, it's a sign of a bad anthropology. We have lost a vision of what it means to be human. John Paul II, in his Theology of the Body, is seeking to answer that question. What does it mean to be human?

And I would say the best service I can do to this person, for this person to find a compelling, thorough, beautiful answer to the question, is read what John Paul II has given us. And if you find John Paul II's Theology of the Body too dense, as many people do, there are many resources out there. And this is why you started your YouTube channel. People can go over to your YouTube channel. I'm sure you've addressed this. I don't know if we've addressed that specifically yet or not, but you will get the anthropology that John Paul II gives us by watching those videos on my YouTube channel.

But try Theology of the Body for Beginners. Jason Everett? That's one of the ones I've written. God's Mysteries Revealed Through the Body is by Katrina Zeno. Theology of the Body in an Hour is Jason Everett. Read any of those. Read any of those. I'm going to write a Theology of the Body in five minutes.

That's about as much as I could write. Well, here it is in 10 seconds. Your body reveals the mystery of God. Sell that. Pay attention to it. Yeah. Tell the divine story that your body proclaims. Same-sex relations, genital relations, don't tell that story.

Lindsay Mitchell says, I'm getting married in September to a great Catholic guy who gave me a year's Patreon membership to Matt Fradd. He is a great guy for her birthday. How do we uphold chastity within our marriage? Does lingerie have any part in a holy Catholic marriage? I'm so embarrassed to ask that, but I'm clueless on the topic. You are beautiful, Lindsay. Thank you for being so vulnerable and asking your question.

I would tell you this, Lindsay, and then let you respond. You got to check out my wife's podcast. It's called Among the Lilies. And Cameron did a seven-part sex series that was intended, I think, for a lot of young women who are getting married. I mean, she's done like two or three episodes on orgasms and all of this stuff. My word. There is nothing that you could ask that she's not like,

please, sit down, let me tell you. So this is not an embarrassing question. It's a very good question. Yeah, it's fine. I would say this. There's nothing in and of itself that says a given piece of clothing couldn't be integrated into a holy relationship. However, I would offer this caution that the way we are formed by the culture with lingerie ads and Victoria's Secret

tends to be objectifying of women. And if the goal is to turn your wife into the latest Victoria's Secret model, because that's what turns you on, I would invite such a couple to reflect on, what is God's plan for this union? Is it helping me to love my wife truly as Christ loves the church? Or is this why I want her to dress this way? Maybe it's not. Maybe it's not. I'm not saying it is objectively wrong for a wife to wear lingerie. I'm not at all. But I am saying, I am inviting people to consider, are you projecting onto the marriage bed something the culture has taught you

about what this is supposed to be? And is that healthy, helpful, and beautiful? I just hold that up. Yeah. Yeah. I think like if you were to say, well, there's nothing wrong. And in fact, it's a good thing to want to be found sexually attractive by your spouse. And just as one might do one's hair or something else in order to be sexually attractive, one can utilize clothing in order to accentuate that. But those are really great points. John Henry asks, why does the Catholic Church play it so close to the chest with NFP? I found it incredibly difficult and time consumingconsuming to get good information, training, materials, and support for something that ultimately isn't all that complicated. Really? Shouldn't we be doing more to make this understanding and these techniques

more broadly available and accessible? Yes, John Henry, we should be. Next question. No, but honestly, yeah, it's great. This seems like a missed opportunity, he says, to minister to the world and to evangelize it too. Thank you for sharing my frustration here. It's one of the best kept secrets. And the fact that we're not doing what John Henry is suggesting should be done is an indication of the crisis in the church. We don't know the treasures that we ourselves have. So there is good information.

You can find it, but it should be much more readily available, no doubt. Sorry, John Henry. Pray for the crisis in the church. Let's see here. Man, there's so many. Michael Quinn, thanks, Michael, says, it seems easy enough to accept the evil of pornography and the disorder of immodesty. As a saint said, it isn't that you've said too much. I don't think anybody knows who said this quote. It's that you haven't said enough. It's like the thing that's often attributed to John Paul. Could you offer thoughts on when mystery becomes too commonplace? Catholic Christians are not Puritans, but when do we risk speaking about sexuality in such a way that we begin to detract from the beauty shrouded in mystery? Put one more way, when does exposition become exhibition?

I'm thinking here of Alice von Hildebrand's Dark Night of the Body. Thanks for all you both do. Great respect from me and prayers for your ministries. Yeah, I like that turn of phrase. What did he say? When does... Exposition become exhibition. That's a good point. Yeah, worth pondering. And I've been criticized for saying too much over the years, and my response to that criticism is, if they're not going to hear these very intimate topics from a healthy, holy perspective. They're going to get their information elsewhere.

We need to talk about these things. Scripture talks about these things, but Scripture does talk about these things in a veiled way. The Song of Songs is erotic love poetry. That's what it is. These are the love letters of a husband and a wife, and they're sharing in these love letters some very intimate details about their marital love.

But they do it in a veiled way. If they came out just with anatomical terms in the Song of Songs, it would change the reading, right? It would be abrasive. It would, whoa. but the bridegroom or the bride in the song of songs doesn't hesitate to say that the loins of her bridegroom remind her of a polished tusk right that's how she describes his genitals in the song of songs a polished tusk now the the watered down translation we get from translators who are too afraid to say it as it really is, is his body is like polished ivory. Yeah, not exactly the same. That's not exactly the same thing as his loins are a polished tusk. So I would say, let's take the biblical example, we can talk about specific

things in a veiled way, with a veiled language. His loins are a polished tusk yeah but when we get to let's no no that's too scary let's talk about his body is polished ivory well we're changing what's really being said because of our own hang-ups and our own fears and our own issues what's difficult is like precisely this woman had that question about lingerie someone had a question about um um you know sexual foreplay i mean it's almost like living in such a sexually confused society makes it so that we have to be explicit in a way that we may not have had to before.

People like with somebody, I know it's a I'm kind of embarrassed, you shouldn't be embarrassed but because of the society in which we live these questions are hard to get answers to and it's I think bloody well helpful. When we are sunk in the pig pen as we are, even though we might not like to be there or have to go there to get people out of it we have to go there to get

people out of it and that means we as Francis would say we we can't be afraid of smelling like the sheep or I would say smelling like the pigs I gave a talk on teaching you know helping your children to avoid pornography and somebody came up to me after the talk and said, she was very gentle and loving about it, but she said, could you please not say penis and vagina so much? It's very, very abrasive. And I look back on my talk, I said it once each. I wasn't like, penis.

I said penis and vagina. I'm using anatomically correct words in an appropriate way. And that just goes to your point that it's like, if that language makes you feel uncomfortable, the word might not be the problem. It might be that you, like I, are a victim of a sexualized culture and it's difficult to speak about these things. We have issues.

Because of how they trigger us. I would say, I would invite you to change that word and not say sexualized, but pornified. Oh, that's better, yeah. Because sex is good. God made it. But God did not make porn. Porn is the twisting of the good.

Sex is a good word. We need to reclaim it. And when I was saying smelling like pigs, I'm not saying we should partake in the pigsty. I'm saying we need to be courageous enough and pure enough in our own hearts that we can venture into the pigsty to pull people out of it without ourselves getting swept in by it. And that's not easy. That's a delicate thing. Well, Rachel C. says, no question, just want to thank you in capital letters, Christopher. My now husband heard you speak before we got engaged. Neither of us fully understood the church teaching.

If not for your talk, I'd probably be using birth control and thinking it was okay. You really gave us the why behind the rules. I'm truly eternally grateful for your ministry. Rachel, you just put a smile on my heart. Thank you, Rachel. Bless you. Bless you. You are on my heart. Thank you, Rachel. Bless you. Bless you. You are why I do what I do, Rachel. Noah Cungle says, in Catholic tradition, we generally refer to all parts of the Trinity as male persons, but is this necessarily the case?

I want to interrupt right there. We do not refer to them as male persons. Male is a biological term, right? We use masculine terms, but they are not male in the sense that you and I are male, but we can unfold that more. Sorry, I just want to say that right off the bat. That's great. Would it not also make sense to refer to Christ or the Holy Spirit as the perfection of masculinity and femininity? Christ received life from the Father, feminine, and then gave himself for the church and all souls, masculine. Yes, yes. Same for the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, but is also masculine in the sense of the church's receptivity of his grace.

Yes. It would take a doctoral dissertation to address that thoroughly and adequately. He's on to some things. It's just be careful with the words, God is not male. As the Bible, excuse me, as the Catechism says, God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference of the sexes, right? He's not male, but why do we use masculine terms? Because masculinity and femininity are not the same as maleness and femaleness. They're related, but they're not the same. If I am to be fully male, I must have what you could call masculine and feminine principles properly integrated within me. Why? Because the fullness of humanity is maleness and femaleness together, right? So within me, if I am to be fully human,

there must be a marriage of the masculine and feminine within me. Let's draw an analogy from the Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three persons in the Trinity. Each is not one-third God, but fully God, right? God is fully, God the Father is fully God, God the Son is Holy Spirit, three persons in the Trinity. Each is not one-third God, but fully God, right? God is fully, God the Father is fully God, God the Son is fully God, God the Holy Spirit is fully God, not one-third God. However, God the Father is different from God the Son. God the Son is different from God the Father, God the Holy Spirit is different from the two. There is an analogy we draw. If each person is fully God and God is Trinitarian, then guess what? The number for the Trinity is 3-3-3, because God is Trinity and each person is fully God. So each person must in some way be Trinitarian.

So each person must in some way be Trinitarian. Three, three, and three is the number of the Trinity. Similarly in us as human beings, if the fullness of humanity is actually the family, mother, father, child, union, and fruitfulness, a Trinitarian image, by the way, then the fullness of humanity in me, I am not one-third human or half human as a male, but the fullness of humanity in me will be a marriage of that which is masculine and feminine that bears fruit. What is the fruit that it bears? It bears the fruit of an integrated maleness in me. In a woman, the proper integration and marriage of masculinity and femininity in her will bear fruit in an integrated femaleness in her. To do all the nuance would take an hour, but that's the short answer.

Yeah. Did I miss a super chat? No. Oh, okay. Let's do one more question and then we got to wrap up here. This comes from Ashwith Rago. He says, i've recently been reading and this person i'm sorry this person asked to be anonymous so i'm not going to read that now bloody hell sorry about that mate uh we'll do one more here first i want to tell you both this comes from francesco borgogne first of all i want to tell you a both both a huge thank you for your talk some years ago on the old Matt Fradd show. It was really a bomb for my life. B-O-M-B or B-A-L-M?

B-O-M-B. But hopefully he means bomb. Yes. Question. In your opinion, how long will the world be able to continue this way before God doesn't allow it anymore? I mean, abortion, contraception, gender ideology. It's really difficult for me not saying, as the sons of Zebedee, Lord, allow fire to come down from heaven and consume them. I know I should be more merciful, but that's what I most of the time cannot help thinking. I'm not sure if he wrote,

I think he wrote this question prior to our talk. So we've addressed some of this. How long, O Lord? That's one of the Psalms, right? How long, O Lord? How long, O Lord? I think we do need to enter ever more deeply into that cry of the human heart, and it's a refrain on my heart all the time. How long, O Lord? How long, O Lord? I would caution, Francesco is his name? I think so. I would caution Francesco just to, in as much as you might want to say, those people out there, when will they, fire and brimstone on them. How about instead, or in as much as you say, yeah, of course there's change needs to be there, but at the same time say, Lord, where do I need to change? Where do I need your purifying fire? Let your fire fall on me too, because I'm broken

too. I would invite that, but I would also say, we don't know how long, but we do know this, it all ends well. And I believe i i he's referencing the interview we did a couple years ago i remember talking in that interview about my belief that the church is passing through the passion of the lord now and marriage is going the way of the divine bridegroom it's being mocked it's being spat upon it's being crucified gender itself the body The attack is always on the body. What was the crucifixion? It was the attack of the world on the body of Christ. Well guess who the body of Christ is on earth now? It's the church. We are the body of

Christ. The body is going the way of the head, we could put it that way. Christ is the head of the body, the church is his members. And this is right out of the Catechism. The Catechism says the body of Christ, the head of the body. The church is his members. And this is right out of the Catechism. The Catechism says the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, will experience her triumph, not through some kind of worldly ascent and victory of the church, but the church herself will experience the triumph of Christ by experiencing the defeat of Christ, what appears to be defeat. And so I believe the church is going through the passion of the Lord right now. She will somehow, I don't know how

it's going to look, but somehow the church will die. But when it is as dark as dark can be, and the church seems to be dead, and in some sense is dead, and has gone the way of her bridegroom, and in some sense is dead and has gone the way of her bridegroom, give it three days. Give it three days and watch what happens. This is how victory comes. Victory comes by going the way of the Lord. At the start of Lent this year, I was really struck.

One of the first readings we have in the liturgy for Lent is this. I must go to Jerusalem where I will suffer greatly, be rejected by men, and be killed. And then he says right after that, follow me. What? To follow Jesus means we will be rejected. We will suffer greatly. We will be killed in some way. Paul says we must suffer the loss of all things in order to gain Christ. In order to gain Christ, we must suffer the loss of all things. I think we're going through something like that as a church. We are suffering great losses, and we must suffer them in order to gain Christ. It's coming. The victory is coming.

Mary promised in the end, after this era of great defeat that we are living through, in the end, her immaculate heart will triumph. It's coming. Christopher, thank you so much for driving down here, for being on the show. You're welcome, Matt. It's been an absolute pleasure. It's a joy.

Real quickly, where can people find you, and why should they check out your YouTube channel tomorrow? They should check out my YouTube channel tomorrow, because you and I are going to continue this conversation. Some exclusive content that we didn't have here will be there noon tomorrow at Christopher West on YouTube. They can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. It's all CWestOfficial.

Did I get that right, Thomas? CWestOfficial and our website for the Theology of the Body Institute. You might want to consider taking a course, one of the courses you took. Yeah, I'd recommend it. You can go to theologyofthebody.com and just start exploring. Oh, one final thing. The end of this month, April 30th to May 2nd, we are doing our second annual virtual conference. It's free to register, so go to tobvirtualconference.com to register, or just go to theologythebody.com, click the banner at the top. And we have over 80 speakers.

I believe you're one of them. Cool. And maybe I'm wrong. I thought you were. Scott Hahn, Ted Sri, yeah, all kinds of people. Over 80 speakers will be part of this virtual conference, and it's free to register. Do me a favor, Thomas.

Send me an email with these links, and I'll put them right at the top of the description so people can check it out. Matt, you're a good man. I love you, brother. Thank you. Kanskje vi kan ta en kvart på en av de tre. សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្� so you