"What is Theology of the Body? w/ Fr. Patrick Schultz"

Christopher West Video - https://youtu.be/37daHBmiFM4?si=hJOj06Fe4T2UtJBu

Prayer for the Redemption of Sexual Desire

Lord, I praise you and thank you for the gift of my sexual desires. I give all the lustful desires of my heart to you and ask you to crucify them. Grant me the grace and courage to die with you, so that I might also be raised with you. By the power of your death and resurrection, untwist in me what sin has twisted, so I might know and experience sexual desire as you created it to be - as the desire to love freely, faithfully, and fruitfully.

Music Copyright: https://artlist.io/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Unveiling Christianity. I'm Father David. So today we're doing something a little different. We have uh a guest uh on the show. We had Deacon Dale a few months ago, I think, talking about what is the deaconate uh and everything. And uh considering the topic today, I just kind of felt inspired to reach out to a uh priest friend uh from right down the road. So uh welcome to Father Patrick Schultz. Thank you, Father David. Good to be with you and uh on your show. Hey, it's awesome. So good. So good. So uh yeah, so we're um we're in uh like Parma in um what, Middleburg Heights together. Yeah, we're just right down the road. Yeah. So we were in seminary together, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

What year were you ordained?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

I was ordained uh 2016, so coming up on 10-year anniversary. 10-year anniversary.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

May 21st, yeah. That's right, I was 2019. So yeah, so Father, it's just interesting how the Lord works, right? We were in seminary together and now we're like pastor and administrator, almost hopefully eventually pastor. God willing, all the willings. Yeah, indeed. Over at uh uh Middleburg Heights. You ever imagine yourself in Middleburg Heights?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

No, I before before the the posting came out for St. Bart's, I I don't think I even I don't think I'd ever been to Middleburg Heights, and I certainly I don't I'd never even heard of St. Bartholomew Parish. I didn't know we had to St. Bart's in the in the diocese. So I'd never imagine myself here, but I'm so glad that I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah. Did you know anything about St. Bartholomew?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yes, I knew that I I mean I knew about his martyrdom. He was he was filleted alive. Wow, yeah, since his skin ripped off. Uh wow. And he uh if you ever go to um to Rome to the Sistine Chapel, you look at the last judgment scene by Michelangelo, the the image of Saint Bartholomew in the last judgment scene. He's the guy there with like his skin draped over his arm, and there's the face of Saint Bartholomew hanging on the skin. And uh that face is actually a a self-portrait of Michelangelo. He put he painted his face there.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

But yeah, I knew that about him. Wow. Well, there you go. Yeah, I mean, I didn't really know about Holy Family, you know, either. Uh and um, you know, just the Lord's plan, right? Yeah. And uh I didn't know a thing or two about the Holy Family. I was gonna say you knew you knew about that. So uh so good. Uh well we've kind of as we dive in, obviously there could be a lot of banter today. So um first, maybe just uh maybe share a little bit about yourself. Um you know, maybe just like spark notes, what's your journey, what's your story, what attracted you to the priesthood, and um kind of what's it like the journey being to St. Bartholomew?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, sure. So uh ordained 2016, but the the road to May 21st, 2016 was a very funny, interesting road. So I grew up in a family that was uh not we were very nominally Catholic, right? We were your creester Catholics, your Christmas and Easter only, your CEOs. Yeah, yeah. I I like to joke and say that we were the family who sat in your pew on Christmas and Easter. You know, people like, who are these people? Who are never here? That was my family. So um didn't go to Catholic school, was public school educated all the way through, made my uh was PSR kid through second grade, first communion, first reconciliation. Um, but then I I think I put up too much of a fight with my parents about going to PSR. I was a PSR dropout after second grade. So no real faith formation at all. My my uh my both my grandmothers were were very faithful women. My my dad's mom was a convert. Um but uh yeah, no faith wasn't really a a factor alive in the home at all. But uh we had a good family, beautiful family. Got a younger brother, parents are still married, they're married 40 years, and uh Rick and Michelle. Shout out to them. Indeed. Um, but then yeah, so at my home parish, at St. Mary's in Hudson, we we get confirmed uh in junior year of high school, right? So a little bit later than typical in the diocese. But uh so part of that process is is you have to go through, you know, the confirmation prep program. And um my mom told me basically you're you're gonna do this thing, because the only reason really was if if I didn't, her mom was gonna be really upset. So like you don't upset grandmas. So same time junior year had a huge crush on this girl. Uh we were happened to sit next to each other in physics class, and out of the blue, one day she starts asking me questions about God, and I had no answers, but I was utterly in love with her. So I lied through my teeth essentially and and told her that yeah, I I'm I'm really serious in my faith. I that's why she hasn't seen me at the life team mass, you know, the 5 30 p.m. I said I said to her, uh I'm I'm I prefer the the organ and the piano rather than the guitars and the clappy and all the drums and all that stuff. So and then she actually invited me that day in physics class to come with her to the first fall retreat planning meeting that was happening that night. And she's like, How about I pick you up and we go together? And so like I was all in on that, you know, like I found my wife and I found Jesus on the same day, right? So great glory. Yeah, so she picks me up and uh I'm freaking out the whole time because I'm like, I'm gonna be exposed as a fraud. Like she's gonna like discover that I've I I don't actually go to church at all. And so we go to this retreat planning meeting at St. Mary's, and um, and yeah, in the context of of this retreat meeting, the the past the parochial vicar at the time, Father Damian Ference, he he uh brings the Blessed Sacrament out on the altar. I have no idea what the Blessed Sacrament is, I have no idea what the Eucharist is, but he places this on the altar, and I'm just witnessing all my peers around me having this experience responding to a presence that I that was like invisible to me. And um like the only way I know how to make sense of my story is to to tell it like like like what happened, which is simply I I I was overwhelmed by the presence of God, the reality of Christ somehow present in this disc of bread hiding in this gold thing in front of me. And um like my I I met Jesus that night. That's that's all I know to say. Like this person like had arranged all the the chess pieces on the board so that this propitious moment could arrive where he could step across the horizon of my experience and just show up and basically say, Hi. Like I've known you and I love you in a way that you can't even fathom. And like my heart was just destroyed by the beauty of this love. And and I remember just leaving the church that night, feeling like the like you think about like the the like the helmsman of a ship, all of a sudden, like, all right, one degree starboard, right? Like we're just turning the ship just one degree, like my life was going in one direction, then all of a sudden, boom, like it just got knocked into a different direction.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

And kind of like a uh Emmaus situation, yeah, right. Totally. Um disciples are walking away from Jerusalem, uh kind of saddened by the experience of of the death of their leader and everything, and but they're they're moving away, but Jesus meets with them.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

They encounter him in the Eucharist, and then they reflect on word or not our hearts burning within us.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah, absolutely. That's that's exactly what happened. And so like I I I dove in like just hard into wanting to understand who this person was that I met, and I I started discovering the coherence, the beauty, the the inner logic, the the the absolute glory of this faith. It was just up until that point, it was such an annoyance to me. Um Christmas and Easter, we gotta go to church. Why? This is stupid, it's boring.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Something something facilitating my happiness rather than getting in the way of my happiness.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, it was in that context. So uh the people started asking me if I ever thought about priesthood, junior year, senior year, and it terrified me. Like, heck no, I want to be happy, you know, like why would I want to be a priest? But that question planted a seed, and it just I couldn't uproot it no matter how hard I tried, and I bargained with God and I made this deal that you know I'm just only gonna apply to Catholic schools, and so uh I applied to um yeah, only Catholic universities, got a full scholarship to the University of Dayton, went there for my freshman year, and was like, if you were to drop a list of all the things you're supposed to have in college to be happy and successful, I had all of it, and I was still like so empty. Um because it turns out if you try and pursue happiness on your own terms, it you don't find it, you know. Yeah, yeah. Um, and so uh in another encounter with the Eucharist with the Lord uh in the spring of 2008, um, had this again this overwhelming experience. You mentioned Road to Emmaus, I just the reflection that, like, on the in that story, the fact that Jesus was walking with his these disciples in the wrong direction, right, and then there's that little detail where he keeps on walking and they call him back and say, Stay with us.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

He's willing, he's willing to walk in the wrong direction with us so that he can bring us back.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, and not only that, he's willing to walk farther in the wrong direction, right? Right, and then a few miles, right? Yeah, and so anyway, the uh I made my way to the seminary in the fall of 2008. Um, was hoping, thinking that just I I'll just get this out of my system, do one year here, then I can go find uh and pursue marriage. And and that's just not what my heart discovered. My heart discovered. Give me the old college truck. Exactly. My heart discovered peace and fraternity and meaning and all these things, and it just yeah, like over the course of those years of seminary, just falling more and more and more in love and discovering at a certain point that like, man, all my chips are cash. Like the only thing logical left at this point is to do the utterly illogical thing, which is to to like break the alabaster jar of my life and pour out all the contents uh the contents on Jesus and give him everything. And that that brought me nose down to the marble May 21st, 2016. And first assignment was at Communion of Saints Parish in Cleveland Heights, four years there. Um left at the height of COVID in 2020, came to Sacred Heart of Jesus in Wadsworth. Beautiful, amazing assignment down there in Wadsworth, loved that uh parish and those people so much, and then uh did one year in uh the Lakewood cluster of parishes, St. James, Clement, and Luke. And then uh the posting came open for St. Bartholomew in Middleburg Heights, and and man, that was that was just such an amazing thing of just discovering this desire to really father a parish. Yeah, put in the application, submitted it, met with personnel board, and received the uh the news on Tuesday of Holy Week in 2025 that uh the bishop wanted me to come to St. Bart's Middleburg Heights. And so coming up on a year in June. And uh it's been so good.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

That's awesome. So hard and so good. That's right. Yeah, the whole journey and roller coaster of life and vocation and everything. No, it's beautiful. No, thanks for sharing all that. We could uh I was even just thinking we could do a whole nother episode on like that shift from being a pr uh a parochial vicar, like an associate to like an administrator. Like yeah, like in the heart, like obviously there's a lot of practicals, but even like in the heart, what does that look like? But no, thanks for sharing your story. I think it's so beautiful. Uh this this out of nowhere encounter. I've shared my story. I I think at the beginning here, I've I've shared parts of my vocation story at different times. I shared a little more of it this last year in a homily uh on vocation weekend and priesthood Sunday. Uh, but long story short, mine was kind of like an enunciation kind of moment as well. A guy from my my home parish, Father Matt Jordan, who's the pastor over at St. Michael's, uh, whom we know. He reached out to me on Facebook one day. Well, the part that I haven't told all the time, you know, just depending on the audience and things, uh, is uh the previous evening on a Saturday, I actually went out to this uh dance kind of group date kind of thing with some people. And well, at least I thought it was a date, got a so we we were uh going on just this contra line dancing and things. It was this girl from my parish who I was uh really uh just really kind of in love with and uh I thought she was, you know, a really she's the one infatuated with me as well. And I got her this cowboy hat and uh just to like you know, just show romantic, just show a little affection and stuff, and then at Mass the next morning, um she uh she kind of said basically like, you know, just last night was great, but it's just I just want to let you know we're friends and just only friends and and all that stuff. So my heart was kind of in a uh kind of in a heavy place. And uh I'm really so glad that she was honest with me though.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Uh and and looking back, it was a real grace because it was that afternoon that um now Father Matt Jordan had invited me to go to the seminary, and I was kind of like, oh, I don't know, not really. Uh yeah, too soon, man. Too soon. Do you know what just happened this morning? But no, it was like looking back at it's all it's all grace, and yeah, so then it was this this conversation on Facebook, and then and then from there I reached out to uh a teacher at at my high school, uh Hoban, and and then I was this September, and then I was accepted to the seminary by February of that year. And uh it was just this annunciation moment in a sense of like you know, Angel Gabriel visits uh Mary and invites her, and it's just kind of this unexpected bam, I'm out of nowhere. And uh but the Lord supplied the grace, and yeah, for me it was I I think when I entered to the seminary, like so I never went to like the voc vocation retreat weekend that I was invited to, but I did it overnight.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, I did too.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Which was uh I think good for me. It was just kind of normal in a sense of like it wasn't a lot of structure, and yeah, it was just like go to the seminary and go to some classes, play some basketball. But I do remember even just walking into the seminary room, like because you have your individual rooms, it was just there was just a uh an instant piece. I do remember that. And and then for me, the seminary journey was just like a deepening each year. It wasn't like this, you know, sometimes discernment is you know from year to year. It's like some guys are really kind of grappling with is the Lord really calling me to this. But yeah, for me it was just this this deep, uh kind of deeper growing each year.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So Yeah. Yeah, I would say that yeah. I mean I had points of wrestling too, but we'll probably get into some of those, if not in this episode, maybe in a future episode. But yeah, like um Yeah, it it it was that deepening as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah. No, we'll do that because I want to get one of the seminarians on to talk about their journey and story too. You know, we can even um yeah, have three of us or something. So great. Well, thanks for sharing your story. Maybe just real quick, like what's uh what's some fun things about uh yourself personally? Maybe uh the everyday parishioner wouldn't know, but it would be would be fun to share.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Man, okay, so um before I was uh uh a priest, before I was a seminarian, like the really like the apart from being like a a student, I was a really good student. I I had really great grades in high school. I really applied myself diligently and all those things. So being a uh you know, being a uh an academically involved person, that was a very sincere focus. But the like really like the the guiding, I don't know, organizing force of my life was I I was really involved. I I started doing martial arts when I was four and a half, five years old. Yeah. Started doing Taekwondo and uh um just got really into that. Um was competing in local tournaments, then state tournaments, then national tournaments. I was on karate kid. Yeah, I was a competitor on uh the international stage and wow, yeah, just trained at a really, really high level and was training in fact with like the Olympic Training Center in in Denver, Colorado, and yeah, had my sights set on that goal of I wanted to compete uh on on the international stage. Wow. So there's that fact. So before I was a lover, I was a fighter. Um so the uh there's that. Um man, uh give give me a bonfire in the fall, give me a bonfire in the spring and summer, man. You're not gonna find a happier person. Uh give me a good bowl of chips and and and uh and guac and uh queso, and uh I will I will eat my weight in queso. I I I'm powerless. I'm utterly powerless before chips and queso.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Um have you ever given that given that up for Lent?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

You don't need to. I just Oh geez.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

What is this, right? Brutal. Yeah, yeah. Uh I've got um I've got eight godchildren who I adore. In fact, uh as we're recording this today, is the feast of St. Gianna Baretta Mola, my youngest goddaughter, her name is Gianna, and uh I I adore my godchildren. They they've been a huge part of my own heart and journey that experience of spiritual fatherhood, and just so blessed with great friends. I got a younger brother who lives in San Francisco. Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Awesome. Wow, no, thanks for sharing. So, okay, um, so with that, we want to jump to our our topic today. So we've been, I was I was explaining to Father Patrick, we've been going through this book, Why We're Catholic, uh, by Trent Horn. And it's also kind of in the post-Easter, well, current Easter season, but also kind of post-conversation, we were talking about how how Easter is is connected and related to mission. So uh that we're called to uh proclaim Jesus and and take Jesus into the world. Uh and so we kind of were talking about Catholic morality, you know, insofar as God wants to come into the whole of our lives, yes, uh, each and every part and uh in our our decisions and our actions and our relationships and uh and everything. God is not just a God who's out there uh in the ether, you know, in the heavens, but he's he's also here with us, and that's the whole point of Christianity. And so we're called to uh take the gospel, take Jesus to the world. Last week we talked about um, you know, the why we're why we protect life and the whole pro-life mission of the church to uh to protect and defend every human life. Uh certainly on the other end of that is um uh those who are are elderly as well, and euthanasia is another uh topic within Catholic morality with that would hold the same principle of being created in the image and likeness of God and having human dignity. That could be a conversation maybe for for a later time. But you know, the next chapter in the book was why we cherish our sexuality. And I think uh so in in discerning just like how to how to approach this and talk about it, so there's a whole teaching called the theology of the body. And uh long story short, it was given to us uh, well, by God through the church, uh, but it was uh really kind of fleshed out, if you will, uh by Saint uh Pope John Paul II. And it came out in the uh the seventies, uh I believe, uh right, at the kind of the height of the sexual revolution, um, providentially. I don't know if he knew what was going to be happening in the world, but he was giving this teaching uh that uh is really profound, is really true, is really good, and is really beautiful. I actually just had a uh kind of a session with some of my marriage couples last night talking about just humanity and sexuality and what is that like within the marriage uh reality. And we we talked about theology body, so I'm kind of all kind of all ready to go. But Father Patrick as well has uh done a lot of work within teaching and sharing about theology of the body and uh and all of that. And uh, you know, keyed into our conversation too about you know freedom, uh, insofar as you know, freedom isn't just doing whatever we want to do for the sake of doing it, but freedom is ultimately about choosing the good and and living with God who wants to um give us abundant life, as we heard in the gospel this this last weekend. You know, I've came that they may have life and have it more abundantly. So we just wanted to we're there's a million things we could both say uh about theology of the body, but we just kind of want to unpack it here just briefly. So Father Patrick, if I asked, you know, what is a theology of the body? Other than, okay, it's a teaching of John Paul that was it was given to us that where he looked back uh at what came before Genesis, uh, and then all the were also the words of Jesus. In that context, what is theology of the body?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, it it's that like that question is a hard question to answer because there's several answers to it, right? So you could one of the answers you could give is it is the title for a series of Wednesday general audiences that Pope St. John Paul II gave between 1978 and 1983, with a brief interruption for about a year after he was shot uh by a communist hired assassin. So he took a little pause to recover. Um good call. It is his long studied contemplative look at the human person, answering what is God's plan, what is what is the plan of divine love and human love? Another way, uh way that I like to answer it is uh is to to go back to Pope St. Paul the Sixth, who in 1968 released a little document that shocked the world, that rocked the world and rocked the church called Humanivitae, in which he upheld the church's uh uh teaching on contraception in all its forms. So it wasn't just the Catholic Church. I mean, it really is still the it's it really is now the case that it's kind of just the Catholic Church that stands in opposition to all forms of contraception. Um but up until uh the 1930s, every mainline Protestant denomination, ev uh pretty much the whole world was was universally opposed to these things. 1930 the Anglican Church broke with that tradition at their conference in Lambeth, England, and then pretty much following upon that decision, every other mainline Protestant denomination fell in line with uh the Anglicans. Uh in other words, accepting contraception as a as a um a legitimate option for marriage uh for married couples. Uh-huh. Up until 1968, up until the 1960s, and and the church and the world was wondering what's the Catholic Church going to do. So Pope Paul VI uh established a special commission during the Second Vatican Council to investigate this question specifically around the issue of the birth control pill. He releases the document in 1968 saying no, each and every act of marital intercourse needs to be procreative, so open to life and unitive, bonding the couple together. The two ends of sexuality, God has joined two goals of the sexual embrace together, that it's for both babies and bonding. Like that's what it is. In the same way we could say that the the act of taking in food couples the two ends of tasting, chewing, you know, mm all of that experience with bringing in nutrients. So both of those ends come together in the one act of of eating food. And it would be unnatural to say, I doctor, I'm so sick of chewing, I'm so get so sick of getting food stuck in my teeth and my beer, can you just put in uh a feeding tube?

unknown 21:33

Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

You'd be like, what? There's something wrong there, right? So anyway, so Pope Paul VI, he releases this document, and in that document he says, in order to appreciate or understand this teaching, we need to recover, he says, quote, a total vision of man, a total vision of man. He was calling forth, he's calling for a new anthropology or a new articulation of human anthropology. Anthropology is answering the answering the question um, what does it mean to be human? What is a man? What is a woman? What is that? The nature of the family, why do we have these bodies? What is sexuality? What is it for? Why do we have these desires? Um, where do we come from? Where are we going? How do we get there? That's that's that's the those are the questions, the essential questions that needed to be answered in the background to understand this specific teaching. So John Paul II, he started working on that answer, right? So he was working on this manuscript to answer that question, and then lo and behold, second conclave of 1978, Pope John Paul I dies after 30 days, and the cardinals come back to Rome and elect uh Carol Voitiwa, the first non-Italian pope in 500 years, who takes the name Pope John Paul II and uh begins to teach the world uh on this very topic. I would put it like this, very simply, that theology of the body is uh is uh it's a reflection on what does it mean that God became flesh? When you look at every other world religion, there is an emphasis on, you know, Buddhists said, I've discovered a way, come walk in it. You know, Mohammed said, I've received a revelation, come hear it. Even, you know, Abraham, Moses, I've received this word from the Lord, here's the law, keep it. Christianity's proclaims something staggeringly different. It's it's the word was made flesh, right? God took on a body, that there is a significance to our bodies, that our bodies actually reveal divine mystery.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, so with that, no, beautiful. That's great. Uh kind of background uh is to yeah, how did it come and and why? Uh and I think so where we learn about something dictates and really influences what we think about it, right? Uh so to say, uh my my marriage prep couples, I asked them, even just at the beginning of the conversation, uh, I just asked them to reflect. Like, think about when you were younger. Well, like, where did you learn about sexuality or where did you most learn about sexuality? Be it uh peer groups, uh media, so uh radio or movies, uh your your parents, your school, your church. If you could rank those, you know, where would you put them? Uh as to what, you know, did you have any conversations with your parents or the church about sexuality? And unfortunately, um, I don't think many of us, most of us, had necessarily those conversations. And it's not to fault our parents necessarily, it's you can't give what you don't have, right? So if you don't know how to talk about this, it's gonna be really difficult. But it this is hence it's highlighting the gift uh of what we've been given in this teaching that is taken some time because it's uh if you pick up the book, The Theology of the Body, uh, it is a dense read, right? It is not a picture book, right? Right. So uh it's taken some time, it's meat and potatoes, right? So it's taken some time to actually digest this a little bit. And so I think now we're we're a couple decades out from it that there's some good content coming out that's kind of good for people, it's accessible, right? But uh yeah, where we learn about something really matters. And uh it's it's to say too, you know, if people have heard uh even relating church and sexuality in the same sentence, usually there's a negative kind of perception, right? Uh and there's a sense of, you know, I asked the couples like if there was one word that you could describe, you know, the experience of of how a lot of people understand you know the the church and sexuality in the same sentence, what would that word be? No. Yeah, right. Opposition. Right. The first for word probably a lot of people would would say is no. Okay, but if there's a no, it means there's a yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

So we haven't heard the yes. So what you just kind of described is it's a whole conversation, it's a whole story that gives the background to yes, the church has teachings, but there's a lot of reasons why, you know, and there are a lot of really beautiful reasons why that are ultimately connected to this truth and this this fact, this historical event of the incarnation of God taking on human flesh. And if that happened, it means something, you know, uh, it means something for us as humans, uh, and in our lives and everything. So so it's just it's really an invitation to come learn more about what's the background, what's the story, and what's the why.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Because then with that, too, you know, a lot of times people we can hear the the church's answer to something and be it no or whatever. Uh, but you're hearing like the end of the story. You know, you you can't watch, you can't watch the end of a movie or read the end of the book only and really appreciate what's happening. You have to read the whole book. You have to watch the whole movie, right? And so this is uh this is the this is a this is more of the story. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

I was gonna say, like, we you know, I spoke with my godchildren. One of the things I've I've gotten to do with them over the years is read them so many different stories, so many different books, right? And if I introduce a new book, one of the first questions is what kind of story is this? Right? Is it an adventure story? Is it a mystery story? Is it fantasy? Like what kind what kind of story is this? So, like, what kind of story is Christianity? Right. I don't think most I don't think most Christians, most Catholics know how to answer that question. Um The answer to that question is it's a love story. It's a rescue mission because it's a love story. Right. Right? The Bible begins with the marriage of a couple in an earthly paradise, Adam and Eve. The Bible ends with the marriage of Christ the Lamb to the church in the heavenly paradise, the book of Revelation. So the two bookends of the Bible are marriages. SmackDab. In the middle of the Bible, you've got the Song of Songs, which is this beautiful love poetry. The ancient rabbis used to say that all of Scripture is holy, but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies. Pope Benedict himself said the song of songs expresses the essence of biblical faith. Like this story, this book in the center of the Bible, doesn't even mention God. That's just this dripping love poetry. Pope Benedict is asserting that that book, that story, is the interpretive lens for the entire thing. It's a distillation, a summation of the entire story, which begs the question why don't we know that? Right? I think it's because most Christians, it's like the it's like right lyrics wrong melody, right? Like, or like if you're walking down the sidewalk and if you see someone just starting to like dance and look weird, like you just look at them, you think, what are they doing? Well, because you don't hear the music that they're they've got in their airpods, right? Right? Those who don't hear the music think the dancers are mad, right? So the lens that enables us to really interpret the entirety of the entire Christian thing is this spousal lens. It's this love drama that marriage is the interpretive lens, right? God is not just interested in a personal relationship with us. As great as personal relationships are, he's interested in a kind of relationship that the least inadequate analogy is that of spousal love. It's his way of saying, like, I want a total relationship with you. And and to give you a visual of that, it's like God stammering, saying, it's like, it's like something like marriage. Like, I want to give myself to you. I want to pour my life into your heart, your soul, your body, your mind. I want to be united to you. Like Christianity is like the the stunning proposal at the heart of the gospel is that there is a stunning proposal at the heart of the gospel. Right. That the God you mentioned your enunciation moment, that like God does, in fact, come before every human person and bends the knee and essentially says, Will you spend eternity with me? Will you let me in? Will you let me unite my life to yours?

SPEAKER_00 29:24

That's what baptism is, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:25

That it begins in baptism, is fortified in Eucharist, continues through all the sacraments, and is consummated at death, right? Where we're brought into the very heart and life of God.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Right. Yeah, that's that's that's a mouthful, right? Yeah, that's that's a lot. It's beautiful. Uh, I think it just what strikes me as you're sharing, it's just like this seems like a different language. This seems like a this seems like a different world. Maybe as you're if you're listening, like this makes sense. I can't really explain it, but there's something deeper here, right? I think this is this is the invitation. So the reality is, um, you can get a graduate degree in studying theology of the body. There's uh so Christopher West is uh kind of the foremost teacher of theology of the body for the past 30-some years. Uh they have an apostolate out in the Philadelphia area. Both Father Patrick and I have been there and helped to chaplain courses, and it's just a beautiful gift. People come from all over the world to learn and study. So to say, like this conversation, I suppose, you know, what are we hoping to do with this conversation in just a few minutes? Just say something briefly, true, good, and beautiful, that you know, the church has a teaching on human sexuality uh that is just that, true, good, and beautiful. And it's related to this question of what does it mean to be human? And uh as we find ourselves and it I find ourselves in a time of crisis in our in our world, it's they're asking these questions, but there's all kinds of answers, right? Uh, that there is something we can stand on that that's that's firm and then that's solid, uh, and that is true, good, and beautiful. And and so this is like a beginning of a conversation. And I think um before I I want to share the thesis statement of theology of the body. Um and then and then we'll kind of just briefly share like how even to know to say we could share a million things, how has this teaching helped to impact our lives personally? Because I think that's what gives witness and testimony to just the goodness of this. But so if we could say anything, the thesis statement, uh this the statement that's that summarizes the whole teaching of the theology of the body would be uh theology of the body uh 194. What is it's uh talk talk nineteen, paragraph four, okay, for reference if you want to go look it up. John Paul says, quote, the body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from God, hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it. End quote. Okay, so we could spend an hour talking about that quote. Uh I start my um my marriage prep sessions on sexuality with this video, and it's actually a uh it's a study that was done by a secular group, and they were saying uh they were trying, they were doing a discovery about like asking a question, what is intimacy? And they were doing the study where they were trying to flesh out that staring at someone else, staring into someone else's eyes for four minutes will increase intimacy with them. And so let's define intimacy into me see, right? So you're you're it's it's a vulnerability with another person, right? And this is not confined simply to romance, it's confined to every human relationship, right? Uh that we can be close to someone else, right? So uh so as you're watching this video, it's like uh, and I'll post it in the show notes. You you see the reactions uh of of what happens after these uh people, some are married, some are like a mother and daughter, and they there's looking into someone else's eyes, it brings up these deep memories and emotions uh and all of that. They see into the person, even though they're like just looking into their uh into their face. Um so I just I that's kind of an interesting way of kind of fleshing out this thought that our bodies are us and they they reveal our personhood. And there's we're not just creatures with uh machine like structures, right? That we are we are a person, we're an incarnate spirit.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Um so yeah, the uh to build on that, the I think to really interpret that the thesis statement of theology of the body, you need a paragraph from the catechism, which I'm thinking is paragraph 312, but man, I could be wrong. So if I'm wrong, he's gonna correct it in the show notes. We'll fact check. There's a lot of catechism paragraphs, so just getting off the top of your head. Oh, yeah. That God has revealed his innermost secret, that God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And sending the Son in the fullness of time, God has revealed this innermost secret, and we are called, we are destined to enter into that exchange. Okay, so what is the secret hidden from eternity in God? That God is an eternal exchange of life and love, an endless giving and receiving of love, this communion of persons. That is the very thing that the body, the male body, the female body, reveals. That's his thesis statement, that the body is revealing divine mystery. The body is making visible the invisible reality, right? The invisible is made visible through the physical, right? So when God went about making an image of himself in creation, when you read Genesis, he just says, Let there be light, there's light, let the water come forth, it comes forth. And then there's this pause. Let us, first of all, who's the us speaking there in Genesis? That's that's the Trinity, it's the hidden Trinity, just kind of lifting the veil in that first page of Genesis. Let us make man in our image after our likeness, male and female, he created them. That the image of God, the making visible of God is masculinity and femininity. That he didn't just make a man, he didn't just make a woman, he made a couple whose bodies and souls are complementary and reciprocally ordered towards each other in such a way that when the two become one in love, they become so much one that nine months later you have to give it a name, and then they're three and one, they become a family. Right. Right? So the image of the family on earth is this little icon, this sign of the eternal Trinity, the endless exchange of life and love. And not only that, this couple in the beginning is a sign that points to the modality in which God wants to relate to humanity, right? The image of bridegroom and bride, man and woman, like these are the lenses that Jesus, this is the language that Jesus takes to himself to explain who he is, right? A king throws a feast for his son and he invites everybody. My hall must be filled, right? Heaven is like a great wedding feast, he says. The book Revelation, what is the supper of the Lamb? It's the wedding feast of the Lamb. Like all of this is headed to this union with God, this union with God. And yeah, like as you were saying, the body, the physicality, we're not just souls trapped in bodies, we're body-soul composites, that the the visible, the physical is the manifestation of the invisible. Like I'm looking at Father David right now, I can't see his soul. What do I look at? I'm looking at his body, right? If his body's not in this room, he's not in this room, right? The body is a manifestation of the invisible. We can say the body is a sacrament, right? A sacrament is a physical, visible sign that reveals and conveys invisible spiritual reality.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Right. Um, yeah, and then with that, you know, uh the body is the person, yeah, uh, and the person is made in the image and likeness of God and has uh eternal dignity uh because of that, right? And so that dictates all of our actions, right? So we're or do we approach the other person as uh someone created in the image and likeness of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit, right? And so this is where the church has a teaching of sexuality that wants to move us towards love uh and away from lust or use, right? Right. Uh and so we have to keep uh love and life together when it comes to sexuality. And that's the long and short of it. So we could we could say a lot more, but yeah, um a little fire hydrant dive into TOB, uh theology of the body, the the the more of uh the story behind you know what does the church have to say about humanity and and sexuality. Maybe just here real quick as we begin to wrap up, maybe uh just a quick thought on uh how how has this teaching affected affected you personally? If we could if we could just say something real quick.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah, I'll as succinct as I can. The um the theology of the body, that this catechesis, this teaching has has given language to help me as a man uh understand my desires, especially in this call to priesthood. That when um when Jesus calls a man to priesthood, he's not calling him uh to simply white knuckle his way through life. That when he calls a man to priesthood, he's inviting him away from a particular spouse in a particular family in order to be at the service of every spouse and every family. That priesthood, we're not called fathers as a sort of like Ursatz fatherhood, like we're not, it's not a pity, but it's a real participation in the eternal fatherhood of God and the spouse relationship that Jesus has with the church. That um theology of the body, living out celibacy, it's not a rejection of sexuality, it's a living out of the deepest meaning of sexuality. Uh, this whole notion of self-gift. Um that's how I would as succinctly as possible.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Sure. Well, you did a great job. Thank you. Um I would say that uh I would say that Ditto. Uh just understanding what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be uh a priest? What does it mean to be a man? I think it's it's helped me discern a lot of things. So understand celibacy, uh, this this discipline that we have within the priesthood, um, but then also uh just the call to chastity for each person, you know. Um making sense of how do how do we know freedom in the midst of the midst of the world? And I just I think it's helped me to understand my relationships with both men and women. Yeah. You know, it's not even just uh the romantic sense, you know, it's it's understanding, okay, who is the human person and how do I relate with other people? You know, there's a lot of John Paul's writings is actually an examination of conscience. Uh love and responsibility is is the philosophical writing he did before the theology of the body. And it's um it's it's really kind of an examination of conscience. In what ways am I living chaste? Because we're all called to chastity, we're all called to uh this love, approaching another person as not an object but a person, right? Right. And so yeah, how do I do that? What what are ways that I do that well in my life? What are ways that uh that I fail? Yes, priests go to confession too. You know, we um we're called to live lives of of holiness. Uh and to say I've come I've come across this prayer, and I I share this uh with with people um uh who may be struggling with with this this thing or this thing or that thing. So um, but it's a prayer for the redemption of sexual desire, to say our sexual desire is good, it's holy, it's it's from God at the deepest level. There's a phrase behind every disordered desire, I mean uh is a is a behind every disordered desire is a holy desire. Behind every temptation to sin is actually something good we are seeking, right? But this prayer uh is is goes like this Lord, I praise you and thank you for the gift of my sexual desires. I give all the lustful desires of my heart to you and ask you to crucify them. Grant me the grace and courage to die with you, so that I also might be raised with you. By the power of your death and resurrection, untwist in me what sin is twisted, so might know so I might know and experience sexual desire as you created it to be, as the desire to live freely, faithfully, and fruitfully.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Yeah, and so this this can be this prayer can be prayed by by anyone and everyone, and it's uh it's this invitation to freedom. So um Okay, beautiful. So uh real quick, we'll dive into our gospel for this weekend. The Lord be with you.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

And with your spirit.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord. Jesus said to his disciples, Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God, have faith also in me. And the Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you, then I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going, you know the way. Thomas said to him, Master, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us. Jesus said to him, Have I been with you for so long a time, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. Or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen. I say to you, Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you. Jesus Christ. A lot here, right? Uh any any quick thought, anything that strikes you about this.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Well, just continuing, yeah, the theme of what we've just been talking about.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Show us the Father, Philip says. How can you say, or whoever has seen me has seen the Father? Right there it is. There's there's your theology of the body right there. Jesus is the making visible, he's the icon, the image, the sign of the invisible Father. Right. Right? What does the Father look like? He looks like, what does God's love look like? It looks like Christ crucified, pouring out for the world. What does the love of the Trinity look like, transposed in earthly space and time in a fallen world? It looks like Christ on the cross pouring everything out.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

I am the way, the truth, and the life. You know, he himself in his bodily existence, right? Uh in his well, divine and bodily existence, right? Uh that he doesn't point to something else or someone else, but he himself. And that ultimately, if we live with Jesus, we're gonna have freedom. If we live apart from Jesus, we're not going to have the freedom and the abundant life he wants for us. So all right. Uh with that, um, so any any prayer intentions? Anyone pray for today?

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Oh, yeah. I mean, I want to lift up uh, especially on this feast day of St. Gianna, all the uh every every mother, every woman who's who's uh pregnant currently, especially those facing difficult pregnancy. Um and any woman who's considering abortion that through the intercession of St. Gianna they would choose life for their babies. And just the the that this teaching would more and more soak into the hearts and lives first of bishops, then into the clergy, and then into um the hearts and lives of of men and women in the pews in the parishes. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Yeah, and with that my intercession would be uh for uh Theology of the Body of Cleveland, uh Jen Ricard, as a woman from uh actually St. Mary's Hudson, uh friend of mine. Yeah, St. Parish, uh good friend of ours, and she does great work on the diocese, uh, helping to share this teaching uh with uh with uh parishes and schools and uh uh people. Just uh blessing for her and uh all those who are working with her for their uh fruitfulness of their uh of their ministry. So I can you lead us out in prayer.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, through the intercession of St. John Paul the Great, the apostle of the human person, we ask you, Lord, to send forth your Holy Spirit upon all those that we love and know and serve. We ask you, Lord, to be attentive to the hearts of all those that are suffering, who do not know you, those who have wandered far from your heart, all the prodigals, sons and daughters, that you would bring them home. Lord, we ask that you would bring healing to our our church, bring healing to our nation, bring healing to our homes, our families, our marriages, and let us all come to rest in the sacred heart of Jesus. All this we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. All right, everyone, thank you for uh sticking with us with this episode. I know this is a little more uh fire hydrant kind of episode, but you know, it's all good. Diving a little deeper. And uh yeah, thanks to Father Pat Father Patrick for for being with us, and most welcome. We'll have you on again talking about something else fun. Can't wait. All right, everyone, have a great week. God bless you, but it's a good thing.