Transcription
Hey everyone, God bless you. Christ is risen. Thanks a lot for tuning in.
I prepared a reflection that I hope will benefit benefit you from uh the inside out entitled Theo, do you want to be healed? Uh recently I had some uh close friends who helped me with uh Petristic Nectar suggest that I watch a clip of Theo Von's podcast this past weekend. He was responding as he does to a caller and I found uh as did my friends who were suggesting that I watch this clip. I found uh Theo's response to this man really amazing. It was touching. It was very touching and I thought uh since Theobon evidently is very well known, I'm kind of late to the table as usual, my friends telling me what I should know uh in our culture. I was very touched by what I saw and I thought I would make a response to the clip that I watched.
There was about a 13minute section of one of his recent podcasts in which he was addressing this reader who found himself stuck. Now if you don't know who Theo is, let me say just a word about him. Theodora Capitani von Kernatowski III. That's a name right there. That's a name. He is a well-known stand-up comedian, reality TV personality here in America. He has this podcast uh this past weekend in which he takes phone messages, phone phone calls from people and then responds to them. He is especially well known for his empathy, uh for his humor, uh for his ability to enter into uh the condition of those that are talking with him and his callers. I found that to be the case when I was watching him, especially in his reflections on addiction.
This reflection that I heard Theo Von give on his this past weekend podcast was a response to a caller. It was a young man who had a very what what should I say uninspiring work life. Uh he was stuck in struggle and the struggle cycle. Very lonely. He felt like he couldn't conquer the bad influences on his life. He would make it to the weekend and then he would party on the weekends and he just knew it wasn't healthy for him. Wasn't a great idea. But he really couldn't find an alternative or a way to break him free. He knew that you drinking and uh drug use was not good for him. It was unhealthy. He also knew that he was being tempted to improper relationships with women. He always felt awful in the morning, stuck. He used the word depressed, not being able to advance towards his goals and like on a repeat cycle. He felt like he just couldn't get out of it even though he could see clearly that he needed to get out of it. He could feel properly that it was terrible for him, but he felt like he just couldn't break free. And it was in response to him that Theo von spoke. And I'll say just off the bat that I found his I found his responses just superb. Just absolutely superb. He is an excellent listener. It's very clear that he had tremendous empathy and was entering into the actual experience uh of the person.
He spoke Theo spoke about this struggle and these sins as a sickness and as a disease that needed a cure.
"I couldn't change. I could I I tried everything. I tried everything to change. I I would tell myself I'm going to do it different. I'm going to do that. And it wouldn't it just I I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it by myself. But so yeah, so I just been praying that God comes into those parts of me, you know. Don't just come into like the water inside of me. Come into the Come into the well. Come into the walls of the well. Come into the the the the mortar, whatever that's between the bricks. That cuz I'm Cuz I'm broken. because because I'm broken all the way there."
I was very happy to hear that because this is very ecclesial language. This is one of the concepts that the church herself uh wants to bore into our hearts, get into the depths of our mind to understand sin as a disease, an addiction uh very much as um a way to understand the passions. He also mentioned the importance of prayer. That was one of the first things that Theo said was that he that he himself had learned from his own struggles with sin and with addictive temptations. He said, "You can't do it by yourself." I learned that I can't do it by myself and that any progress that I've been able to make, I've made by prayer and by God. This is an extremely important thing. I say bravo. Bravo. 100. Kudos to that. That's absolutely true. The self-reliance is not the solution to overcoming our struggles and our passions. Not at all.
He also said Theo Van also made some revealing words uh which I found to be very courageous on his part. He revealed well what shall I say a divided his divided heart that sometimes when he prays at the same time that he's praying a part of him is not praying at the same time he's asking God to deliver him a part of him is hoping that he can repeat the sin or somehow go back to it or despairing even at the same time that he's praying that he's going to ever be free of the passion that is uh holding him by the neck and kind of pushing him.
"You know, sometimes I I realized for myself, I would pray to God to to help me get away from certain behaviors in my life. Uh but at the same time that I was praying, there would be a part of me that knew I was probably going to do those things again. You know, like God, please help me to I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to have this behavior. But there would be a little part of me that was like, I know even as I ask for God's help that I'm going to do it again. I would know I would know that."
I found this to to be obvious an obvious reality in most people's lives uh when we try to pray that we find ourselves to be mixed persons right and this is a clear window into our disease is that as St. Paul says uh a part of us delights in the law of God and yet we find another law at work in the members of our body that torments us and leads us to cry in St. Paul's words, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?"
This experience of um progressive salvation that it has a beginning. Yes. To call on the name of Christ. Uh from the church's perspective, to call on the name of Christ, to repent and believe and to be baptized is the beginning of salvation. But then you have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It's not like, "Ding, I called on Jesus's name and now the war is over." No, no, no, no, no, no. The war is over at death and not before. Not a second before. You enter into war. This is why St. Paul the great apostle says, "We war against principalities and powers in the heavenly places. We're engaged in that. We're working out our salvation." So for him to describe this, of course he didn't use all this scriptural and theological language so to speak, but he described the reality of it that uh it's impossible uh to conquer uh all of our passions just instantly and that it engage it it requires sustained engagement in the spiritual life, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, laboring to work out salvation. Very, very important. We can't do it by ourselves. And even after we've begun, we have uh a divided heart. And we need to put to death the flesh and the old man to crucify the flesh with it with its passions and desires. St. Paul says we have to have this aggressive attitude to the old man and choke him out. Uh cut off all sources of his vivification. We want to dissolve his power uh by nourishing the new man.
He said sometimes uh Theoban said sometimes when he prays he knows that he's actually lying to God. Wow. Was that a humble thing to say as terrible as it is? I understand exactly what he means that he is saying it because he knows it's the right thing to say. And yet a part of him really doesn't want to give up whatever he's trying to conquer or maybe not even look at it. Maybe not even look at it. He says, "Sometimes I lie to God while I'm praying." Incredible.
So, how do you take definitive action? What is the recipe for this kind of uh universal human condition uh for those who are repenting and trying to be saved? What should we do? Well, Jesus is the savior of mankind. There is only one. And his very name, which means savior, shows us the solution to our problems. We cannot save ourselves. No one has ever gotten in the ring with sin, death, and Satan and one. No one except Jesus Christ, our savior. He's the only one. We are broken. We need a massive massive fix and revolution on the inside of our being.
Theo von says uh the inside of me he said the inside of me is broken that I take angles. He said I need God to come not just into the water of my life but into the well itself. He said into the very mortar that supports the walls of the well. I thought that was profound and very very beautiful. Yes. Yes. Yes. You're right my dear brother. You're right. Christ must come where he wants to come which is into the deep heart of man to penetrate the very inner being and to take up his seat on the throne of your life on the deep in the deep man. St. Paul describes this in his epistles. In his epistle to the Galatians, he describes how Christ by the Holy Spirit takes up a presence in your life and he's so deep in you. Uh when you get baptized, he takes up this position and he lives within you. And then by the Holy Spirit, he teaches you how to relate to God as a son to a father. How to actually cry aba father. This is the pedagogical work the the teaching work of the Holy Spirit from the inside. This is absolutely true. This is this is right. We need him to come into the mortar of the very well itself into the deep heart into the very core of our being because as Jesus says everything flows out from the heart. Everything. All evil comes from there. All good comes from there. The heart is the core of mankind. And therefore if we purify that, if we yield the leadership to Christ in the heart, then beautiful things can flow. Love, faith, peace, forgiveness. This is exactly the case. We don't need surface healing. We need deep interior transformation. And that's exactly what Christ accomplishes in the hospital of his church through his holy mysteries.
This is what the church is doing. Calling everyone to believe in Christ, to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching to all men in all corners of the earth to observe everything that Jesus has commanded and to anticipate his return when he'll take us as his bride into the great heavenly bridal, marriage, banquet, and unceasing joy forever. That's the future. This is what we're looking for. The gates of Hades can't be trampled down by individuals. Every person who has tried to do that on their own has failed. Only Christ crushed Satan. And only in the church, by joining Christ in his body, which is what the church is, can we participate in that perpetual victory uh when the gates of Hades will be crushed. It's very important not to create any false separation between Jesus and the church. The church is his body on earth, his very presence. The church ministers with his hands. The church brings his light to light up the world. The church is the fullness of Christ who fills all in all. If you want the whole Christ, St. Augustine of Hippo says, you can't just go to the right hand of the father where Christ in his glorified body is. You have to take Christ at the right hand of the father and the entire church which is the fullness of Christ on the earth. This is the mystery uh of the church and it's in the church which is his kingdom on the earth that his victory is accessed. It's in the church and the embrace and the bosom of the one holy catholic and apostolic church that Jesus is working his healing miracles. And so if you want to win, if you want to be healed, if you want to conquer and be free, the only way to do that is enter the hospital, the divine hospital, to accept the embrace of Christ in his very church.
He Jesus is the healer of our souls and bodies. He's the only one who has conquered sin. Jesus wrote nothing. He didn't leave us a Bible after he conquered death on the cross and ascended into heaven, taking humanity and placing it at the right hand of God in glory as a forerunner for us as a promise that we too will follow in his footsteps. No, he gave us a life. He gave us his kingdom. He gave us victory, his very presence by the Holy Spirit. He inspired by the Holy Spirit the writing and collection of the Holy Bible, which we'd love and cherish. But it was hundreds of years before the scriptures were in totality in most of the churches. But the church is what Christ left us. The church who produced also the scriptures in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The church is his kingdom on the earth. It is his life among men.
You know the parable of the good Samaritan describes very clearly and very beautifully uh this concept. We are the man who was going down the road and was mugged and those who were mugged us were the demons. We were left half dead. The good Samaritan of course is our loving savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was on his way, got off his donkey and took care of us and he held us and patched us up and poured on the wine and the oil of the mysteries. Then he picked us up assuming our very fallenness, our very uh burden, our very broken nature and healed us putting us on his own donkey and then he took us to the inn which is a symbol of the church and he entrusted us to the inkeepers which is a picture of the spiritual fathers of the church. That need that presents so beautifully uh to heal the very inside. This is exactly the specialty of the church. This is exactly where uh that kind of healing takes place.
I'll end with uh another appreciation of something that Theopan said. He talked about the miracle of the paralytic from John chapter 5 and a man who had spent 38 years uh by the miraculous pool that an angel occasionally came down and stirred and the first in would be healed. And there's a story called John 5 and it's about a guy who's at these pools and Jesus is is at the is at the pools and and it's in Bethesda and they're like there's a sick man there and he's been sick for a long time and um and Jesus and Jesus asks him do you want to be healed? He asks him do do you want to be healed? Oh, and that's a crazy question because, you know, if I get healed, then I'm different. You know, if if somebody gets healed, they have a new story. So, that's just been something that I've been having to ask myself. It's like, yeah, do I want to be healed? Do I really want something different? And sometimes a a lot of the answer is no. I don't I want something different, but I don't want to. I don't know. Um, if I'm scared of it, I don't know what I am. I don't know if I don't want to do what it takes to get. I I can't even tell what it is.
Theon described this as in his own life, Christ asking, "Do you want a new story? I want to give you a new story to break the degrading story that you yourself know is not good for you and hasn't helped you. Do you want to step away from that even though it's familiar and we h we hold on to those things because they are familiar? Are you willing to step away and fashion a new story with me? Be renewed. Be renewed because Jesus makes all things new. As St. Paul says, "Behold, new creation." Every man who is in Christ, new creation. Ken kadesis, a new creation. Do you want a new story? Do you want to get better? Sometimes, sometimes I fear the answer is no. We find ourselves in pain and we say no. But it's God's will that we say yes. That we humble oursel. That we bring our filth to the healing waters of confession. That we go see a priest and tell him everything without hesitation. A complete revelation of our inner man without holding back. Speaking it out loud. There is no confession in Genesis to Revelation. That's private. Dear ones, there's a hospital. There's a doctor. The supreme physician is Christ. Those who are on his p pastoral staff, his medical staff are the priests of the church. Go see a priest. Tell him everything without he hesitation. Make a complete revelation of your heart. And the promise of Jesus will come true. As John records it in his first epistle, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Two promises. Forgiveness. Just if he gave us forgiveness, we would dance for the rest of our days. But he offers, he's so gracious, he offers something else. Forgiveness and interior cleansing. Forgiveness and interior cleansing.
Healing is not accomplished privately, but corporately in the communion of the church. We all have pain. We all have our broken history. Theob describes the pain with his mother and his relationship with his mother very tenderly, very in a very vulnerable way.
"My mom, something was wrong with her. I love my mother, you know, but she didn't connect with me. She didn't like look at me. And so, as a kid, I felt like I felt like something was wrong with me, you know. I felt like, oh, if if the person that created me won't even look at me, then something must be so wrong with me."
Our worth is derived from God's esteem. This is where our worth comes from, from God's esteem. He loves us and it's his love love that is the measure of our value. Our great savior keeps our tears, the psalmist says, in a bottle. Can you imagine? Not only is he looking at us, not only does he care for us, not only has he done everything for us in a with a humility that's past tracing, but he cares about all of our pain, and he collects every single tear in his bottle, in his compassion. One human being is more precious to God than the entire cosmos. St. Simeon, the new theologian, says that.
And I'll end with these majestic words from St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans. If God is for you, and he is, who can be against you? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all. How will he not also with him freely give to us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies, who is the one who condemns. Christ Jesus is he who died. Yes. Rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us, who will separate us from the love of Christ, will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or the sword. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Christ is risen. God bless you all.