The Theology of Intimacy (Season 4 Episode 8)

Intimacy sounds soft until you realize it can be the difference between a living faith and a life that runs on spiritual autopilot. I sit down with my friend the Friar, Father Stephen Sanchez, a Discalced Carmelite priest, to ask a deceptively simple question: what is intimacy, really, and does it matter for salvation?

We unpack intimacy as “the meeting of two interiorities” a shared exchange of the inner life that includes trust, transparency, and the courage to be seen. That leads to the crucial idea of mutuality: there are relationships where one person knows everything and the other knows almost nothing, and that is not the kind of communion God calls us to. We connect this to Catholic prayer and spiritual growth, where God’s grace is abundant, but we can still miss the mark by choosing a safe, neutral distance that avoids relationship.

Along the way we draw from the Gospel of John, John of the Cross and the dark night, and Bonhoeffer’s warning about cheap grace. We talk vulnerability without romanticizing pain, why dismissing someone’s openness can wound a relationship for years, and how genuine intimacy can be sacramental in daily life as a real channel of grace. We also turn to the Trinity and the Incarnation as the deepest picture of communion: God does not stay distant, and He moves first.

If this conversation challenges your prayer life or your closest relationships, share it with a friend, subscribe or follow for more, and leave a review that tells us what “intimacy with God” means to you.

Transcript

Welcome And How To Support

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the My Friend the Friar Podcast, and thanks for listening. If you like My Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us if you haven't already done so. And if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again, and God bless.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend the Friar, Father Stephen Sanchez, a discalist Carmelite priest. Good morning, Father. Good morning. How are you? I am good. I'm halfway through my third cup of coffee, and I might need 12 more cups.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

I've only had two.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So after the storm the other night, I still had to catch up on a lot of sleep, but still, here we are.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Are you okay? Will you survive on just two cups of coffee?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

No, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

All for Jesus. Amen. All

Why Intimacy Matters For Salvation

SPEAKER_02 1:09

right. Um so I've been thinking about something here, and um, I know it's a dangerous thing. So I've been thinking about intimacy, and I couldn't tell you what kind of sparked it, got me going on this, but I find it really interesting, so I've asked you to to chew on it with me. Okay. And um, oh, and I watched your um Carl Jung video. Oh, yes. And I think some of this is maybe related to the which I I thought was kind of funny, just the connection between it. So anyway, so this is a little bit unstructured because we're just chewing on it together. And so what I at first I was trying to think about kind of the necessity of intimacy in our salvation. And so there's a whole bunch of you gotta be carefuls here, right? Which is true when you're thinking about stuff, because it's really easy to kind of go too far with one thought instead of seeing how it's not just you can't cause these binary things like ones or zeros. You gotta, it's it's always a mixture of everything. Yes, right. Yes. And I was thinking about how we have identified in many of our episodes on relationship. So go check them all out. Um, how we approach relationship kind of backwards. We use our relationship with other people to inform how we behave or act toward God when it should be reversed, right? How do I have this relationship with God? Take that into my human relationships instead. That's the more appropriate way. So thinking about intimacy, I'm trying to understand really what is intimacy? Um, because it's it's multifaceted, right? Especially depending on your relationship. There's degrees and levels, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, and my relationship with you would be intimate in a way which is different than my relationship with my wife, right? So there's forms of intimacy and degrees of intimacy. And so I was at first I was trying to think, is is intimacy necessary for salvation? And there's that that word necessary became problematic for me. Um maybe foundational or fundamental or integral might be more important or sorry, more appropriate. Okay. Um, it's like when you're thinking about like what makes up an apple, if you start breaking it down into like molecules and atoms, you're not even looking at an apple anymore. You're looking at other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Right. Right. So I don't want to So how far are we gonna break this down? Are we gonna we can't dissect it to death, which is what Westerners usually do to things.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

So exactly, yeah. So you so I don't want to take it too far. But what I realized is that my particular salvation is based upon God having intimate knowledge of me. Yes. And so I'm like, oh, okay, so that's that's interesting. Do I have intimacy back with God? And then I started wondering, is intimacy like love where it's directed toward the other, or is it a shared experience, or can it only be one way? Like, what if God is intimate to me, but I'm not intimate to God, right? I don't know him. Well, God can do whatever he wants, so maybe I still have salvation. But then does it turn into a uh sinfulness in the in the sense of missing the mark, right? Like the archery term. Maybe I don't have to have an intimate relationship with God because he can do whatever he wants, but maybe I'm missing the mark if I don't have that relationship with God. So anyway, so my brain started going to all these different places. So anyway, what would you describe? Okay, yeah, how would you describe intimacy like or define it? What is intimacy to you?

Defining Intimacy And Mutuality

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Okay, so one yeah, trying to define the term so that we are both on the same page. Um intimacy, so then intimacy presupposes some sort of pre-knowledge that I know this person somehow, or this, right? Because you don't you don't dive straight into intimacy. So intimacy is a degree of relatedness to another, right? And intimacy means that there's a sharing of one's not just one's life with someone else, but one's um inner thoughts, understandings, perspective on things, a sharing, right? Um and ultimately it it is a sharing of the very self. Um the person allows themselves to love and be loved. The person allows themselves or desires for themselves to be seen and to see the other person. So one of the I'm trying to remember the author. It might be um Bouillet, Louis Bouillet. But anyway, uh the the the definition that I'm thinking of right now, the the phrase that comes to mind right now in terms of intimacy, it is the meeting of two interiorities. Like, like, wow, okay, I get that. I understand what he's trying to say. By that, by that, it would mean like I would share my interior world with someone else, my emotional psychological world with someone else, allow them and give them access to that part of me, right? And so then in that, that is what intimacy would be, that there's a there's a level of in Spanish we'd say confianza, uh, which is like confidant confidence or uh what we would say, a confidant, someone that you share yourself with, or you share your thoughts with, or someone you entrust your inner thoughts or or musings with, right? That kind of uh intimacy. Um and there would necessarily be some sort of affection, right? Some sort of love. Like, for example, between a patient and a therapist, there is intimacy, but it's one way. It is the patient who is describing the interior world to this professional, and there's a professional distance. And so the therapist would observe and know the intimate world of the patient to the client, but it would not be a mutual intimacy, right? And so we talk about intimacy, we're talking, or we're understanding, or we make the presupposition that we're talking about a mutuality, that there's a mutual sharing, that there's a mutual uh giving, a mutual uh transparency, right? So that would be.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

So can we go ahead? I was gonna say, let's can we hold on to while we're talking about this, that mutuality, because that was something that I definitely was thinking a lot about. Um the scientist who is dissecting an animal has intimate knowledge of this animal, but it's one way, right? It's not reciprocated at all. The therapist, I'm glad you brought that up because that's exactly where I went. I was, man, this the therapist knows a lot about the other person, but the other person's not allowed to know anything back. And you know, you always hear the story of the the patient who falls in love with their therapist, right? Because they feel like they're seen, they're they feel like they're heard and understood kind of thing. Yeah. And so it's not that that's not true intimacy, but it's not mutual intimacy. Correct. Right? So that's what I want to hold on to that mutual part, um, because there's something about intimacy and love, which I think are connected, and I don't necessarily know how to tease that all the way through, right? Like I can love someone who doesn't love me back, um, and I'm not just from the emotional standpoint, but from the uh the wanting the good of the other person, right? Right? God can love us and we don't love him back, right? So there's a lack of mutuality, which I think can take place in both of these, and maybe it's connected, maybe they're it's worth keeping them separate.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Right. So, for example, one of the things that uh the Gospel of John uh tries to bring across or get across is this idea of mutuality, right? Um especially in the uh the farewell discourse where Jesus is saying, uh I want as he's praying to the Father, I want them to be in me as I am in you and you are in me, and I be in them, and they be in me, and they be in that's sort of like the John's trying to get to some manifestation of mutuality, but he doesn't he doesn't have that word, or he doesn't, or we don't translate it that way. But what that that is what the idea is, that there's a mutuality that is involved in an intimacy uh that is uh fruitful and life-giving and dynamic, and that's what makes it so rare and so special, because it is something that that doesn't happen all the time, but it is something that we're called to, and so then going back to this whole idea of love, right, that there is some understanding of love, so there's an understanding of friendship, there's an understanding that there is some sort of relatedness between the two individuals or the parties involved, and then um that that begins to grow. So that grows into a deeper friendship, and that deeper friendship keeps leading into deeper levels of intimacy because friendship is a level of intimacy, but that intimacy keeps growing as the relationship keeps growing and as they open themselves up to each other, so then that becomes more um foundational to that relationship between the um I and thou, right? The the whole understanding of the other person. I discover myself in the eyes of another person because it is I see myself reflected back to me in the other person, and I begin to discover myself more and more in the other person. That's why it's also healthy and something that is very uh you're talking about redemption.

Vulnerability, Hurt, And Real Love

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Um is it essential to redemption? My relationship of intimacy with the Lord. Um, there has to be some level of intimacy. So I would say, yeah, it's it's something that we I think it would have to go into the capacity of the individual, their capacity for intimacy and their desire for intimacy, regardless of how they see that or live that right. Uh but the the Lord, the Lord gives himself uh without measure uh to each one of us. So the intimacy is definitely there on the part of the Lord side now. Whether I know how to be intimate or understand intimacy, that's a different question. And that that leads us to some of the John of the Cross stuff that we talked about the other day in terms of purification and and purgation and that kind of stuff. That I learn how to be intimate, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Well, and we can God is God, we are not. So I can never be as intimate to God as God is intimate to me. Correct. So and and we can even look at, say, the unborn child, God is extremely intimate to them. And so um it's not for lack of intimacy that you know God loves the child, right? Or the the the lack of reciprocation, I guess. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Uh right. And so again, I had this. Go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. Well, okay, hold on to your thought. Let me let me get this out before I forget. Um so remembering that God is the source of our life, he is life, right? And has revealed uh to us that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He is life, and so in my relationship with God, my relationship with the Lord is a relationship of intimacy with life itself. And since He is the source of life, He is the font of life, it is really a deepening of an understanding of what I am called to be about the life that has been given to me, and going back to the source of that life, that intimacy, that openness, that uh mutuality helps me to understand what the life is that has been given to me and what it is called to be and should be. Okay. So that's my thought. Go ahead. You I I interrupted you. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

No, I think we're going kind of the same place. So so one of the things I kind of have written in my notes is that again, going back to prayer and relationship, if prayer is about relationship, then intimacy with Christ promotes sanctification, right? It's not that um I I guess promotes maybe isn't even the right word. It dispositions us to grace. Yes, I guess is a better way of saying it.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yes, that's because again, part being called to community, being made for community, because we're made in the image and likeness of God. And you can go back to those earlier episodes. I think we talked about that too. Uh being made in the image and likeness of God, that means I am called to community, to relationship, to transcendence, to self-revelation. Those are the things that we're called to. So I need community to actually learn how to do that. I need to learn how to be in community, what community means to be in a relationship, the the give and take of relationships, right? And that helps me to understand myself and also helps me to see those areas in my life that are missing. Um, those areas in my life that I tend to be selfish, or those areas in my life where I tend to be egotistical or or focused upon my pleasure or or my preferences or my wants. And so being in a relationship with another helps me to step outside of myself and helps me to think and to consider the needs, the wants, and the desires of the other person and desire their well-being, desire their fullness, desire their wholeness, right? And that is why this can be redemptive or helps in redemption and sanctity, because sanctity is about imitating the perfect charity that is Christ. And Christ was totally other-centered. So there is something about being other-centered in my relationship with others that helps me in a healthy way, obviously. Yeah, because God doesn't call us to psychopathology, so that there is a way in which I am capable of actually discovering myself. I just had this conversation. Um, in fact, yesterday I preached about this. Um, that the call, our call is a call to transcendence, that the only way I can actually become fully human, fully humane, fully the person that God is calling me to be, is to transcend myself. Again, that call to community and that transcendence of the self, obviously to God as the ultimate other, but I learn how to be in relationship with God or really be in a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ through the way that I have other relationships, because that's all we have. We only have our human experience to be able to draw from. And so, in my human experience, as I learn what relationship is about the mutuality, the call to service, the call to sacrifice at times for the other, the call at times to uh allow yourself to be hurt, uh, to be betrayed, uh, just as Jesus allows himself to be betrayed and to be hurt. That is where the intimacy is, right? Is that I am capable of loving and love because it is what it is, and because it is very much part of who we are and part of our desire for transcendence. In my loving the other person, I open myself up to the possibility of hurt. And this is then that is the key to a genuine intimacy. Do I open myself up to hurt? And if I say yes, then I would say, then I am in a genuine relationship of intimacy with the other person because I open myself up to pain and hurt and suffering of rejection or betrayal or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

So you would say, yeah, so you would say that vulnerability, not necessarily not necessarily being hurt, but the vulnerability is the opportunity for to be hurt, is it a necessary part of intimacy, or is it just helpful for growing intimacy?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

It's helpful for growing within the relationships with other persons, other creatures, right? Other human beings and creatures. It is helpful in that. That means that I am my heart is open. My heart is open to them, right? In my relationship with the Lord, obviously he's not going to betray me, but there is also growth. I have to learn that maybe I'm expecting too much, or I have to learn to tear down my idols, uh, the way that I believe God should be, should act, right? And I have to let go of that. In fact, one of the things that John of the Cross talks about, and the most painful uh and difficult transition for a person in their relationship with the Lord, uh, John of the Cross talks about the dark night of the spirit, the dark night of the soul, which basically is not just the purification, a deeper purication of the person's foundation of being, but also in letting go of their of their precom preconceptions of how God should be, right? Allowing God to be God, right? Um and sometimes that's difficult. I think um Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He talks about uh I think he calls it cheap grace or something like that, right? Meaning um the person is living a Christianity, but it is a Christianity that is not inconvenienced, right? Is it is a Christianity that is not open to pain and vulnerability, right? And so in my relationship with God, I have to allow him, I have to come to the realization that he is greater than my concept of him, and that can be shattering because you know I might find comfort in knowing that God is this way, there's a template, he has to be this way, and so I I always tell people the the privilege of being God is he can do whatever and be whatever he desires to be, because that's that's sort of the privilege of God. And so for us, many times it's difficult because we there's a particular understanding or an idol of how God should be, right? How God should act. And when you pull back from that and you allow him to be who he is, and obviously there God is a God of order, he's not a chaotic God. Um it's difficult because letting letting go of that uh rigidness or structure or a structured understanding of God can be you know, ground shaking, earth shattering. So that makes sense.

When Intimacy Becomes Sacramental

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah. Would you so what what do you think about this thought that I had that intimacy in its many forms is sacramental in such that it uh it dispositions us to be open to his grace.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Okay. Um so if we uh first uh look uh the truth that Christ is the sacrament, the primary sacrament, the sacrament, and everything else flows from Him. And we're called to life and we're called to communion, we're called to relationship, we're called to transcendence. Yes, uh intimacy can be, and many times is sacramental. Many times, in many ways, the intimacy that I experience with others, if it's a genuine intimacy, is a way in which Christ makes himself present to me through this other instrument, through this other person. God is presenting himself to me, Christ is presenting himself to me in this symbolic form of this other person, because the person loves me, not because I'm lovable, the person loves me because God moves this person to love me. It is God's love that is being transmitted to me through the vehicle of this other person, which helps me to see this other person and the love and the intimacy that we have, to see it as a gift from God, but also a manifestation of God's presence in my life.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Yeah, and I can hearing you say it like that, it makes me think of all of the seven sacraments are relational in nature, right? Um, even holy orders or in marriage, it's about experiencing Christ through the other as much as confession is. Right. Right. Or the grace.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Um it's it's it's sacramental if you understand sacramental not necessarily being one of the seven sacraments, but sacramental as in an a manner through which grace can flow.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah, because lots of things can be sacramental, they're just not one of the capital S sacraments kind of thing. Correct. Yeah.

Dry Prayer And Choosing Neutrality

SPEAKER_02 24:30

So what do you think about, and maybe St. John of the Cross has something to say here in the Dark Knight of the Soul. Um, but oftentimes we find that our prayer life is dry or it's unfruitful, or I don't have the wherewithal for whatever reason, I'm tired, I'm grumpy, whatever, to to really approach prayer properly. So there can be circumstances where I am not relating to God well. Um, and it's not that for lack of his effort, right? It's it's all on me. I'm not relating well. But that's like an incidental, like that's life, you know. We all have these kind of moments with our wives, with our friends, we're like, or kids, or I don't have time, or I'm tired, like let me just kind of be for a minute, right? So that's normal. But what about like what if there's a lack of intimacy by choice, not by capacity, but by choice. Um, for example, what if I choose, and it kind of like what you were saying earlier about cheap grace? What if I choose to be um fundamentally neutral? Like I'm not trying to distance myself from God, but I am purposefully not trying to draw nearer to Him or in that intimacy. I'm trying to some and I this is kind of an intellectual exercise. I don't know how you'd really do this, but I'm trying to not grow in into intimacy and not distance myself intimately. Is that a is it a bad thing? Like, shouldn't I be always striving for greater intimacy with Christ? Like, if if that's the case, I should always be striving. Then when I'm not trying to, is it again I I love the archery term for sin. Like, I'm just missing the mark. It's not that I'm being bad, it's that I'm missing the point. Or is there something there that's it's like too dangerous to chew on?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

No, there's not, no, there's nothing, no, there's nothing there, too dangerous. Um I would say then, if someone is choosing to not grow in intimacy, I would say one, uh, it goes contrary to the life force within them. I mean, we're all called to continue to grow towards perfection and strive to our end, which is God. And so striving to our end, which is God, then okay, so if I have chosen to not grow in intimacy with the Lord, but I am doing everything I possibly can in terms of fulfilling all my obligations, all Sunday, all church precepts, I'm going to confession at least. I'm doing my Easter duty, going at least once a year. And so uh, if I'm doing all those things as a task list, um and not as relational, that is, you know, missing the mark, that is not understanding exactly what we're called to. Uh, God continues to pour his grace abundantly and without measure upon the person. Now, if the person chooses against intimacy, my my first impulse, my first thought would be there is a fear of intimacy there, there is a distance of intimacy, there's a mistrusting of intimacy, which means all the more there needs to be a greater healing in that person's life in regards to intimacy and the way they understand intimacy, right? Because we're all called to it. And by me choosing not, that would be that would be a consequence of a wound, you know, a betrayal, something going on, or even if it's even if it's a psychological or psychopathological thing that keeps me from intimacy, that doesn't keep me from my relationship with God because God takes every person and knows the the innermost parts of every person. So if he sees that I'm not capable of it, right, um psychologically or emotionally or sentiment or in my sentiment, my affect, obviously he's gonna keep calling me to himself, but it doesn't keep him from loving me now. If I choose to not engage with God on the level of intimacy, my observation would be that it would be more difficult for the person, obviously salvation is open to them, but it would be more difficult because there's still there's a there's purification that has to happen still for that person to learn that God is love and love is intimacy and transcendence and mutuality and sharing. And so if I'm not capable of in this life, I'm gonna be purified in the next life so that I am capable of that. So there's that aspect, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Yeah, so you'd say it's it would be a consequence of something else, like an injury or maybe a sin of like laziness or something, right? That's kind of rippling into this lack of desire for intimacy.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, I mean, because every being, everything that is created is called to life, and for us as reasonable, rational uh creatures that have a soul and a spirit, um, we're called to our ultimate, to return to our ultimate good, our ultimate good being God. And so it goes with the whole the whole idea of who God is or what we perceive God to be, uh how we understand him, right? Uh who he is as as even using the word the pronoun he, uh that that's not that's what we use, but that's you know, that's God is beyond that, right? Um and the only he we can use is when we're talking about Jesus Christ because he is true God and true man. But it would it would point me into a consideration that the person is choosing to stolify themselves or to not grow in that area, and it would be out of, I'm sure, some fear, uh, some wound, uh, some misunderstanding, right? Um because I I I just can't imagine someone not giving themselves or opening themselves up to intimacy when it is a possibility, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Yeah, that's and that's that's really interesting too, because one of the things, again, I said at the beginning is we we do relationship backwards and we should look at it through the lens of relationship with God and then transfer that to Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

How does that how does that translate into my relationship with others? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Yeah, and so you can see like you would be it would be missing the mark for a husband and wife to uh out of laziness, out of uh emotional trauma or or whatever, right? Um, for for something to cause them to go, yeah, you know what, we're gonna make sure the bills are paid, and you can sit in your chair and watch TV. I'm gonna sit in my chair and watch TV or whatever, right? Or we'll whatever. Live separate lives but together. Your roommate kind of thing, right? But but you can you take that the same way with friendship, you take that the same way with um uh your relationship with your children, uh with your siblings, right? There's there and this is where I guess it gets messy because there's always degrees of intimacy and forms of intimacy, but you would think if we're called to cultivate intimacy with God, then whatever various you know opportunities for intimacy which there are in our particular lives, we should be as healthfully as possible cultivating those forms of intimacy. Or else we're missing the mark, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Correct, because you're also then missing the culture of life, as John Paul would call it, um, that the culture of life means that I am living a din I have a dynamic emotional, psychological, and spiritual life. And so if one of those is missing um or is uh stunted or stoltified, then there is still the potential for growth has not been reached in that area, and for us to come to fullness, um, all areas of our lives have to be um redeemed, right, made whole uh and be life-giving. So my intellect, my psyche, my affect, my spirit, my soul, all of us, all of me, is called to fullness. And so this is part of that intimacy. Part of the intimacy is not just me sharing my inner life, but part of the intimacy with God is uh in that sharing with life itself, he calls me to fuller life, right? And that's what we all are striving for, or we should be striving for.

Self-Correction, Freedom, And Healing

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Yeah, so so part of this, um I know we we frequently speak about the capacity of an individual in a moment, right? But if if I come to this point of realization, and I'll use myself um with God, right? So if I am coming to this realization that my prayer life is becoming ritualistic or mechanical or or whatever, right? Attending mass, my daily scripture reading, my daily prayer, right? If I come to this realization, that in is in itself is a grace from God, and I should evaluate now what's going on to the best of my ability, or if I seek spiritual direction or something. The same way I would with my siblings or with my wife, and the same way you would with your brothers, right? Like if something is there and you become aware of it, I guess that's when we have some degree of obligation. Um, it's like a capacitive degree of obligation. Like, I'm aware of this. How do I have the capacity now to try to make it better? I don't know if that's the right way of saying it.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Well, yes, because I think one of the things that um for you philosophers out there, uh Bernard Lonergan talks about in his understanding of the human person and the way that we come to know how we know. Um, part of the step is in self-knowledge, is also that we're self-corrective. So if I see that there is something, an area in my life that is not functioning or is contributing to a diminution of my own life, I am called to correct that, right? And so I should correct that. If I see that there's something there and I don't correct it, then of course, and you know, shame on me because I'm like, eh, yeah, it's too much work. Like, okay, but we're talking about your life, quality of life, and the fullness of life. So it's worth the effort, but uh again, it God doesn't force us, yeah, and that's the thing about God. God doesn't force us, you know, he wants us to freely choose him and to choose life, right? Going back to uh when Moses uh tells the the Israelites uh when he sets uh before them, I I said before you uh life or death, choose life. And if someone chooses death, not just physical death, but death in their relationships, they they choose that. There's nothing anybody can do about it. They have the freedom. That is a freedom that the a God-given sovereign freedom that they have. It's sad, it shouldn't be, it's an abuse of the freedom, but it is a freedom. If somebody doesn't want to grow, okay, then in the next life, you're gonna have to be purified of that. And so only God knows how long that's gonna take or how that's gonna happen. So I mean, that's we're all called, we're we're all called to the one thing. There isn't there isn't other plans or other options. There's the one thing, which is to be with the Lord in fullness and to share his life with him. So it really has to do with uh what am I willing to do and am I willing to do the work? But again, I have the freedom to correct, or I have the freedom to continue to do things badly, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Does does God maybe teach us about intimacy? Um maybe like through the incarnation itself, definitely through scripture, so it's like I have these things around me, so it's it's just recognizing there's something there, but then what do I do about it? Like, what does God teach us about intimacy if we come to the realization? What are the things that God has been trying to teach us that we should reflect on so that we can try to not achieve healing in ourselves, but to desire that healing, you know?

Trinity And The Incarnation As Intimacy

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Well, I think it's essential. Well, it's essential to our faith because it is we have a Trinitarian faith, and it goes back to the whole inner life, the spiration of the Trinity, the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit, which is intimacy, right? It's that is the perfect community of persons. It is perfect relationship, uh continual giving of the self to the other. And then with the incarnation, we have the perfect marriage between humanity and God in the person of Jesus Christ. And that is why one of the um understanding in the creed uh coming to understand that God is true God and true man, that there is no admixture, that the divinity is not reduced or mixed with humanity, and the humanity is not reduced and mixed with the divinity that it is that there is no admixture, that there is truly God and truly man in Jesus. But the unity or the intimacy is so um profound that it's hard for us to separate the humanity from the uh from the divinity because of the marriage. The person of Jesus Christ is symbolic, uh, a sacrament of what it means, um, what God desires for the human person to be, to be married in a relationship of intimacy with God as in the person of Jesus Christ. There was some, I forget who the spiritual writer was, but the one some spiritual writer said, just as we have the hypostatic union in Jesus Christ, true God and true man, the marriage between uh humanity and the divinity that each one of us is called to, that to be a hypostatic union, each one of us is called to be in a close, deep, profound intimacy with God, um, without becoming God, but sharing in God's divinity because of the because of the closeness, because of the intimacy. The image that the John of the Cross uses is he says, take two candles and join the two flames together so that it it is it seems to be one. He says, It seems to be one, but the truth is it is two, but they're so close together and so intimately bound in each other that it appears to be one. But they're still two flames.

Responding To Vulnerability With Care

SPEAKER_02 41:08

Would you say that then the worst thing we can do when seeking to develop or promote intimacy is the offense to someone's vulnerability? Like, does that which is which do you think is well gosh, I don't know how to say this. I was gonna say, which is which is worse, somebody being vulnerable with you, right? Let's say my wife comes to me and is like, oh, I feel whatever, and then I don't respond well. Right? Like that's an offense to her being vulnerable, or is it worse to just not receive the other person? You know what I mean? Like, uh, yeah, sorry you feel that way. And then just like move on and do nothing with it.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Like, what's the worst? Well, that's hard to say because I think to be dismissed is to be rejected, and I think that hurts. I think they're probably both ways, I think, uh, but to respond because you're not in a good space, and so somebody wants to share something with you, and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, right, you know, sort of Fred Flintstone kind of a response. Um But I think that I think that's also being if the other person is capable of seeing that the that that's also being intimate. I I'm not in a good space. I'm I'm I'm pissed off. And so blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that is also being intimate, right? But it's it's maybe it's not the type of intimacy that we should be delving into. Um, at least not that way, or at least to say, like, okay, I'm I'm I'm in a really bad space right now, and thank you for sharing, and I can't process that right now. So can we come back around to that? That would be the best, right? Uh, if you were in a yeah, you don't have bandwidth or space to deal with it, is to acknowledge the presentation and to say, I I don't have the space or the the the bandwidth to to process this. Let's come back to this around, yeah. Let's come back to this. Whereas to be to be dismissive is like, yeah, whatever. Like that, I think is probably more injuring. Because what happens to then is the other person goes like, okay, obviously that hurts. It feels like rejection, but also what it tells me is like, I'm not going, I I'm not gonna share that anymore. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that anymore, right? Uh, especially if it's it's a recurring pattern right here. Like, eh, okay, I'm not gonna, yeah. They're not interested in my interior life or in intimacy, so or to grow our relationship in that way. So yeah, I'm just not gonna bother with that.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Yeah, I wonder if that's the one of the primary causes of why people, you know, quote unquote, stop believing in. God because they went to the Lord in a moment of pain or vulnerability and felt like they got nothing back. Like it was just like if you're up there, you heard me and did nothing about this. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, most definitely. It's because again, we want if you think that you can manipulate God, if you don't you don't allow God as godness, if you're like, I want you to do this now. Like, uh, and you don't do it like, okay, I'm done with you. Like, yeah, you still don't understand, you don't have absolutely no understanding of who God is and what our relationship is as creatures to the creator, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Yeah. I think too, this is starting to make me intimacy. What we're discussing about intimacy is making me start to think about um the beatitude uh meekness, like blessed are the meek. Because if you're not, and maybe we can do another episode just about meekness itself, because I know I don't maybe just because it rhymes, people think meek and weak, but it's about that your your interior is organized and orderly so that you're not thrown into chaos when something happens, correct? Right? So if you are not meek, then somebody can come to you with their vulnerability, and you probably aren't gonna respond well.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Correct. Yeah. So I think I think meekness is again someone who has some spiritual equanimity and they're they're even evenly keeled, they're evenly keeled, right? And so Jesus as meek doesn't mean weak. Uh meek is the ability to continue to give witness to the truth without allowing yourself to be drawn into uh uh an irrational response.

unknown 46:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Um I see how long we've been talking about this. What

God Moves First, We Respond

SPEAKER_02 46:18

I don't know, do you think you could give us something to to think about when it comes to intimacy? We can wrap up with that. I don't know if you've had any kind of big thoughts or something that you think I should continue to think about.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

I think um the thing for us to think about is our relationships, all of our relationships. Um they continue to grow and develop. And the healthier our understanding of intimacy is, the healthier our relationships become. And the healthier we become, and the holier and the striving for sanctity uh grows with that. So I would say to think about intimacy, to think about, we would say, the sacred humanity, the incarnation, the intimacy between God the Son and Jesus of Nazareth in in the sacred humanity, that that is what we're all called to, to call to live as Jesus lived, that relationship with the divine that is very much part of my everyday life. And so asking God the Holy Spirit to help me to strive for that, to have courage for that, not to be afraid of that because that is what we're called to.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

And and maybe specifically the mutual nature of it, right? I shouldn't I shouldn't be striving to be a therapist to my daughter. Right. Correct. Um, same with my wife or you, my friend, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Correct, correct, correct, yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Should it should be a good thing?

SPEAKER_00 47:57

It takes investment. And investment, you have to invest.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

Okay, good. Yeah, I was I was just about to say, like, it's it's um it always requires a primary mover. And sometimes I think, you know, life. You when you're a little kid in school, you make friends with somebody because you're in the same classroom. So it's like the first mover is kind of happenstance that you're in the same place at the same time. But sometimes um I think the Lord's waiting for us to be the primary. Well, he is the primary mover, so he's waiting for us to move in response. To respond, yeah. And so that in our relationships with our children, our spouses, our friends, our family, God is prompting us first. He's waiting for us to respond. So you don't have to worry about being the primary mover in your relationships. God is the primary mover, right? Starts with him, and we just have to be willing to allow his grace to flow through the the moment. Yes, yes, you have it. Well, very good, sir. Very good. Yeah, all right. Well, Father, I love you. Uh I hope the Lord blesses you with maybe one more cup of coffee today. I hope so too.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

At least, at least one more. At least one more.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

Yeah. And uh, I don't know. I'll talk to you soon, okay? Okay then. God bless. All right, and everyone, thanks for joining us. God bless. Thank you. Bye.