The Abundant Catholic

#004: Theology of the Body, Spousal Love, & the Inmost Self

• Melissa Krupp • Episode 4

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Disclaimer: this episode contains mature content

In this episode of the Abundant Catholic Podcast, Melissa explores St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body- zooming in on Spousal Love and the mystery of the inmost self. She gets raw & real as she shares her personal journey of healing from childhood sexual trauma and how it has had a great impact on her marriage journey and in her husband's life. The conversation emphasizes the importance of recognizing how knowledge of the Theology of the Body is essential for a deepening of the spousal union and interior awareness.

This episode touches on the subjects of God as the ultimate source of fulfillment, entering into deeper intimacy with your spouse, the role of spousal love in marriage, the universal longing, and how letting Christ into our fragmented and wounded parts is vital for a healthy marriage and family future.

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Hey y'all, welcome to episode four of the Abundant Catholic Podcast. I'm your host, Melissa Krupp. Today we're going to be talking about theology of the body, specifically on spousal love. So we're honing in on the bond between man and woman, not just in the flesh, but in spirit. It's going to be great. We're dipping our toes into this great theme of theology of the body. So this is specifically for individuals who are seeking the vocation of marriage.

and those who are living as an engaged couple, who are about to embark in the sacrament of marriage and looking to deepen their understanding. And then for married couples who are already within that vocation and they're looking to just have, again, that deeper understanding of how to live out theology of the body in everyday life, how it pertains to marriage, how it pertains to us as individuals. And so we're just going to dip our toes in today. I'm really excited.

So stay tuned because we have a lot to unpack.

Alright, let's get started. So this is a talk that I normally give to engaged couples. But like I said before, this is really for anybody who is discerning entering into the vocation of marriage and looking to really deepen their understanding of what that looks like, how to live it out, and really the fullness of our Catholic identity, but also in the fullness of the truth and how God and who God made us to be.

in that spousal union, then also individually as ourselves.

This is also for married couples who are looking to deepen their vocation, one of the reasons how I found this was, I mean, we were struggling. So for us, this just really provided a greater lens to look at our marriage through as a sacrament and something more than what the world offers. You know, and so it just really

broadens the perspective. feel like it provided hope for us and it also ⁓ cleared a path for us to continue forward on because we knew it was very purposeful and intentional and this is how God ordained it to be and that when it's hard, now we know why. Like it's good. So really we're just dipping our toes in today. Theology of the body is a great, great topic to be discussing and there's so much we could delve into.

Okay, theology of the body stems from John Paul II, Saint Pope John Paul II the Great's 129 audiences that he gave during his papal office. originally he wrote them, they were called man and woman, created them

And then when they came out, they were named, or later on they were named the Theology of the Body. And so we'll delve into that in a moment, but you know, it's really a huge topic to be discussing and we could go in so many directions, but I really feel called to share with you about this spousal love side of Theology of the Body, specifically because I just gave this as a talk and I've given it a couple of times so it's fresh on my mind and my heart.

And I get really good feedback when I talk about it. People, I think, are hearing things for the first time in this light. And for some people, they maybe heard it a little bit. And to hear it in such a personal way where it's been lived out in my life and in Anthony and our marriage, it can make it really relatable. And so I just want to come to you with my heart today in hopes that whatever the Lord is asking of me, that I'm able to give it clearly.

and just hopes that it provides a witness and a testimony for you so that you know that you're not alone and that with God all things are possible, right? And that he died for all of us and he didn't die just for some of us or for some sin, he died for all sin. And after the fall of man, we were left with concupiscence, which is an inclination to sin. And so we wrestle.

a lot, right? We wrestle and praise be to God. We have seven sacraments, not just one, right? We had the sacrament of Adam and Eve, which was marriage, then the vocation of marriage. They had this bond, this unity. And since the fall, now we have seven sacraments. It's incredible. God loves us so much, right? So let's delve in. But I do want to give my disclosure. I am not a theologian. I am ⁓

not an educator in the sense of like I don't have any formal background in education. I don't have any formal background in theology of the body other than being a student. So I'm learning alongside you guys. I have put in hundreds of hours already as a student and many many years but

It's always a constant learning thing even till we die. The Lord is just a mystery. We're just entering into the mystery of the truth of who we are, of who we made us to be, of God the Father, of the Trinity, all of that. So with that, I do have a background in ministry with Theology of the Body.

content creation, I've essays, I've been speaking on it for the last couple of years, but really I'm dipping my toes in, in that sense, like there's so much more, So what I'm bringing you today is very much the heart of theology, the body, not as much academic. So if you're looking for the academic side of it, there are some really great resources to go to, and I'm going to link them in the show notes for you. Anything that I'm gonna be talking about today, I will have them linked.

and the show notes. And then if you go to our website, we also have some Theology of the Body resources that are free for you and your family. So I have a couple of items for children to introduce Theology of the Body in the home in a fun family way. I have some free digital downloads that you can get off of our freebie library at theabundantcatholic.com. If you go under the resources tab. And then I have a book list for parents, for children.

for married couples looking to delve into this topic. Truly, truly, if you've not taken the dive, I invite you to just jump off the diving board and go in full throttle because this theology of the body is the antidote to the cultural confusion of our times. to everything coming at us right now, all of the contemporary issues.

All of the lies, all of the twisting and contorting of the truth, really the diabolical perversion of the truth, these ideologies coming at us, these moral issues, the attack on humanity itself, John Paul II was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this, and he wrote it in the quiet, and he developed it over time.

And here we have it. And now, now that it's unearthed, right? Like it's, he's become a great saint in our time in 2014. He was canonized a saint. How amazing that was the year my husband and I were married. What amazing times we're living in, right? Like with Prasadi and Carlo Acutus and all the people who have become saints in recent history, Therese of Lesault, right? Just fantastic. So we have Pope John Paul II, the great.

and he wrote this theology of the body. ⁓ there's still things flowing from it. There's still fruits flowing from it. are organizations, I would imagine hundreds of organizations out there that have started, ours is one of them, that has stemmed from his writings and from the way in which he broke down human beings in relation to God, body and soul composite.

and the way in which he really zoomed in on so many things that people just don't talk about, right? And the way he upheld the personhood, the gift of the body, the gift of the person, the dignity from life until death, our Catholic theology is so intertwined in this. It is Catholic, it's robust, and his book is massive. It is not easy to read, and I only know a handful of people who have actually read it.

So I recommend like taking a class if you want to do the academic side of it or go and start with a book study, right? That's how I started. I did a lot of book studies and then eventually I went on to go to the Theology of the Body Institute and start taking classes through them, which those are pretty hearty, but Christopher West does a great job revealing the heart of Theology of the Body and really just letting the Holy Spirit flow through that. So it is quite heavy academically, but it's also

I'm very real, very real and very deep. It's this deep calling out to deep. It's just wonderful. It changed my life. Changed our marriage, everything. And I know it's provided fruits for our community. It's really fantastic for our children, all that. So that aside, you guys know I don't have a formal background. But I have, I have a heart for it. And I really see that it's possible to live out the theology of the body.

to live it out, to not be afraid of it, and to know that it's a gift for us in this time, to come receive the lens that we've been given through this teaching, and to take it as a gift, and to embrace it and to really behold it, right? And so that's what I'm hoping today to share with you so that you too can enter into this in the same way.

And really for me, I do like to share with the couples, know, my knowledge of personhood was not even there. Like I didn't even know what personhood meant when I was younger. And most people don't use that term, But I didn't have any concept of dignity or self-worth. I just carried shame with me all the time. And if I wasn't carrying it, I was very like disassociated.

But I mean, I was also a normal kid to an extent, like I went to school, I had relationships, but I was very bullied. I came from a very dysfunctional home where there was just a lot of shaming in the home, a lot of disordered behaviors happening around, really generational wounds just playing out. And so I've had to heal a lot from that, but my own sexuality, like I didn't know that it was a gift.

I didn't even know I was fertile until I was 18 and I had already been sexually active. So I was going for contraceptives and then I learned, my gosh, I only ovulate the small window per month. You know, and I like already had the Catholic upbringing so I knew some things and I knew contraception to be wrong. So I backed off. Praise be to God. Thank you Lord for that grace. Because contraceptives, the...

hormonal contraceptives, the pill, literally age your cervix. And so you have these women who aren't able to have children after they've been on them for a long time, they struggle with infertility. Total lies. There's so much more on that. I do have a blog on NFP and I dip my toes into contraceptives a little bit on there. But we do have some resources for people when we walk with them through couples' mentorship. So even individual coaching. So if you ever have a question, feel free and send us an email. And we'd love to support you in better understanding the truth regarding contraception.

and how it's not good for you at all. So anyway, I went on to live a very promiscuous lifestyle and not viewing my sexuality as sacred, right? I just was handing out my body to whoever would show me any sign of love. And it was really a false love. It was counterfeit because I had only known to give and receive love or connection or this false intimacy with my body.

And I had found that out after Anthony and I got married. We went on to have our first child and I started to experience severe symptoms of postpartum depression, which was later clinically diagnosed as complex post-traumatic stress syndrome from emotional and developmental ⁓ traumatic experiences. And so in that, in that time we ended up working through

pretty severe sexual trauma from my childhood, from a very young adolescent, very young age, too young and then into my adolescent years. And so as I began to peel back the layers ⁓ I began to see myself and really

begin to learn about myself in a way I never experienced as the woman, the child of God, the daughter of God that He made me to be. So Satan wants to steal our identity and he comes at often the most fragile innocent state.

you can't conceptualize these things. I couldn't process what had happened. And so for me, I was living out of sexual wounds for so many years and I couldn't even conceptualize that. Like I knew something was wrong. I was suffering. I was experiencing a deep, deep suffering in my life.

I felt disordered. I felt alone and isolated. I didn't tell anybody about my secret hidden life of sin. I kept really good masks up and I compartmentalized a lot. I was a good Catholic girl and I'd go to mass, I'd go to the young adult groups. I would do whatever but in the secret I was on the apps and I was meeting up with men and we were doing all sorts of things and I was giving my soul away and I was really creating soul ties.

with men that later I found out actually have an effect on me and my soul. So I had to work on healing that. And so we do a lot of that in our inner healing ministry here at the abundant Catholic. And I'd love to talk about that more some more another time. But, as a child, I was just left with so many scars as a young adult that I went on to just kind of act out of that. so entering into marriage,

Anthony and I both did with this objectified view of the person. Just because we had already been so inundated with pornographic images. Like I was, I was very addicted to pornography for a couple of years. I was introduced to it through a guy I was dating. And

he was introduced to, by his stepfather. So you see how this passes on through generations, right? And so, you know, it was very normalized for me in that sense, and I really liked this guy, and so, I partook in it, and then that carried out in the future relationships, and...

very disordered and it really had a great effect on me because pornography, you know, there's a stimulating response in the body that's addictive to the brain and the chemical reaction. And so I was addicted to self-stimulation. was addicted to pornography the self-stimulation from a very, young age. I have memories of just coping.

Like I wanted to feel good because I was suffering so much and I was really ⁓ coping and so a lot of the work we do with individuals, help them to see what I went on to later see in my trauma recovery was that what I was doing and what I thought was sinful and I was continually, repetitively bringing to confession all of my life. I was able to let love enter into that and not shame that part of me.

but recognize that that part of me was suffering and really needed love to touch it. Not disordered love. Not the kind that Satan wants to keep us stuck in where we're giving ourselves this disordered love. I needed healthy love to touch me. And that's Jesus Christ. So I let him heal me in so many ways where

we know now what true love is and the Lord's healed us so much. It's incredible. But fast forward we got married and being married to Anthony he was the safest man I ever had been with by the grace of God and that really I believe because I was with for the first time somebody who was stable.

I'm emotionally present for me in some ways, physically present for me, I began to process what I had stored in my body for so long because I was finally given the space to do so. I was taken out of the chaos and out of the dysfunction and I was brought into a new life with my husband through the sacrament of marriage. And it was all really a mystery. It took me many years to process even like how it all happened. And I'm still processing it because we're still living in real life, right?

But, there's so much personal testimony interwoven in this, and so I just wanted to give you a little bit of a heads up that we're going to be talking about this stuff. And I should have told you this sooner, but it's going to be a little bit mature content. you probably already have, you know, stepped to decide from your kiddos or put on the earpods or whatever.

so Anthony and I both struggled with a disordered sexual desires that went back to childhood, adolescent experiences and wounds.

Okay. And so then when we entered into marriage, we entered into this deeper love and healing over the years and it's really changed our lives. It's radically transformed us. And now we can go on to teach our children the things in which we were not taught. Right. And this is what we find a lot of people hunger for and they're yearning for. and so we really like to speak into this and I, and I hope to do an episode on theology of the body for parents soon, because that's something that's very near and dear to my heart. And we get a lot of questions about that as well.

So really Anthony and I had reversions in our faith after hitting rock bottom. We both totally hit rock bottom and this brought about a deeper yearning for truth in our marriage and for our children surrounding their dignity and their personhood and their sexuality. Like how do we approach this right? So we had to learn how do we approach it with ourselves before we could learn how to approach it with our children. a huge

theme of this that I'm going to discuss is to enter in to the mystery of the inmost self. Because if we're trying to understand something to teach to somebody, if we're able to speak from a place of experience and from a place of living it out.

that's really gonna make the greatest impact because it's gonna be intertwined in your everyday life. It's gonna be a part of who you are. And so it's just gonna flow naturally from you. And people get afraid to do the nasty work of working on their marriage or working on past traumas or wounds or whatever, not that we should go and just unearth everything, right? We always invite the Holy Spirit to lead us when we look at the present symptom that we're dealing with, We don't go digging things up. We always go with Christ,

we shouldn't ever go alone just digging things up, Because that can cause a lot of chaos and God's not the God of chaos, he's the God of order. And he cleanses thoroughly but in his perfect time, right? And in the way in which he desires and we have to be docile to that and be cautious and careful.

And so a lot of people are afraid to enter in more deeply out of fear of discomfort. But really that's part of it, right? Because our humanity is uncomfortable. And all of us, all of us have something in some place in us in which we've been hurt. that's just real life, right? Jesus, when he died on the cross, he said, Father, they know not what they do. Forgive them, they know not what they do.

I wrestle with forgiveness all the time. It's a 70 times 7 type thing, It's not a once and done and it surely isn't a feeling. It's a gift. Jesus made it a gift. with that, let's delve in. into theology of the body spousal love.

Theology of the Body and Spousal Love the Mystery of the Inmost Self. Okay, so I talked about how John Paul II had this compilation of 129 talks. And before he was pope, he began writing these teachings that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. He suffered a great deal. He was a young boy from Poland born in 1920 and he lost his mother, which was a tragedy at age nine.

and he experienced many more sufferings and deaths of loved ones in his adolescence to adult years. Communism was rampant and Christianity was under great persecution. And so he went on to fall deeply through his suffering. He went on to fall deeply in love with Jesus and the Eucharist. He later went on to become a priest and then a bishop and then Pope and now St. Pope John Paul II.

He was a lover of the soul, an avid outdoorsman. He loved nature. There's photos of him laying in the grass with other people talking. Very down to earth, right? These saints are so down to earth. It's awesome. He even enjoyed theater and he's a great lover of the arts. really helps us to see beauty as the meeting place of God. Okay, that God is beauty.

So he leads us to the heart of Christ, the Gospels, and offers us a deeper understanding of the human person through the lens of our Christian identity. It's just fantastic. Really, like I said, a gift for our times. And theology of the body has many themes. It's been broken down into 12 Christian anthropology standards, which you can find at the Ruah Woods website if you just type in 12 Christian anthropology standards.

they break it down into 12 themes and that's how they often teach it to the children and I really like that because for me I need to take it like a little child, take them bite-sized pieces, right? But you can even go on the USCCB website and there's information on that or There's tons, of ministries online and organizations that are teaching theology of the body in its many themes.

The one we're covering today, spousal love, the gift of complementarity of male, our maleness and our femaleness, body and soul unity, original nakedness, when Adam and Eve were naked and they were not ashamed, right? We're very much ashamed now when we're naked. Original unity, chastity in marriage.

body as a gift, that spousal attribute and that sincere gift of self, the theme of contraception and of vocation. John Paltu even called vocation a special gift. And he reveals that the original experiences of man, right, that

Original unity, original solitude, original nakedness. Those original experiences reveal fundamental truths about who we are as human persons, which is our identity,

and how we are called to live, which is vocation. So there's that word vocation again, which is what we're talking about in spousal love. So TOB is known as an adequate anthropology. It's enough, right? And beyond, Or as Christian anthropology or Christian theology, the study of the person through the lens of God. Theology of the body would be the study of the body through the lens of God.

So we will focus on the basics and how they apply to marriage and spousal love and what has personally touched me. So I talked a little bit about my story. I'm going to keep kind of interweaving it so you guys can get that personal touch on it as well. So something when I entered into marriage because I was so hungry for love.

and I was so blind. It was like I had scales in my eyes. Really. I really did. I really can relate to St. Paul because after the Lord began to reveal truth and enter into these wounds and begin to heal me, was like scales were falling from my eyes. And there's still moments in my life where I'm like, wow, I feel like I can see more clearly. You're like, the veil was just kind of lifted. Whoa. Okay.

And I'm sure you can relate, like sometimes we have those little light bulb experiences where we're like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, I want more, more God. Reveal your truth to me, Lord. So something that we talk about a lot of to spouses, to people who are engaged to get, they're entering into that spousal love, is that God is our ultimate fulfillment, not our spouse.

That was a hard one for me because when I got married to Anthony, I put him on a pedestal and I expected from him fulfillment, which was unfair and unjust of me. And really it hurt me so much that I didn't know any different. The Lord had to strip so much away from me for me to get to the place of realizing that.

And so we speak into that, that your spouse is never going to totally fulfill you. It's impossible. Your spouse is 100 % human. Right? He or she can fulfill us to an extent. That's what the marriage bond is for. And it's good. It's beautiful. It's sacred. Right? Pleasure is good. God made it for marriage. It's good. It's the catechism of the Catholic Church talks about that, that sincere gift of self.

So there is a level of fulfillment. I'm not saying not there at all, but total fulfillment cannot come from our spouse. It has to come from God, our ultimate fulfillment, right? And this is where he gives us so much that it's abounding, it's overflowing in profusion, why we have the abundant Catholic, because truly when we step into that, rightly ordered,

desire to seek fulfillment from the one who made us and who longs to give us all of himself and take all of us into himself. that's where we experience that abundance, And so we talk to couples often about embracing the journey you vow to, to be together through its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows, right? It's not

a straight line. It's never going to be. Sometimes the highs are high and the lows are low, especially when you're having babies, right? Like it's kind of crazy or you're going through difficulties in your life or a job changes or you have a loved one you have to take into the home to help care for.

Or you have a loved one who's ill or something happens, right? And so it's not ever linear. It's a journey, And so we have to just really remember that. And that we all long for love. We all long for union and for fulfillment,

for infinite joy. And if we look at the word fulfillment, the etymology of that is a filling, a carrying out or completion. So our spouses are, in a sense, like, you know, that cute little term I complete you, whatever. We do when we look at the body and in the union of flesh. And this is where theology of the body comes in. When we look at that,

man and woman, were made to complete each other. Look at our biology, look at our anatomy. If you just look at the human body and the structure, man is to give a gift of himself and the woman is to receive and therefore she's giving a gift of herself. And is receiving in that sense then too, And so we see that, right? That completion, but...

If it's not rightly ordered in which we're looking for that completion from our spouse in everything, just gonna find, we're gonna come up empty handed every time. Because we're not made to totally complete each other or totally fulfill each other. And we can't give this infinite joy that we desire to ourselves, right? which is where we have people who are trying to cope or numb and like what I was talking about with unhealthy, disordered.

patterns in our life, whether it be through alcohol, bad eating habits, through spending, through disordered sexual behaviors, whatever it may be, we can't give that infinite joy. It might even look like somebody who is so obsessed with trinkets or sports or whatever, were they're just like they can't get over this one experience they had or this season in their childhood because they were bonded through joy.

They were bonded through a beautiful life-giving experience and they really want to cling to that. see that a lot in individuals in our lives where we know people, like their garage is decked out in the same theme. Like it's a theme in their life that they're clinging to, right? Whether it be like the little the dolls from when they were girls, right? And we see a lot of older women have them in their house. Like there's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with it, but when we idolize that and we cling to it in a way in which we are really grasping at that joy that we long for and that fulfillment, almost like we want to recreate that time in our life. And we've all done that. We've all entered into something where we want to recreate ⁓ the same party we went to or the same meal we had or whatever because we've tasted infinite joy. God's given it to us.

When we have a baby and we hold a newborn, right? When you have somebody come in and they love you or you experience this beautiful gift of somebody's presence in your life. the time your spouse told you he wanted to give his life to you and put a ring on your finger. Okay, whatever it may be, whatever your experience of that infinite joy when you found Christ for the first time.

Whatever that experience, should have been the most ultimate one, right? But that infinite joy, we've tasted it. And so we long for it, but we can't give it to ourselves. And our spouses can't fully give it to us, okay? And so we must open these longings to the one who gives them to us, which is God. And this is the paradox of love between man and woman. And this is a quote from a German poet, two infinites meet two limitations.

Two infinite needs to be loved meet two fragile and limited capacities to love. Only in the ambit of a greater love or God's love for them do they not consume themselves in pretension and not resign themselves, but walk together each towards a fullness of which they are a sign. If you do not love Christ, beauty made flesh, more than the person you love, the latter relationship withers.

Christ is the truth of this relationship, the fullness to which both partners point, and in whom their relationship is fulfilled. Only by letting him in, here's the key, is it possible for the most beautiful relationship that can happen in life not to be corrupted and die in time.

If I could read the poet's name, I will link it in the show notes. It's hard to read. A German poet said that. And then another quote from Jack Rigger, the co-founder of the John Paltry Renewal Center. Once the smoke and fog clears the yearning burning passion and desire for something more.

that nothing in this world can satisfy points directly to the Eucharist to God, God's yearning burning passionate desire for you. And he says, go to him. And when he's talking about the smoke and the fog clearing, I think he's referring to like when you, when you get married and you find the love of your life, you're on this high, you're, you're in that honeymoon phase. It's so magnificent and so wonderful. But when that starts to clear and kind of dissipate and you're realizing

Whoa, this person can't give me everything I need. He or she can give me some, and he gives me a lot, like I love them, I love her, but they can't give me everything I need. Right, and he's saying, go to the Eucharist. And let me tell you, Anthony and I, our reversions, we spent so much time in front of Christ in the chapel, even in our inmost self in the interior chapel.

We spent so much time sitting in front of him. I would spend hours. There was such a time of grief in my life where I was mourning. I was entering into the grief of the loss from the trauma wounds. I hate using that word so much. It's so tossed around now, but just the lack of what was necessary for me and my development, and even now, but in this past few years, I really...

There was a season in my life where I just would sit in front of the Lord for hours on end and it was at nighttime so there really wasn't anybody else in there. And I would just talk to him. And I would often just weep. I would find myself weeping in front of him. And it was so freeing because I had this space to just do it and process. And he told me so many things. Like he taught me so much and I couldn't have learned it anywhere else. The treasures.

The gifts, he has them for each of us. There were some times where I'd go in and I'd pop in my AirPods and I'd listen to the same song on repeat like 10 times and just enter into this music that God was really speaking to me through. Almost like a music divina. Like Alexio Divina, but a music one, right? A music divina. However you say it.

and he would speak to me through song and he would speak to me through scripture and he would speak to me through image and I would go and I would pray and that's that right there what Jack Rickard is saying that God's yearning burning passionate desire for you go to him he has so much to give us and he has something more right that nothing in this world can give us we have this longing for more in this yearning and God wants to give it to you

The more you receive it from God, the more you're going to be able to fulfill your spouse. That is fact. Okay? That is truth. The more you receive Christ in your life, the more you'll be able to give Him in His mercy because He gives you His eyes. He gives you His love. Mercy is when we enter into somebody's misery.

The root of the word mercy is misery. If we can allow God to enter into our misery, how much more will we be able to enter into somebody else's misery? And when you welcome the sacrament of marriage in your life and you welcome another to walk alongside you.

that there will be misery. Let me tell you, there will be misery. And I know you married couples now. You just know. So ⁓ let's keep going. We could keep going on and I could really sit in that for a while, but that quote, both of those quotes are some of my favorites.

So the bride of Christ and another theme, the bride of Christ is the church, which is us. And we're all

to deeper intimacy with Jesus our true spouse. Okay when Anthony and I got married it wasn't until a lot of our healing journey when I started to welcome Christ as my true spouse. I had no idea. I didn't even know the concept like I could welcome Christ as my my beloved spouse? Like what? could be a spouse to Jesus? I thought that was just for those who were consecrated virgins.

I didn't know. I didn't know that we could be espoused to Christ, men and women. Isn't that incredible? So I started to enter on this journey where I did a consecration and I'll put that in the show notes. It's written by Laura Urquilino. She's a friend of mine. She runs Hope's Garden, a betrayal trauma group that offers community for women who are

who are trying to heal, who are healing from domestic abuse, emotional sexual betrayal,

and she really just brings them to Christ the Bridegroom. It's really, really beautiful. It's based, a lot of her ministry is based on the song of songs and her healing. And so they provide a lot of other community, community works and group coaching and it's really awesome. So I'll link that book in the show notes, The Consecration to the Bridegroom, really changed my life. And so yeah, the Bride of Christ, which we are the church.

were called to enter into this spousalhood with Jesus. Nobody told me that. Who talks like this? Who talks about this stuff? Nobody. And it's just now that something I'm really hearing more about in last couple of years, and it's changed my life. I have come to know Jesus as my spouse, and it has utterly transformed my being.

My life, it's transformed our marriage. My husband has come to know Christ the Bridegroom and it has transformed our relationship. It's transformed his identity. It's phenomenal. So John Paul 2 says that faith is the openness of the bride to the gift of the bridegroom. So that's us to Jesus, the church to Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the church

longing to be united with Christ her bridegroom. We're longing. Some of us just don't even know. We don't even know the longings we have because we're just going 90 miles an hour. Right? We're filling our life with everything. I know you know. I know you get it. It's easy. It's easy to be busy. What they say? What's the acronym for busy?

bound under Satan's yoke. Okay, I've heard that acronym before. And for some of us, like we don't even know how to feel. And if we aren't feeling, we're often coping. Okay, if we can't get in tune with our feeling or emotion, we're coping. That was much of my husband's story. Highly addicted to alcohol, he's in recovery for alcoholism. He was addicted to other stimulants as well and had sexual addictions. And that was a method that was him coping.

There was grief and loss under that. And there were some incidences and unwanted experiences and losses in his life in places he wasn't properly nurtured And so he often was not able to access his feelings because he didn't have this emotional literacy or this emotional intelligence.

to access feelings or put words to his feelings. And so for a lot of us, we don't even know we have this longing. we're just living out these symptoms, right? this exterior issue going on. And some of us aren't even aware, we might have pride in there too, where we're like, everything's fine.

Like it's fine by my standards, but go ahead and ask the people around you and ask how things are for them

So really Anthony was unable to feel. And so he didn't even know what kind of longings he had in him. I didn't even know. My longings were masked with these other dysfunctional, this dysfunctional way of life that I was living, these masks that I was wearing. And so once I took off the mask, then I was stuck with this aching and this burning desire for truth and for goodness and for wholeness.

healing, for unity within me, for integration. So many parts of were disintegrated and I still have parts of me we're all on a forever journey right? And so we can get into that more in a little bit here. I don't want to get too heavy into that but the church says that we have this longing to be united with the bridegroom and many of us don't even know that.

And so if we look at the Eucharist, which is Jesus, theology of the body leads us to wholeness and healing through the Eucharist.

It's always where ends up the word became flesh, flesh like as in body. He became totally man, total body, totally human. It leads us to a deeper meaning of why the word became flesh and dwelt among us, why he left us his body to eat and consume, and why we are made in the image and likeness of our maker.

Because he loves us, right? He draws us to himself. He literally wants us to feed off of him. That is a beautiful, beautiful image because when the two come together in that spousal love, you are consummating, right? Consume, there's that word, but consummating the marriage. And you become a living sign of the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

No wonder the devil is after families. No wonder the divorce rate is 50%. No wonder people are struggling in their marriages. No wonder identity is under attack. We are a living sign of the holy sacrifice of the mass. That is profound. And intimacy itself involves a heart to heart. Not just that physical sexual act, which is very much beautiful.

and present, but also the heart. It goes deeper, right? And so if we're merely just having sex with our bodies, we're not experiencing the true intimacy in which we're made for.

And I follow that after what I just said because when we go to eat Jesus we open our mouths and we literally become mouth to mouth with Christ.

Okay, that's very intimate. And when you look at the etymology of adoration, it literally means mouth to mouth. When we come and adore him.

So if we're not living heart to heart with our significant other, there's something there that's an impediment from keeping us from that fullness of intimacy that we're made for. That deep calling out to deep, right? We're then just merely having sex with our bodies. just entering into this act. And for many of us, like I talked about earlier, we carry that objectification into the relationship. Not even knowing we're doing it, right? Or we carry that pornified

lens into the relationship or for some, know, Anthony and I have experienced this and we've heard this from people even in some of our work, I can't really open my eyes to see my spouse when we're together. I really long for deeper connection in the bedroom. feels like we're kind of just, you know, checking a box. And I dealt with the same thing. There was actually a time

where when Anthony and I were healing so much, the Lord was really refining even our marriage bed. It was so profound. It's so beautiful what he's done. I've experienced so much glory from the Lord in my flesh, just in the healing that I've experienced. I've experienced trauma leaving my body. And a lot of the work I did, it literally like left my body and I felt it leave. And then with that, I was able to fully experience my husband in a way I never had. For many years of our marriage, never was never...

fully able to be present because I would often disassociate in the marital act. And I didn't recognize that as disassociation for a long time. It took me a long time to figure that out and a lot of hard work with a licensed psychotherapist. I had done EMDR, it's called, and I did a lot of other work too. I did bilateral stimulation, can just promote a lot of desensitization.

and help people who have PTSD symptoms, right? So for me, it was just profound because I was able to experience intimacy in the flesh. And then it moved my heart, right? It was so beautiful, it was so good for a marriage. But there were times where I couldn't really open my eyes to see the man in front of me. And I would bring that up.

I did coaching for a while too where I was a client and I was working with a betrayal trauma coach and I was talking with her and I was like mourning that. was like, don't, what's wrong with me? I've done all this work and here I am like, what's wrong with me? I can't really see my spouse. And she really helped me understand it wasn't my spouse I couldn't see. It was me. I couldn't come to see my own self.

I was ashamed.

wasn't able to look upon him because I was so ashamed. And so I had a lot more work to do in entering into that inner mystery. And John Paul 2 talks of a deeper attractiveness that's beyond the physical attraction. He talks about the person's inner mystery and how it's revealed. And therefore attractiveness becomes richer and richer over time. We see this with

old couples or people who are married to somebody and they have a physical condition, right? And they're still bonded by love.

Doesn't matter what you're capable of or not, like I love you. It's rich, it's mature, it's robust, because the inner mystery's been revealed.

So never forget what always attracted you to your spouse, And what longings and desires you felt for them. Because really those desires that God wants to magnify them. They're really beautiful. But when we have disordered desires or twisting of what God made pure and good, let him untwist that, okay?

That's where we reclaim and restore we bring back what has been lost over time. The word reclaim means to cry out against, to contradict, to protest, to appeal. Open up the shame and the disorder to God who can bring us back to Him and restore us to our fullest potential.

Satan doesn't have his own clay. He can only manipulate and twist what God made to be good. And God called it all very good. As the creation story tells us over and over again, okay? So Satan is gonna come and destroy that. let the Lord, whatever's been perverted, whatever's been pornified God can enter into that. And he can untwist it.

Okay, he can do it, Jesus can do it, he's done it for me, he can do it for you, in your marriage, whatever it is. And wives, if your husband or husbands, if your wife is not present with you in this way, or you're seeking this out and they're not there with you, remain steadfast and persevere, my brother and sister in Christ. Because often change comes with the one, right?

It is the journey of the cross. Enter into the mystery of the cross. And you may be tried for a short time. And you may suffer for a short time, but the Lord's glory will be revealed. and don't stop because that was very much our journey. I was very much alone for many years. And then it was through my own transformation that my husband began to open himself up. He witnessed love touch me and he couldn't remain masked anymore.

So stay the course, okay? Stay the course and get support And if you have a spouse who you're healing from betrayal, or there's any instances of relationship struggle or any forms of abuse in the marriage, like get the help that you need, We offer accompaniment We have coaches who are specialized in the recovery for individuals and spouses.

And then there's other organizations that we recommend for individuals who are healing, whether together or separate, if they're just individually married, or if it's the couple together. So there's always help out there, and we're never meant to do this alone. and really with that, when we're intimate, it requires a level of vulnerability. And if you look at the word

vulnerable, the etymology of that, you're vulnerable, it means to strike a wound, to pluck, to be woundable. how scary is that? I don't want to be woundable. No thanks, close up, right? But what does Christ show us in his sacred heart? He shows us this fleshy, open, exposed heart.

and it's bleeding and it has thorns and it's on fire. We look to Christ and we see He shows us. He shows us the way to go. It doesn't make sense. Again, it's a mystery. But that vulnerability is a gift. It's going to call us into that deeper love and it's going to require for us to die to ourself to remove the mask of pride.

and to enter into the mystery of the inmost self and there we will find intimacy with another. But if we can't enter in with another, we can enter in with Christ first and foremost and we should always experience that intimacy with Christ first and foremost, right? Look at intimacy like intu-me-see, the inmost self, innermost, the deepest part of the self.

And aren't we Christians? Aren't we Christ followers? Because when we go to mass, we proclaim. We proclaim every time. And we go and we receive. But are we living as a follower of Christ in our hearts? With our bodies? With our whole self? Or are we wearing it as an image on our sleeve? Are we checking off a box because we have to? Because we're worried about our image?

Because we want to fit into this whatever society we've created around us and that the world shows us how to live as a good person. I'm a good person, I go to church. Okay, but are we wearing our Christian identity as something to show off to others or are we letting it truly transform us? Because when you become a follower of Christ, let me tell you, it is not easy and he has many requests.

to leave a lot behind. You go a different way and you put your hand on the plow and you don't look back.

And he warns us of many things, too.

and he calls us his friends. And he says, be not afraid.

come to me, right? But who are we living for? So we have to ask ourselves that because every time we walk into a church we see a crucifix and on the crucifix we see Jesus Christ naked and exposed, wounded and exposed, vulnerable, bearing our shame so that we may live. There is no other God like Him and He shows us every time we see the crucifix, you too can live like me.

You too can be exposed. You too can be vulnerable because I am here and I will never leave.

I am here so that you may live, and that my truth may be revealed through you.

Right? So that I may reign on this earth through you. Welcome him in to your soul. He longs, he longs for you. And truly as the bride of Christ, we long for him.

So what we hold disintegrated within us, by disintegrated I mean broken up, Things that aren't fully put together as a whole. So whether it mean fragmented parts of us, or parts that have, we these unmet desires or these wounds that haven't been healed. Often we don't even know that they're there or the depths of them or where they stem from.

We hold these disintegrated wounds or these disintegrated self, right? And that will continue into the marriage bond and keep us from that unity and integration in the heart and in the body that we're made for. And so Anthony and I, we walk with couples and when I go and speak, I speak into this, like don't be afraid to experience the Holy Spirit revealing truth to you.

Okay, look at the symptoms in your life and start there and invite the Lord. Stay curious. Why do I struggle with this? Why do I have this image come in my mind every time my husband and I get together in the bedroom? When we embrace the marital act? Why do I keep having this same image flood my mind? Come Holy Spirit, enter into that. For many years of our marriage, I was numb.

in the bedroom, I couldn't feel anything in my body. And I didn't know it wasn't normal. That was my normal. Like I had no idea. It wasn't normal until I started to talk to other women. And that required a ton of vulnerability, And then I was able to start working through it and healing from it, and then I was able to receive the fullness of what God made me for, where I could actually experience feeling in my body.

during the marital act, which was incredible. What a gift from the Lord. For my husband too, he was so frustrated for me. It's, it's just don't be afraid to enter in, bring these things to the Lord, And that's an extreme there. So let me think of another, place maybe where there's disintegration. Like if we were arguing or something, What's your coping mechanism? Do you go into the bedroom and close the door?

Do you need to leave the house? Do you run away? Do you sit down and you freeze? Are you somebody who goes into the freeze mode? Not the flight mode, but the freeze. Or you become avoidant and you don't want to talk about it anymore. What are these repetitive patterns that you see playing out in these cycles of communication in your marriage or in your relationship? I know engaged couples struggle with these things too. I know they do, we've walked with them.

So whatever that is, enter into that invite the Holy Spirit and do not be ashamed. He already bore your shame. And he just wants to come in and he wants to offer you the fullness of himself. Okay. So don't be afraid because there's so much in us that really the Lord is longing to make whole. so theology of the body really illuminates the whole of our bodies, right? Our inmost self, our souls.

and of our faith that our bodies reveal the heavenly mystery. And we see this in creation. All of creation sings the glory of God. We see that persons are ordered higher than plants, than animals. Plants and animals still reveal the glory of God, but not in a way that persons do, right?

We see that God's fertility surrounds us deep underground in the earth, in the seas, in the ecosystem, but also deep within us, where we can't even see, but his fertility is in man and women, male and female are fertile creatures, right? We just forget that men are fertile. Wow. Yet our fertility is not just limited to the body, to our marriage bed. It also expands out.

from our own personhood as a gift and gift of self to others.

not just in our family circles, but also in our community and beyond. We see this with Mary's Magnificat. She first said yes in spirit when the angel came to her and he said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. She questioned, she said, how could this be?

she pondered and she sought clarity and she received the Lord through her yes in her spirit and then in her flesh. And so we too are fertile in spirit. We can give life in spirit. Anthony and I experienced a lot of that during our times of abstinence. Where I was still very fertile, he was fertile and we weren't coming together.

in the marital act because we had so many kids in a row where we were learning new NFP methods or our marriage was on the racks and we just were not in a place to be coming together and embracing at that time. It just wasn't the time for an embrace. And so for us, during that period we found God using our times of abstinence or times of fasting and fruitfulness came from that. Fertility and fruitfulness came from that.

And it didn't just come into our family and our children, it went out into the community. Or we were doing community things, or we were having book studies, or men's groups, or whatever it was. It was really, really beautiful to witness in our own marriage. And so I just really encourage you to kind of take that on as a new lens. Like when you are abstinent, you're fasting, and your fertility is still abounding. Because you're living in that total union of self with God.

and with your husband where you're not contracepting. And there's a gift in that and a lot of people don't talk about that.

And so God is not limited just by our flesh, right, in the ways we can create. He can be outside of our procreation of the human person and can expand to other areas of life.

whether it be in our family life, our work, our community, ultimately, we become an offering of ourselves as a sign. Talk about that sacramentality, that sign. We become a sign to the world of God's glory within us. And we plant spiritual seeds as we share our gifts, And that, my friends, is becoming who God made you to be.

is reclaiming what's within our own bodies and restoring what he made us for, which St. Catherine of Siena says, you'll set the world on fire, you'll set it ablaze. We have these spiritual seeds within us, even these physical seeds within us. And when we teach theology of the body to our children, we're teaching them about the anatomy of a female, and the anatomy of a male.

and how she has, eggs in her ovaries and he has seeds. It's really phenomenal. There some really good kids books out there that kind of address that a little bit. ⁓ You know, different age-appropriate ways, but also something we like to speak into, important topic, is that with fertility comes this mystery of death.

Okay, I hate saying that like I'm talking about all this beautiful fertility of the Lord. But there's the mystery of death. And if you look at the flowers, they're so fertile. If you look at the anatomy of a flower, it's amazing. We teach our kids theology of the body just by looking at the anatomy of a flower. Incredible. They have ovaries, there's a stamen, there's a chalix

protecting the ovaries, its fertility, and it has to open in order for it to be exposed and for the fertility to spread and the seeds to spread. But even the flowers know when to die. Right? They have a life cycle. And isn't it interesting that when we consume something, it was once living, it had to die for us to be fed? Christ too, in the mystery of the Eucharist, had to die for us to be fed.

I feel like I could do a whole podcast episode just on that. Take that my friends and pray and ponder on that. That fertility with it comes the mystery of death. Love carries the mystery of death. Jesus carries the mystery of death. This is the mystery of our faith of our entire existence.

And we ponder on this, we remember that through our baptism, we've been baptized into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We cannot forgo the death to experience resurrected life. And if you're not experiencing resurrected life, you're probably not entering into the death, into the dying to self, into becoming a fuller gift of oneself to another. So we must come to know this truth in order to preserve it. Right?

to reclaim our God-given abilities and to behold them and to be hopeful for any future children that we may have or any children that we have now to be able to teach them from a place of deeper understanding and living out not just checking the boxes but really entering into this mystery of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

and giving us his body to eat.

But I want to end with this, okay? So a couple things here. Parents are to be the primary educators of their children.

on the gift of personhood and human sexuality. We live in a time where the family is under attack and people don't even know their own identity. They don't even know who they are, what's written in their very flesh. We have people cutting off perfectly healthy organs in children, adults.

They're suppressing their fertility and it's called normal. They just hand it out like candy in the doctor's offices at the OBGYN. Right? It's so devastating what's happening. There are children who are going to school with people who don't even know that they're human. They think that they're animals or they don't even know they just, they're like an anomaly. It's so devastating. So devastating. So we

It is our duty as Catholics and Christians to bear this truth and to really behold it. and really as parents, when we get our children baptized, we vow to this. And when we get married, we vow to this. Go back through your catechism work, through your preparation work. We make a vow.

to uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church in our marriage and with our children when we get them baptized. When we welcome them into the fullness of the faith. And we have to live up to that and if we aren't, my friends, is sinful. We ought to really reconcile with the Lord. And he's not asking for perfection, right? He's not asking for us to do everything perfectly because we're all figuring it out. He knows the intent of heart. He's just longing for your yes.

Because we vowed to him,

Can we mirror to him what he gives to us? Okay, and our lady of Fatima said, in the final battle, it'll be over marriage and family. Wow, if we're not living in that final battle now, I'm not sure when it's gonna be. Surely feels like it. And John Paul II himself said, as the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

If you feel like your family is under attack, if you feel like your marriage is under attack, your relationship, your future vocation that you dream of, if you're a single listening and you dream of marriage and the vocation of marriage and you know it's written on your heart, if you feel like your personhood is under attack, it likely is because This is my personal opinion. We're living in the times.

in the whole world in which we live.

is being tried and tested because the family is under attack.

where marriage is so viciously under attack. So if you have a target on your back, that is just proof, that is just evidence. And that God has so many graces for you. Anthony and I have had astounding graces. They're unexplainable. When we try and explain them to people, they just don't understand sometimes. The amount of graces we've had in our experiences of healing. When we've said yes to the Lord and we've opened the doors.

open wide the doors to Christ. That's a quote from John Paul 2. When he did that, when I did that, and we do it continually all the time, right? Like the graces are abounding. And I do want to say too, like even if you're struggling in your marriage and you don't really feel anything really great right now, because you guys might be, I mean we have, we personally nested, we separated two times. We almost divorced.

Okay, so like really like you feel like all hope is lost. Like how am I supposed to stay faithful to this person? How are we supposed to move forward with children? It's devastating. Devastating, devastating. People don't, they don't long for that, right? Like nobody's prepared for that. To have a broken marriage or to have a marriage under attack, right? Or to have a broken relationship or re recurring cycles in your marriage that you just are, they're so unwanted. They're so difficult.

We have this longing, this yearning for something more. So if you're feeling that way, just know those sacramental graces that you receive through the sacrament of marriage in the Catholic Church, through your vows of fidelity, they're still flowing over your marriage. There's still so much life and so much goodness and so many gifts coming upon you, whether you feel it or not. And so I just want to just encourage you and

and just remind you that God is with you in all things and that those graces are still there. They're still there even if you don't feel it, even if you feel like you're in the desert and it's burning, you're just burning up, And so John Paul 2 said this often, as did Christ in the gospels, be not afraid. Be not afraid to enter into the mystery. Be not afraid to look at the inmost self. Be not afraid to step out of the boat and into the water and into the deep.

I just want to encourage you, we are equipped for the times we're living in. We've been given the sacraments and undeniable graces through the sacrament of marriage, through our baptism, through our confirmation. We should always rest in that. And it's hard. I've been there. I didn't always rest in that. But on the outside, here I am now

I made it through, right? So I'm speaking this to you. We are equipped for the times we're living in. Your marriage is equipped to continue forward, to heal, to enter into the mystery of the Inmost Self, into the mystery of spousal love.

Okay.

And like really, don't you want the fullness of your spouse too? let that be a mere reflection of what we desire from God. If we're desiring something more from our spouse or for our marriage, we really actually desire that so much more from God. So keep opening that ache that I think Christopher West calls the universal longing.

We open the ache, we all have this longing, this internal cry. any desire you have for your spouse, give it to the Lord. Let him fill it, okay? And it might be through your spouse that he fills it. The Lord filled many of my desires with Anthony and more. Now my husband and I pray together. And Dr. Bob Schutze talks about the spiritual foundation. Once you have a spiritual foundation laid, that's where the rest builds from in your marriage.

Like speaking of emotional, physical, sexual, whatever it may be. Once the spiritual foundation is that first foundation laid, the rest can build upon that. And Anthony and I didn't have that. We didn't have that spiritual foundation. So it's like the Lord cleaned house so much and now we have that spiritual foundation. Where Anthony's the ⁓ head of our marriage and of the house in that sense where he now has the spiritual authority and he's bearing it with Christ in a way that Adam didn't in the garden. He didn't guard.

the garden like he was supposed to. And we see how the enemy came in, right? And so this is the same for our husbands. They're supposed to be guarding the garden. And when they're not, we're having these footholds to the enemy. But through Jesus, we have the power to renounce the enemy and to proclaim the truth and welcome the truth into our lives,

Hope is not lost, right? We're living in the year of hope.

in the Catholic Church. So this is just a beautiful time to continue to reflect on the hope of the Lord. And lastly, we're given this beautiful image of the Holy Family to lead us to sanctity, They always point to Christ and all the iconic images, Mary's always pointing to Jesus. And John Paul too, he had a great love for Mary. He promoted his totus tuus approach that totally yours to Jesus through Mary. So if you haven't done a consecration to Our Lady,

⁓ either in your own personal life or together as a couple or over your marriage with your children, whatever, I highly, highly recommend it. And I can, ⁓ again, I'll put one of those books in the show notes as well. One of the Consecrations to Our Lady. There's quite a few out there. Louis de Mott for its original Consecration is just beautiful. Father Michael Gately has one as well. 33 Days to Morning Glory. So something I love giving the couples, I'm just going to give it to as a little bit of homework.

to enter into that sacramentality. Something I love giving the couples is for them

to go and watch the video Lover of the Light by Mumford and Sons. You just go to YouTube, type it in. It's a really, really beautiful video and I really encourage them to look for holy themes, to try and look beyond the video, kind of like a visio divina or a music divina and look in what's being expressed in the messaging, in the small details, to listen for the Holy Spirit within us when we're watching or we're listening.

we're reading the lyrics as we hear them and hear the words of this song, we let the Holy Spirit work within us almost like a prayer, right, but with a video. So instead of a scripture passage we're looking at lyrics. And I've done this so much and it's so fun. It's really beautiful. The fruits of this are just astounding. So it's a great example of viewing the world with the lenses of theology, the body, as sacramentally as a sign, right, as ultimately all things point to God. Okay, so

If you go and you watch it, I'm going to add it to the show notes as well. There's a little bit of like a discussion. I'll link a PDF for you that I kind of talk with couples about after we watch the video. And so some of the lyrics that pop, what we see in the video, it's a really, really beautiful image of spousal love because of the character in the video. And then you have Christ.

who's kind of revealed as well through an animal, as a deer, as a stag. So it's super powerful and there's a man who's blind and he experiences a loss of his wife and it's just really good and the music's great because it's Montfort and Sons, right? So we talk about, too, how do we live as a lover of the light, which is really a lover of Christ, the lover of the truth, which is what John Paul II proclaimed, right? He proclaimed vocation as a sign, as a great gift.

Our Catholic Church is a great gift. The human body, the act of, the physical act of the two becoming one flesh, right? But practical ways in how we live as a lover of the light, as a lover of the truth, we go to the sacraments, right? We seek the counsel and wisdom of the Catholic Church. Mother Church, she's here. She's here for us. We receive the Holy Spirit as our greatest advocate. And we remain open. We talked a lot about that.

Maybe we'll do a consecration to Jesus through Mary. highly encourage that. We allow divine mercy to come in, right? That misery, his mercy to enter into our misery so that we too can go out and give. And divine mercy, Faustina and John Paul too are all intertwined. So intertwined, he had a great love. I think he called it one of the greatest days of his life is when he instituted the feast day of divine mercy.

Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina and declared the second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday during his papacy. So he had a great love for Jesus' mercy. I think he called it a special task, Divine Mercy devotion is a special task. And a message to us of the third millennium,

And that's where he proclaimed that, not be afraid. So place all of your fears, all of your questions, all of the barriers in your relationship, in your personal life, within yourself, the shame, whatever it is, any wounds, we place them on the altar. We place them in the side of Christ where they're safe, in his most sacred wounds.

practical ways to live as a lover of the light, to live out theology of the body. Let his love heal you. Enter into the mystery of who you are, body and soul composite. Enter into the mystery of spousal love.

So I just want to close in a prayer. And don't forget to check out the show notes for that link to Lover of the Light and some of the books that we talked about. And if you are ready, we are always here and willing to walk with you. We offer inner healing ministry, which is just great. It's free. It's free. It takes about one and a half hours of your life and it's just going to bless you. So check it out. Okay. And then we also offer Catholic coaching and couples mentorship. Okay.

So Lord, we just call upon you and we thank you for this time you've given us to learn more about you and to sit with those that we love in our hearts, Our future beloved, the beloved that you've given us now, right? But help us to know too that I am beloved by you and that you long for me to know you more deeply, Jesus. Teach me how to be open to you in all things.

even the most seemingly trivial matters in life. Give me new lenses to see and experience your love everywhere.

You call me to come and see. I choose to come and see Jesus. Anything that the Holy Spirit's revealed to me in this episode,

Help me to take to you in prayer or take to a friend or take to our spouse or to a priest to seek counsel and guidance, so that we may know we're never alone in the journey.

In the Gospel of Matthew it says, everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks the door will be opened.

Thank you Lord. Thank you all for coming by today. I hope to do more episodes on theology the body. Please let me know what you thought. I'd love to hear your comments and don't forget to subscribe. God bless you all. Bye bye.


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Melissa Krupp

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