Forgotten Virtue： Fr. Chris Alar Reveals Secrets Of Avoiding Hell
Summary
In this episode, Father Chris Alar talks about modesty and what it means to be a priest in the modern world, and why it is so important to be modest in public in order to be holy and holy in private.
Transcript
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This has been the teaching of the church for centuries
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about that nuptial relationship, the union of man and woman.
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And that's what Christ is wed to his church, the bride.
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He gives the seed. The priest is in persona Christi.
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The church receives it, and from it, she gives life.
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We have arrived at summertime, and of course, that comes with a bunch of challenges.
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And that is for men, principally anyway, cuss through the eyes.
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You have the same problem from your TV or your device all the time during the year,
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Not only that, on the other end of the spectrum, for women principally again,
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Tough questions we don't hear much about from our pulpits or anywhere else.
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So, we brought on for you someone who is used to answering hard questions.
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His name is Father Chris Alar, and I'm sure you remember him from before here at LifeSite News.
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He is the provincial superior of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception.
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Father Don Calloway, who wrote the great book on St. Joseph, consecration of St. Joseph.
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Father Michael Gately, who did the great work that flows from St. Louis de Montfort's great work
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That's the same order of priests, and he's their superior.
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Stay tuned for this episode on Modesty with Father Chris Alar.
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Hey friends, before we continue, you need to know of a crazy new development.
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Some of the largest stores in the world are now sending opt-out messages ahead of Mother's Day.
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Allowing consumers the opportunity to ignore Mother's Day and to avoid honoring their own
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The month of May is especially sacred as we set May apart to honor not only all mothers,
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but also the Mother of God, Mary Most Holy, and our own mothers too, obviously.
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Therefore, in ignoring Mother's Day in May, it's a scandal.
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And my pledge to you, from all of us here at LifeSite, is that we will never stop honoring
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the unique role of motherhood as woke elites reduce all mothers to birthing persons.
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If you agree that motherhood is sacred, empower us at LifeSite to proclaim the value of motherhood
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this month with renewed force and faithfulness.
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Big tech and mainstream media believe themselves powerful enough to ignore the very base that
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We celebrate motherhood in our mission to build a pro-life generation for our children and grandchildren.
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During the month of May, donate to LifeSite News in the honored memory of your mother,
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living or deceased, knowing that LifeSite will pray for you and your mother.
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So please be sure to leave your name and your mother's name in the donation form in the link
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And may we honor all of our mothers during the month of May, especially our Heavenly Mother.
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One of the things that we are dealing with, especially today, we're entered right into
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And it's tough because, well, for the woman's part, well, I'm going to the beach, I'm going
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And when I'm walking around on the street, when I'm going to church, those are all different
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What do I do to, if they're thinking really as Catholics, it's what do I do to protect
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And I thank you, Father, for being willing to answer it.
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It's a topic that few are discussing, but mostly so important today because it affects
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And as with everything else, we need to base this on church teaching and, of course, the
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People don't think it is, but actually it's 1 Timothy 2.9.
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And, you know, this is the letter from St. Paul who wrote that women, and it really applies
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to men just as much, should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing.
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And so we know it's right there in scripture as an important topic.
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Because modesty is one of the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit.
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And those, the fruits of the Holy Spirit are important for eternal glory.
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Modesty itself to, I think the best way to explain it is to dress modestly is to really
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avoid causing sexual excitement in another person, and surprisingly, even yourself.
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I, you know, I always point out that the doctor's always trying to yell at me to get into the
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gym more because I have a heart condition, and he's always threatening me that I need to
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And it's funny because when you go there, you do see a lot of idol worship of ourselves,
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male and female, in front of the mirror, very obviously worshiping the body.
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And so we have to be very careful here because this is one vice that can, immodesty, that can
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lead to a lot of other reduction of other virtues, such as temperance, you know, such as
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And of course, lust, when we're invoking it in ourselves or another.
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Break this down for us, Father, because a lot of this is very difficult to discern.
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There used to be a saying about custody of the eyes.
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And what does that mean in specific for guys when they're trying to practice purity?
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Custody of the eyes is something that was a regular part of my confession, still is,
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unfortunately, from time to time because, you know, we're still males.
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We're still biologically being, you know, God created us as sexual beings.
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The key is to rightly order those sexual and natural instincts that we have in us.
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I delayed my priesthood for years thinking I could not be celibate.
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But, well, with the grace of God, everything is possible.
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Now, you mentioned how do we do it when the summer's coming up and, you know, we have invitations
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Are we, first of all, keeping custody of our own eyes?
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Because it can be very challenging at places like the beach.
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But it's also the eyes of others that we can invoke.
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There's a great quote from John Paul that he wrote.
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Now, if I may read this quote to you, I think it's very powerful.
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There is nothing immodest about the use of a bathing suit at a bathing place like a swimming
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He went on to say that it would be wrong not to refer here, if only in curiosity, to another
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That's how John Paul described pornography was shamelessness in art.
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It's a very broad problem and extremely complex.
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But he said, because there's a lot of different kind of art.
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And he said, I'm concerned for the present only to define the gist of the problem.
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But basically means we don't even know how to define the problem.
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And if I may, John Henry, I pulled up from my seminary notes, Aristotle.
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I went to Franciscan University for philosophy.
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But here's what I found interesting when I went back to my seminary notes.
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Regarding shame, if we have too much of it, it's shyness.
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If we do not have enough of it, it's shamelessness.
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That's how John Paul just described pornography.
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So we have to find that middle road, the modesty.
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And so John Paul did a great connection there, saying there's a right time and a right place
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of how we dress ourselves and what's appropriate.
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One of the things is, I think, a discerning factor.
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It's probably the most sure guide it is to dress, to sexually arouse or not.
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That's probably one of the greatest guides because you're able to, I think most people
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I mean, some people think, oh, no, this is nothing.
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This is totally modest when it's like a crop top and a miniskirt that's not too, too mini.
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And it sounds ridiculous, but that's the calculus nowadays.
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Is there some kind of guideline that the church has given or anything like that that basically
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says, OK, here's something minimum, like a minimum basis?
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In fact, the church keeps going back to modesty.
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We were talking about EWTN a second ago earlier off the air.
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Mother Angelica's shrine, they would have a box of sweatpants and long sleeve shirts.
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Um, for people who would come in, um, that may be what she would define as immodestly dressed.
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Um, you know, obviously, uh, shorts, uh, too, too tight, um, skirts, too short, um, men in tank tops.
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But she made it very clear that you were going to have to put on, um, these additional pieces,
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articles of clothing to be able to enter into the place of worship.
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And, and why would we say this is offensive to God?
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Well, you know, one of the favorite apparitions that I've always read about was Our Lady of Good
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And this is a powerful apparition that really tells us a lot about the future.
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You know, how many problems of immodesty and dress did they have in Ecuador 400 years ago?
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But she said there will be almost no innocence left in children.
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She said there will be almost no modesty left in women.
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She said this extreme time of need in the church, they will shut down one who seeks to oppose this.
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And we've also talked, John Henry, about the cancel culture.
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Um, you know, we speak the truth and we're canceled.
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Isn't this interesting that Our Lady said 400 years ago in Ecuador that those who will speak up
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And then she talked about a time in the middle of the 20, just after the middle of the 20th century.
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The 60s, the sexual revolution, the, um, the extreme, you know, birth control, pornography,
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All of this, under the guise of freedom, really was a rebellion against God's purity,
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not restrictions, but God's guidance of purity for us.
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So Our Lady went on to say that these days, talking about shortly after the middle of the 20th century,
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the atmosphere, she said, will be saturated with the spirit of impurity,
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which as a filthy sea runs through the streets, squares, and public places with an astonishing freedom.
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Freedom is the ability to do what you ought to do, like see modesty around you.
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Without your children, you bring your teenage boy to mass and you have to worry about him
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focusing on anything but the mass because, uh, you know, girl next to him is dressed
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Uh, you know, uh, a male can do the same thing to a female.
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So Our Lady warned us of this in, uh, Our Lady of Good Success.
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Yeah, so, in fact, Fatima, too, John Henry, she mentioned this.
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She said, more souls go to hell for sins of the flesh than any other reason.
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And she said, quote, that certain fashions will be introduced that will offend our Lord very much.
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And so, we know, back to your original question, how do we know a guideline or a barometer here?
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Well, we know that if it incites sexual disordered excitement in another,
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or you're, worse, trying to incite sexual lust in another.
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This can be, John, um, I think it was Father Harden said, uh, it's a mortal sin.
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And so, we have to be aware of this, because Our Lady also said in Fatima,
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She said that, woe to women lacking in modesty.
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And she said, let men, she didn't let men off either.
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She said, let men avoid greed, lies, envy, blasphemy, and most of all, impurity.
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So, we have Our Lady giving us, uh, definitely the barometer
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And this is a really tough thing because, I mean, God created woman and created woman beautiful.
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Like, you would say the most beautiful thing on earth.
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This is not something that, you know, we're not naturally inclined to.
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If you can unpack a little bit of that for us, because I think that's very confusing for people
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It all goes back to John Paul's dignity of the human person.
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Being a priest, I've been hearing confessions for nine years.
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And it is probably the most prevalent confession, especially among men.
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But surprisingly, we're hearing a lot of females confessing this now in the confessional.
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It is probably the most confessed sin that I at least personally have heard over the last nine years.
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And what John Paul II said was that when we engage in pornography, we're violating the dignity of the human person
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In fact, I forget which saint or blessed it was that said this,
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but they said every time you view an image to objectify it,
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especially a man viewing an impure image of a woman,
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it is said that there's a demon behind every one of those images.
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So in other words, every time we choose willfully to look at these images and indulge in this,
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that there is a demon behind each of those images that is trying to find that portal into our soul.
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And remember, the eyes are the windows to the soul.
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And that's why we have to have custody of the eyes, as we mentioned.
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Because if we don't have custody of the eyes, you might as well open your door wide open
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and in allowing portals to be open for these demons to take over.
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It says, modesty protects the intimate center of the person.
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It means it's a refusing to unveil what should remain hidden.
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And I thought that was a very well choice of words.
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So modesty leads to chastity, which means keeping your physical body pure.
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And we can't do that without a spirit of modesty.
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The catechism says it guides how we look at others and how we behave toward them.
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And here's the key, in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
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When we violate this, we have violated the second greatest commandment.
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And in many senses, we committed adultery with them.
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If we've engaged in pornography or leaving custody of the eyes as an important guide,
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we can fall into adultery, as Jesus said, just in our mind.
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So we're talking something very important here.
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This is actually very interesting, too, because priests like you
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give up the opportunity to be with a woman and see her in that way that is for husband and wife only.
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And when we are asked to practice custody of the eyes, we make a similar offering, all men do,
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in that we are not engaging in this, which is proper to husband and wife only,
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because that's someone else's wife or to be someone else's wife or whomever.
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And so we have this opportunity to all men to unite ourselves with what the priest does,
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except the priest, of course, does that perpetually and gives himself over to that as a sacrifice.
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But the priest is not going to miss out, and all men aren't going to miss out on the beauty of the female,
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because heaven is going to have the perfect beauty, the beauty of God,
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which supersedes all human beauty, all created beauty.
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And so there is much more fulfillment in heaven, is there not, than what we will get on earth
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I told you before the show began that I delayed my vocation for years,
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thinking I could never live a fully celibate life.
00:21:03.240
Well, that was just the evil one, because with God's grace, we can.
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But you know what is fascinating, John Henry, to me?
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What is the whole purpose of the male in the marital act is to give that life-giving seed.
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It is to share that love with another and to give that life-giving seed.
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The priest is in persona Christi, and he gives that life-giving seed from the altar,
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that seed of life that comes from the sacraments, that comes from the altar,
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because the church receives that seed from the priest.
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She receives that seed that the priest, in persona Christi, who Christ was a man, we can't change that.
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It's just they're different, and they have different capacities.
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Like, you know, you always heard that the highest calling in the church is a cloistered nun,
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you know, even higher than a diocesan priest because of the way of life that they're devoted to.
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So it's not about chauvinism, but that priest at the altar in confecting the Eucharist gives that life-giving seed.
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She then places that, if you will, in like a womb, and then gives birth to life.
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Now, people always say, well, the priest should or can be a woman.
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Well, actually, if that was the case, knowing the nuptial relationship of the mass, if the priest was a woman, you would have, excuse me, people are going to be offended by this, but lesbianism is because you can't have the female giving the seed and then another female receiving the seed.
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And that's where the nuptial relationship between the man and the woman come into play.
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And this has been the teaching of the church for centuries about that nuptial relationship.
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And it does involve the union of man and woman.
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And that's what Christ is wed to his church, the bride.
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The church receives it, and from it, she gives life.
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And, you know, that's why, John Henry, in the catechism, it talks about the importance of this because, you know, modesty protects the mystery of the people.
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You know, you mentioned, you know, husband, wife.
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If for me as a priest, my spouse is the church.
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You know, I used to think that, and I always wanted the church to be able to allow us to marry.
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Now that I've been a priest for nine years, I will be the number one advocate for not allowing priests to marry.
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It's not because the church or God is punishing us.
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It's because I have to give my 100% to my spouse.
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And if I'm married in a civil sense or even in the church to a female spouse, I have two spouses.
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I have the church, and I have the beautiful woman.
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The church in her infinite wisdom has made it very clear why a priest isn't married.
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Even though it's a matter of discipline, it's not a matter of dogmatic revelation.
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Now, a woman being ordained a priest, that cannot change.
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I'm an advocate that they don't because either the spouse or the church is only going to get half of my attention.
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So, the church has said that this modesty protects the persons and their love for each other.
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Catechism 25-22 talks about this, saying it inspires us, not just in our love emotions, but in our choice of clothing.
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It says it keeps silent what should be kept silent.
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It reserves the person's dignity where there's a risk of unhealthy curiosity.
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And so, keep that intimacy sacred between the husband and the wife, just like between the priest and the church.
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It's funny because this is an area where women, you might say, have the greater power.
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So, in the normal sphere, men are more powerful and stronger and whatnot.
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That's why you have the weightlifting competitions all won by these trans women, the men who call themselves women, and in swimming and in running and in boxing and wrestling.
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Well, because God has ordained it that men are stronger than women.
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But in this sphere of purity and modesty, it's the women who need to protect the men because they are given in their bodies this beauty which can lead men astray.
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And so, there's an opportunity for a woman to literally protect a man in that way that you're normally used to men have to protect women.
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God's greatest creation is the female, I mean, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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The greatest act of His creation is the Blessed Mother.
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And in her feminine beauty, you know, you look at, I was, like I said, I've dealt with heart problems.
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I was in the doctor's office and I just happened to be looking up on the wall at the two charts of the male body and the female body.
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He's got the typical intestines to process food, to dispose of it properly, to heartbeat, pump blood, and be able with the skeleton structure to exist day to day.
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But the female, just the design, if you look at the inner workings and the anatomy of the female body and you don't acknowledge an intelligent designer, I don't know where you can come up with that argument against an intelligent designer.
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The amazing structure that God used, the intelligent design in the female.
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Now, but then the outer beauty, why is the art throughout the centuries been the female body?
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It is because of the beauty of the female body.
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With that beauty, as with anything, could come a distorted use of it.
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Just as we read earlier from John Paul, nothing more than a distortion of art.
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And that's why the catechism, or I should say, John Henry, the USCCB surprisingly actually talked about this too.
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And the USCCB said that modesty is so important because it leads to purity.
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So in other words, this all ties back to our ability to enter heaven or not, is if we're pure or not.
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And the USCCB says it flows from the virtues of temperance, chastity, and self-control.
00:29:02.120
The USCCB said that a modest person dresses, speaks, and acts all in a manner that supports and encourages purity and chastity.
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And not in a manner that would tempt or encourage sin.
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Father, I think you hit on there some of the advice that priests give in the confessional that is most central to this.
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Because it's related to modesty, it's related also to other areas of modesty,
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which, from a psychological perspective, feed right into impurity and the struggle with trying to maintain custody of the eyes.
00:29:45.640
And that refers to eating, to excess, and fasting.
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This is why the church is always taught, well, based on Scripture, that we have to be in a state where the Spirit controls the flesh,
00:30:01.420
I mean, this is the basics of our faith right from Scripture.
00:30:06.000
And the problem is that people don't understand the meaning of fasting, for instance,
00:30:09.900
or gluttony being one of the seven deadly sins.
00:30:13.280
Well, what does it hurt to enjoy a big, thick steak?
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But when we take it to the extreme, and we can have gluttony not just in food.
00:30:22.880
We can have gluttony in the Internet, our use of time.
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And in, for instance, wanting to see more impure images.
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One of the dangers of pornography is you can never get your fault.
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And the danger of that is it then goes into areas that you can't get satisfied anymore.
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And just, let's say, a beautiful artistic view of a lady without clothes then becomes her doing something in an act.
00:31:00.040
Then all of a sudden it becomes her doing something in a really unnatural act.
00:31:05.200
And then it becomes something really perverted.
00:31:12.380
So the danger of pornography is it's a slope that just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper.
00:31:24.000
Fasting is a beautiful way to do that because it puts the spirit in control of the flesh,
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And we have to realize that when we deny our flesh, we become spiritually in control.
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Whereas when our flesh controls the spirit, that's why our faith teaches us that the three evils out there
00:31:51.380
And it starts with the flesh because our concupiscence leads us to want to be slothful rather than diligent,
00:32:00.140
prideful rather than humble, and lustful rather than chaste.
00:32:05.320
These are the reasons why we have to put that spirit more in control of the flesh.
00:32:10.620
A great, great way to do that is through temperance and things like fasting.
00:32:15.720
You know, we don't normally end off with a prayer, but if you wouldn't mind, this is a topic, as you said,
00:32:20.400
Our Lady said, more souls go to hell for sins of the flesh of impurity than for any other reason.
00:32:26.100
If you could pray for all the viewers that we might strive for purity.
00:32:31.340
Men in terms of cuss of the eyes and remaining pure in their hearts,
00:32:34.820
and women in terms of being able to dress modestly to look out for their brothers in this very real war,
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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Lord Jesus, we ask you for the continuous grace in this world that is so eroticized,
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in this world that is so unchaste and has lost its sense of sin.
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We beg and implore you to have mercy on us and for the sake of your sorrowful passion
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to be able to forgive us, but most of all to enlighten us, to lead us.
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We ask for your mercy and forgiveness on those who are acting in an impure manner,
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We are asking that you help us to find purity in every word, deed, and action.
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We ask that you help us to live pure and chaste lives,
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to be examples of Christ and the purity of our Mother Mary.
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And we ask St. Faustina that you intercede for us,
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and Mother Mary, that you show us and lead us to your Son,
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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