[00:00:00] Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Hear and Now Podcast. This is the last official episode of the year before podcasts. This begins on Tuesday, December 1st, but without further ado, I’m so excited to welcome mr. Damon Owens onto the show. Hi. Hello there. Thanks for having me so happy to be talking all about theology of the body.
So welcome to the show. Why don’t you introduce yourself to the audience? Oh, I’d love to. My name is Damon Owens and my wife, Melanie, and I’ve been married for 27 and a half years. So like kids who are like I’m six and a half 27 and a half years. And, we’ve involved in, in ministry marriage really from the beginning.
And not because we were like Uber Catholics, but we were just on fire. With a major reversion back to the faith. So Melanie and I involved in natural family planning, marriage preparation, Pre-Cana work. And then I went full-time in ministry in 2002 after selling my engineering company and immediately was introduced to theology to body.
It had not heard of it before, even though I was speaking about sexuality and [00:01:00] marriage and family, and that really just, just opened up a whole world of. The gospel of our Catholic fee. So for the last 18 years, been working full time in ministry, for, I was the first executive director of the theology of the body Institute, 2011 to 2016.
And I’ve had several, postulates. And right now my wife, Melanie, and I run something called joyful ever after getting the marriage you want from the marriage that you have. So very personal, very practical, but we say it’s the, the, the vocab of the lyrics of the theology of the body with the melody of joy.
So very, you know, very, very accessible, but very, rich in its content using this theology of the body. I love it. And most importantly, I’m a gosh. Besides Melanie, I have eight children, all girls. I always say all boys, except the first seven. I have seven girls and, a ten-year-old son, Nathan. That’s awesome.
I was going to stand, it’s waiting for you to talk about all of your children as [00:02:00] well. You go, I’m sure. She probably would not be very much vital. mentioned that I got your name from Jeannine Peters, who who’s a fellow TOB member. Of course. so when we’ll shout out to her, but for some of the listeners who, who might not be Catholic, who are Catholic and just don’t know what it is, how can you.
Explain theology of the body and what it is really at its core. Wow. I’d love to do it. And there’s lots of ways to do it, sort of that pithy elevator pitch. But I find that there, there are many of them because it really matters where you’re coming from. I have a different sort of intro to the teens that I would have the young adults that I would have to yeah.
Married religious, because the, at the core of the theology of the body, when people ask the question, you just ask, what is it? There’s really three questions buried in that first is what is it? And I’m all the things in the universe, you know, just what is the theology of the body? The second people say is, what does it say?
What does the actual teaching teach what’s in there with it? And the third parts are wrapped up in there as [00:03:00] why should I care? You know, basically what does it mean? What of all the things, why should I even pursue any kind of interest in that? So I’ll try to hit on all of those for really just, just two minutes, if you will.
but fundamentally the, the theology of the body is a term that came from a body of talks that Pope Saint John Paul, the second game in the first five years of his pontificate. So, 1978 was called the year three Pope’s, Pope Paul. The six died, Paul Paul, John Paul, the first, was. Pope for 33 days.
And then Paul John Paul, the second first non Italian pope in 400 years was elected. And I’m already known as a scholar, someone who grew up in Poland, a faithful family, lost his parents early, lost his most of his family early. grew up during Nazi occupation, grew up during, the, the Russian, you know, the, communists and the socialists and saw firsthand just, human evil.
And I don’t mean just policy and politic, but murder and betrayal and just real [00:04:00] human evil. But at the same time, I had such a devout faith, not only to Jesus Christ, but to his church, to the Catholic church. So he very much wanted more than just an emotional answer, but a very deep fundamental answer to the question of, you know, who are we, why are we here?
And then how do we live to be truly joyful, to be truly happy? And he’s an intellect. I mean, as a philosopher, is that the Logan underground church, university of Lublin, I mean, so very much taking his faith beyond the head, really from the heart, beautiful synergy and synthesis all that’s a good background because what he offered in 19, from September, 1979 to November, 1984, by five years, A series of talks that he literally gave on the balcony of st.
Peter square to pilgrims on Wednesday audiences, as they came to see the Pope, I’ve done it once in my life. And I’d love to do it again. Right. But on Sundays and Wednesdays, he has an Angelus address at noon. And then, hopes usually we’ll give some announcements and then kind of [00:05:00] wave and move on, but he was the first two to systematically meeting week after week, teach on something.
And it wasn’t a big announcement. It wasn’t, you know, he really just started to teach and people started taking note, those original Romano, the newspaper official newspaper of the Vatican started to track it in different languages, seminarians and scholars who were there started to pick up like he’s onto something here.
And it turned out, we didn’t know this until like 2006. He actually wrote a book and it was not yet published when he was elected Pope. So he had a finished manuscript that he’d begun in 1974 as a follow-up to a book that he had written 1960, called love and responsibility, and it was a Bishop. Then he was involved in the second Vatican council of all the bishops of the church from 1962 to 1965.
And then wrote extensively about implementing this council around the world, particularly in Poland. So this body of work. [00:06:00] Is answering those three questions based on his own experience, based on the second Vatican council, based on the work he had done in 1960, who are we? What does it mean to be a human person?
Who’s are we really, what are, you know, who do we belong to? Who is God? That’s why it’s a theology. It’s a study of God, but then really the question of how do we live our lives to be truly happy. So in the end, the book that we have, and we’ve got a little prop here in dr. Miquel Waldstein in his translation of this really, was taking those audiences as they’re called and the certain translations.
And finding and trying to recreate this manuscript that actually was never published in John Paul, the second from John Paul, the second. So, the phrase theology of the body really was referenced about 50 times 52 times and not throughout the study. So we got it from him. He says, you know, we’re, we’re talking about a theology of the body and he uses scripture.
I think there’s something like 200 scripture references throughout this body of work. It’s very [00:07:00] dense, but it’s readable if you want to. And he asks and answers three questions, who was the human person, who are we? And he takes us back to our origin in Genesis, the CR the original man. And then he speaks about historical man in sin.
And what does it look? What does it look like to live with the same? nature created, but now in the presence of sin and then this third sort of triptych as he calls it as the origin, the history, and the third is what’s called the destiny and we referenced and he speaks about, you know, what is it? What is our eternal destiny as human person?
So you might think that sounds dry. You might think that sounds like some heavy, just empty high theology, but the reason that the theology of the body has taken such a beautiful. explosion in the last 20 years in particular is precisely because it’s answering the questions that you and I are asking right now about ourselves, about our vocation, about our, our existence.
And you can understand them in such a way that even at the beginning, you can pick up on key principles, like [00:08:00] love being self gift giving, and receiving another person about the relational truth of God as a father. And not the father of all prof fatherhood projected up to God, but something original in God that gives life outside of himself and then spends all of who he is to.
Sure. It’s a good, that’s a fatherhood. So we have all these truths, then it helps us understand masculinity, femininity, marriage, single vocation, religious life. Joy happiness. all these things now take on a different meaning because they’re not sort of universal objective. They’re really brought down into the particular subjective experiential, and it really forces us and compels us as a better word.
It compels us to really see ourselves in the great salvation story. Oh, amazing. And you know, I’m somebody who has studied theology of the body. just very, very little, and I haven’t even gone into the depths of knowing all the things that you do too. So I think it’s [00:09:00] absolutely amazing that there’s just such a wealth of information out there.
And it’s just so I guess yet to be discovered for so many aspects beyond just, you know, within the Catholic church. And so I think it’s a worldwide teaching that needs to be. Made universal more than it already touched on something that’s important is that it’s not about studying the whole thing and then being done with it.
Right. It’s like the gospel. It’s like the Christian discipleship where you need to know what you need to know, and you need to sort of move to where you’re attracted to. Things that are element. If you’re getting married or if you are married, you want to understand the deeper supernatural realities of marriage.
And then what does it call for me if you’re single and you’re trying to discern a vocation, you’re trying to figure out, you know, who am I and what really is going to make me happy? Because I’m unique. I’m unrepeatable. There’s never been anybody like me. And yet we have so much in common with each other that we can talk about what it means to be human.
So you come in in a different place. If you’ve been wounded, then you know, you’re looking for healing. If, if you’re, if you’re looking [00:10:00] for, you know, real theological answers to who God is, you’re going to come up with an entirely different vocabulary under this theology of the body. So it very much is for everyone.
Exactly. And, you know, I’ve spent a lot of my time researching specifically theology of the body in relation to social media and how it impacts our identity. you know, cause I feel like a lot of times, and I’ll ask you this as well. People have this stigma that. TOB is just about sexuality within marriage.
And that is so much farther from the truth that it needs to be. And I think that. Our identity in Christ is the very first point that we need to kind of come to recognize before we can move on to finding out our vocation, whether that’s marriage, single life, et cetera. so I was going to ask you, have you seen that stereotype or that stigma around TOB, just being about sexuality or masculinity or femininity?
Absolutely. No, no, absolutely. And in fact, I go specific, I think the stereotype is that just about sexual morality, you know, what’s [00:11:00] right or wrong, what’s good or evil. So to that depth that we’ve been sort of moving this, this Boulder, we meaning folks who are teaching and promoting the plea, is that, without dismissing that, cause I don’t, I don’t think that that’s a bad thing.
I think what it shows is that, of this teaching what’s caught fire in people’s hearts. maybe that’s a bad analogy with fire, healing, right? It’s it speaks to the wound, right? If people are gravitating toward the implications of theology, the body and sexual morality, it’s precisely because that’s where the wound is, what is right.
What’s wrong and why, and when you enter it through that door or that window, you have to first answer some fundamental questions that you just hinted at. Right? So before you get to the verb of sex, you need to understand the noun. Male female. And you said it very quickly. It is beautiful that you see the connection because the identity of masculine feminine leads you then to the human person as having a body that are bodily MIS is more fundamental than [00:12:00] even our sexuality to be bodily, to be made body from the beginning before sin throughout sin.
And then we believe in the resurrection of the body. What we’re doing is we’re also identifying a wound. In a broader culture that that does not Revere the original dignity of the body. And it sounds funny because people seem to dismiss that they, you know, they’ll get the tattoos to express the body or the colors in the hair or the, you know, the piercings and things to, and the, you know, the sexuality with the push-up bras and the, you know, the Spanx and all that stuff.
You think people just, you know, the right dollar is an idolatry with the body. This. Partially true, but there’s also a sense that there’s something the better part of the human person. The better part is spiritual is non corporal is non bodily. And in that sense, we have to be a healed to recognize that the body soul is this unique composition together that makes the human person and the body is [00:13:00] not the soul.
The soul is not the body, the body’s material, the soul, the spiritual, right. But we’re not spiritual beings. And we’re not mere animals with bodies. We’re something wholly different and yet similar where these body persons, and this is all getting to the question of morality, because to get to the verbiage of the now, and to get to the now and to get to the person and you get to the person, you start to talk about, you know, what is a person, a human person.
So this is what we mean by the theology of the body, getting to identity, because it’s so much more than sexual morality. And yet it is the great answer that people are wanting is both. And. Yeah. And I, I think I said this in my last podcast episode too, is I’ve studied, philosophy this year, specifically metaphysics.
And I just feel like there’s, there’s just so much information that people are missing out on to know that relationship between your soul and your body. And, yeah. I totally nerd out on this one, but the managing religion, you know what I mean, how they believed that everybody was just pure evil because it was matter.
And so I think something like [00:14:00] TOB is almost just like this redemptive quality that, no, that is so not true because you need to have both in order to have a relationship, you need to have both to have a body and just a spirit in general. and so I think that TOB just kind of. Does a way with that old thinking and really just puts this, I guess, Supreme quality or just a supernatural level to a human person that was just missing and lost in translation for thousands of years.
I agree. I agree. I would add to that to say that. Yeah. Beyond that, it provides really compelling foundation to see why it’s not just another philosophy. It’s not just another theology because it’s experiential because it’s principle because it’s subjective, not subject, you took division. Like we make things of our own subject, but a subjectivity that we give honor to the human person is not just a thing, not just, You know, not ordinary, but really there’s something supernatural in our creation and the [00:15:00] image and likeness of God that still is clear in this body, soul composite.
So we can either elevate the body in some idolatrous way, nor can we denigrate it in a way without doing harm to the person. So, whether it’s a Manicheanism, that is heresy, you just spoke about when we were father, man, it was actually, you know, to be honest, when you start to study these things, these we’ll call now call heresies.
A lot of them make a whole lot of sense. Exactly. Not like they’re not like these crazy wild eyes, like, Oh, how could you, you ever believe this many times they’re more reasonable in our limited human reason than what the church gets revealed has revealed to her as the fuller truth. It’s the, it’s the minority.
We’ll come to see we’ll know that that may make more sense about Jesus being an exulted body and coming into it. Actually, no, he’s the, he’s the only begotten son of God. You know, all the things in our creed and at the algebra body really returns us to that. Creedal Christianity, but not again, in that [00:16:00] objective conceptual way, but very much in a very, very, Sensual sensual way.
Absolutely. And I could say that a thousand times about the heresies and I stayed in my discussion posts each week. Like they’re just very logical sounding and there are logical heresies out there. And of course they’re combative with the truth. but you know, something like masochism, it’s just, it makes sense why they would think that way.
I mean our soul and it’s something that’s intangible. It’s not the one that’s causing our sin. Our body is. And so. That being evil. That’s exactly why they would feel that way. so I think, you know, we’ll probably just stop talking about philosophy, turn the heat down. I can talk about it all day long, but the one thing I did want to ask you is now that you have, like you said, eight children, how did you start to incorporate TOB and kind of really put that upon your children to raise themselves in a mindset of TOB?
[00:17:00] Yeah, this is the, the humility of the difference between discipleship and catechesis and evangelization, right? So you catechize, when you already have belief, right? Your hearts on fire evangelizing, you want to know more? Tell me more, tell me more and catechesis. And there’s like these theology, the body just, just fills your heart with the more why’s behind the why evangelization is when our heart gets cold.
And we start either intellectualizing or, or compartmentalizing, or just walking away, turning away from God and we need our hearts revive. The discipleship piece is really just following it. And it’s so difficult. And I say that to answer your question because Melanie and I have always incorporated, you know, our ministry work first and foremost, with, with the family, with the kids.
I’d say the difficulty in that discipleship is that we’re learning. We’re still students. And as you know, we learn, we start to see more clearly what we’ve done wrong, but also stay present in the moment about how we can do something new now. [00:18:00] So the jury is still out with my beautiful children. You know, my oldest is 23 married and, We see beautiful fruit in our children, but, it’s way too early for us to really, to know that.
So I would say I would speak more to our philosophy. Our philosophy is to use different language and vocabulary, you know, within the, what we grew up with. we still teach them the fundamentals of heck when they’re young, we’ve used the Baltimore catechism, you know, why did God create you to know you love you this world to live with him forever in the world?
You know? So we teach them the classic fundamentals, but. In that, is the foundation and building that is far more relational in the language. but God being the father who loves you more than I, you know, even I love you and I will lay my life for you. And, you know, God created you female, this beautiful gift.
And what kind of motherhood is God going to want from you? You might have a family, you might be the mother of an order you might, but anyway, your, your femininity is about, nurturing and bringing in it as your body grows. [00:19:00] You know, it, it really is for that great vocation of some kind of motherhood the world has never seen.
And, you know, those are sort of those, those, those moments where we can actually go longer, but, you know, on sort of the steady diet is one of that, that vocational language that one of, honoring and revering the body without italics idolatry, that when there’s growth in the body, particularly in, you know, sexual development, these are things are all ordered toward.
Power that God has given you for your stewardship, you know, so that, that we never grew up in that kind of, of language. and also love being, not either sentimentalism or romanticism, it has feeling, but the, the real Christian Love and caring, my kids have heard this a thousand times. You know, we talk about eros , you know, heiresses that romantic love was.
It’s a passion of the heart, story day is that that duty within family icon of the mother and the baby, philia friendship like Philadelphia, you know, or from here. And, agape [00:20:00] really that, that unconditional love. And helping to see the distinctions of love. They don’t fall into that, that soft history and that, you know, that those tautological signs, you know, love is love, you know, and, and all that stuff.
It’s just, it makes absolutely no sense. If you’re paying attention to creation, love is not love, right. all, all love is from God. All love is good, but not all of us the same. And as I tell people all the time to look away, if I love my, my daughters in the same way that I love my wife. You need to put me under the jail.
Okay. So if you can recognize the difference in the authentic love of a father and a daughter and a husband and wife, then don’t tell me about love is love. Okay, good love is not love, but all that to say, you know, that’s how Melanie and I have tried to really share, even in our brokenness, right? We are very wounded from our college years and from, you know, our own sexual brokenness growing up in the eighties, the nineties and college and Berkeley and all that stuff.
So there’s a lot of healing going on with us as well. So we’re just [00:21:00] as anxious as anybody else to see, you know, as, as we’re living out loud and growing in our faith out loud with them, they’re far better off in terms of their own confidence, their own sense of who they are. And we were, but look, we all have to make our own choices.
And the jury is still out on the choices that they’re going to make. And we were on our knees literally every morning, praying for, you know, praying for their relationship with the Lord. Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that I such a big point to touch on too, is just that feminine identity that has been so lost.
In the last, you know, years. And so because of social media and just this uprising of a feminism versus the feminine genius, and, you know, there’s a whole different Avenue. We can go down and talking about that as well. But I think we really need to return back to the true, the truth of what our feminine identity is as the receiver, as you know, this mother figure modeling after Mary and [00:22:00] her true.
her true femininity and her true motherhood. and so do you think that social media and the rising of that has really affected how people are practicing TOB, whether it’s a positive or a negative aspect? Yeah, I think it’s, everything we do in our humanity is, is giving witness. To one of the many key principles of theology body.
And that’s this call to communion and communion is, is a central theme in the theology of the body. First, the community of God, father, son, Holy spirit, our communion with God. You know, being made in his image and likeness, male and female, he created them and blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply our community with each other.
That’s the icon for that is marriage. How far, how much, how much of a community, how deep of a communion can two human persons have? It’s not the all, all the, but it’s the, it’s the icon that says it can be so complete. The two could become one flesh in a moment of union and also in the creation of a third.
From the fruit of that union. So I think the social [00:23:00] media, yeah, this is, this is clearly new in, in humanity without being over, over stating it, this is new, but I think it gives, it gives witness to the central city of the need for communion. Even as the sort of approximate, the digitizations of it keep failing us.
They keep falling short, they keep leaving us wanting, but we keep going back thinking, you know, a six second tick-tock or, you know, or a, you know, a, a long, 160 posts or 140 character posts is going to is going to express. And we see the defects of that. We see the deficiencies in those. And even in the longer form things, you know, like podcasts and videos or YouTube, or even Facebook, or the longer forms that are available, these are all, you know, they’re digital approximations of, of something that we long for.
So I think they’re like most things, if we keep sort of the standard that we’re made for communion, deep abiding, personal [00:24:00] communion, and since we’re body, soul persons, it’s a body soul communion. And friendship family, and all those types of love eros filie storge agape in its in its pure form or in its good form.
The social media should draw us to the fuller communion of that, of that central you’re getting all senses involved. So, you know, see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. But I think a lot of times it, it replaces. And that’s when the technology really does harm to us. but in this is 2020. So, I mean, in this year, we’ve seen how these technologies in many ways have saved us, you know, and keeping connections that that would, where would we be if we didn’t have, you know, zoom and GoToMeeting and all these?
I mean, but to think that these replaced those is, I don’t think anybody does. honestly, but you know, there’s a danger, there’s a danger that, that we could think that this could really [00:25:00] replace. These really can’t replace the mass, you know, and for the first several months, you know, when we were watching a mass and we would long to be there, we, we, we went on the fumes of memory and the grace that God’s going to give us, but that’s not going to replace.
We had to get back. We had to get back to mass. I don’t care how many people get in there. We’ll, you know, we’ll reserve a seat. We’ll get, we’ll get in early. Right. And the same thing for birthdays and anniversaries and. Picnics and all those things for Thanksgiving, Christmas things were approaching. So yeah.
Yeah, I think there is definitely both an negative aspect and a positive aspect of social media in that a it connects us, but it also connects us in a way that we don’t want to happen. You know what I mean, people fall into chops there, but then we can also evangelize and really spread the gospel and more widespread than we could have ever even imagined before.
And so I think that’s super important to really identify where your heart is at when you are putting a message out there. Am I doing it for the right reasons? Am I doing it so that I can glorify [00:26:00] God and the message that I’m speaking? So, do you think that TOB applies to just Catholics? Especially if they don’t know anything about it.
Absolutely not. It is one of the beautiful things about being Catholic, about being Christian. We have such solidarity with, you know, non-Catholic Christians, because there’s such a deeply scriptural foundation. For theology of the body. As I said, I forgot the exact number, but it was close to 200, particular scriptural references that aren’t just asides.
They’re actually the train tracks that John Paul, the second uses to make the case for the human person made male, female. As being made for communion about our relationship, one to the other about the fullest and deepest truth about marriage, about who God himself is about, who we are to God, and about how we’re here.
All those things are so deeply as we have a great solidarity with biblical Christians, but even beyond that, without any vocabulary, without any foundation, we’re talking about the [00:27:00] human person, these aren’t just. Conceptual ideas. These are, these are, this is revelation, literally pulling back the veil and God revealing to us.
In other words, revealing giving us the ability to see behind the veil of what it means to be human. Now we have to alter our language when we talk to people only because they don’t share our vocabulary. I mean, if you went to. Greece. And you’re speaking to someone who’s, who’s, you know, modern Greek, you’re going to speak the language in order to connect with them.
You’re not going to go and start riffing in Italian or in English about something that may be true. You have to learn the language of the culture in order to be heard. And that also is a TB. understanding of communion, that communication, whether it’s verbal or non-verbal is part of this whole ethos, this whole giving one to the self.
So it is for every human person, but we have to be able to speak the language as I’m talking to somebody the other day, we’re fundraising for joyful ever after. And one of our language things is that, you know, we want to move [00:28:00] well beyond. Sort of the engaged 7% of, of Catholics who you’re involved in everything.
And I tell him, I said, listen, we’re talking to people who, who, who don’t read Fulton sheen, you know, they’re reading Glennon, Doyle, you know, they’re not watching DWTN necessarily the watching Ellen or the other shows. So you have to be able to speak a language, not in any manipulative way, just in a way that you can be heard.
And in that sense, the theology body acts as a foundational truth from which you draw. The ability to speak truth in any language. It’s not that you’re just taking the concept and, and tossing them and seeing what happened. We’re not air, we’re not air dropping 50,000 Bibles somewhere and saying, you know, here’s Jesus, you know, you’re, it’s, it’s so personal and we have to have the courage and the, and the patience and the, really the perseverance to, to meet people.
One-on-one right where they are. But be secure in what these truths are about ourselves, about them, about what truly makes us happy. And that gives a certain [00:29:00] piece to be able to, you know, to, to bear one another’s burdens. Absolutely. And you know, I think that meeting somebody right where they are is such an important imagery and it, you know, it goes even beyond in this particular intersection.
Exactly. Exactly. And it’s really just. You know, it’s just as Jesus did for us. He met us exactly where we were with our sins. And so we attended the same for other people. And I think, I think that is such a very powerful, powerful visualization of how we can really start to outreach to people. if they’re hurting the knee, we take that position for them as well.
We start to really connect and move to that. I got, they love with them, you know what I mean? Just be unconditional. so. How do you think somebody can begin to incorporate TOB in their life? Hmm, I think, it depends again where you’re coming from. So when I was at the theology body Institute where we were dedicated and they still are very much dedicated to, [00:30:00] intensive graduate level instruction, but so beautifully, weaved.
Into a, basically a week long retreat, you know, literally in front of the blessed sacrament and there’s this whole, whole heart and headed Harbor called the head and heart immersion in this. I think that is a beautiful approach for those who, you know, who can, can take part in that. But I think the beauty of that is that it, you need to be honest about where you’re coming from.
If you have a certain, Academic or intellectual background in theology philosophy. There’s a, there’s a different approach, you know, that you’re looking at not necessarily better, but just honest and authentic to where you are, because you’ve been trained in a certain understanding of theos of theology, a study of meaning of God, a certain philosophy.
Are you going to spirituality or ecclesiology the way you see the church? So you need to approach it that way. If you, you know, sort of academic allergic. And you, wouldn’t you, if you look at this book at two and a half inches and you’re like, Oh, this is not happening. Then start to find the particular applications of theology of the [00:31:00] body from different voices speaking to, you know, whatever it is that that’s important to you.
Again, it could be vocation, it could be sexual morality. It could be your femininity. As you spoke about it could be masculinity. It could be understanding, The mass understanding the Bible itself. this, I mean, literally there are hundreds of entry points. There are particular TOB ministries dealing with, bereavement with, separation and divorce with marriage preparation, marriage enrichment, like joyful ever after.
So there’s so many ways of, of understanding these, and. And that will be sorted and that could be a podcast. It could be a CD. It could be, you know, if you still have those, you know, or just, you know, it could be talk some speakers and then there, you know, there, there are great books that are out there.
Jason Everett’s theology body in one hour, Christopher West, the theology body, Well, good news is sex, sex, and marriage. It was a great book there. 50 sort of, it was 150 questions and, there, and then, Christopher’s book. what was that? You bought it for [00:32:00] beginners. Exactly. Yep. Yep. There’s also a father, Anthony Percy theology, body needs simple.
And that’s what I was mixing it up with. So there’s some great, great books that could get you that, that introduction. And then again, some, some, more Scholastic. Approaches to it, but there’s, there’s such a growing and well-rounded approaches to theology of the body that it’s hard not to find it. but then also, you know, to be careful about, you know, your, your experts, your authorities are sources and, and be diverse in finding people that, not just speak what you want to hear, but it really can help you understand not only difficult concepts, but concepts that I’m really going to challenge you.
In what you think, you know about yourself, about God, about the church and all those things. So, yeah. And just be courageous. Exactly. And I used the, I think metaphor that, you know, we’re almost like looking in a mirror when we study with TOB, we’re just really [00:33:00] internalizing our things and just looking at ourselves first, before we look at everything else.
And so I definitely have been inspired to really take a look at TOB again, cause it’s been about two years since I did my research on it and just really take it and break it down even further and how I can really focus on things to apply to my life right now. you know, as a student in college, is single and really just figuring out my vocation from here forward.
So yeah. What do you think would be a piece of advice you want to leave with the audience? it can be about TOB. It can be about anything, but just really inspire us for something. Yeah. first thing came to my heart really is just, we have such a noble vocation, you know, because of our baptism because of our confirmation and the world right now, so needs us to be healthy, to be whole, to be credible.
Witnesses to Christ. That doesn’t mean perfect. It’s not impeccable. It doesn’t mean we all over. In fact, many times it’s our wounds or [00:34:00] failures that give rise to that humility to, to tell the story about how God has healed us. So I think taking the time, to grow in a real intimacy with Christ, to deal with things that keep us from loving, from being love, receiving love from others, that kind of.
Openness that kind of attentiveness to our own formation has the dual power of keeping us humble to be able to really just meet people where they are with the same zeal to help them experience the healing that we’re experiencing. So it’s, it’s very much an accompaniment as Pope Francis talks about. So my, my words really are about, Perseverance endurance and really allowing God to do a work in us and let everything that we do be the fruit of that healing, as opposed to trying to be active out or thinking that we’re not good enough to speak Christ’s name or to speak about our faith.
our history of [00:35:00] biblical and otherwise shows the God. it’s it’s the, Broken people break people, you know, wounded people, wound people, healed, people, heal people. So there’s, there’s a, there’s a real. Power of God working through us. That’s not about our perfection. It’s not about our being making ourselves good enough.
And this is one of my dominant, my dominant defects is this self-reliance. So, you know, I may be reflecting more than now, but if you, if you sort of have that sense that you have to do all of this in order to be loved by God and to be good enough to speak and to have a podcast and to, and to speak theology of the body, you’ll, you’ll never be that you’ll never be good enough.
Because that’s not the measure. The measure is just that. Yes, Lord. What do you want from me, Lord and Lord, if this is your will, your will be done and I will do whatever you want. I will stand. I will be silent. I will speak. I will stand up. You tell me where I sit and when I stand. so my words are really encouragement.
Our [00:36:00] God has a very particular and irreplaceable mission vocation in and for you. And the time that you take the attentiveness to it is not just for your sake, what is for all our sakes. Exactly. And I think the most. I guess the biggest barrier for a lot of people is that when they hear that God is giving them a mission, the first thing they expect themselves to do is go out and just evangelize and preach and stand on the mountain and talk to everybody.
but sometimes it has to be that internalizing of ourselves and healing within ourselves before we can go do the same for other people. and so I really think that. That encouragement is not only for a larger person, but it’s really just taking it upon ourselves and just really coming to know, and being still with who we are first, before we can go out and do the same with other people, and God will bring these people.
He’ll bring them to us and not like we’ve got to go out, but you’d be surprised in the formation, what God brings to you. And it’s his work. All of this is his work. [00:37:00] Exactly. And that’s just such a cool thing about the Catholic church. At least in my opinion, it’s just how personable we can be. Not only with ourselves within a community, but with God and how he justice really on this level with us that is just unmatched with anything else that we do got to do.
So I think that is just a good note to end on. So I wanted to ask where can people connect with you if they want to learn more about what you do. Sure they can reach us@joyfuleverafter.org. And we just hosted the Catholic marriage summit in June and, 39,000 couples join us for an online event. It was a massive beautiful event, but you can find that also joyfuleverafter.org, that’s amazing.
And all of the links will be in the show notes for you guys as well. Mr. Owens, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I had a wonderful time. Thank you for the invitation. It’s been a blast. Yes, it’s awesome. So again, don’t forget to check out all the show notes below and again, this is the last episode before podcast missed starts next week.
So without further ado have [00:38:00] wonderful weekend. We will see you guys next time. Bye.