When the marriage bed becomes a burden, When preventing cancer raises moral questions, When miscarriage shakes your faith in God’s power | ACW362

[MUSIC] >> From the Theology of the Body Institute, this is. >> The Ask Christopher West podcast. [MUSIC] >> Hi, I'm Bethesnus. >> Welcome everybody to another episode. >> Before you say any nice. >> Yes. >> I just want to tell our listeners, I am so grateful to be in this ministry with my husband. >> Thanks Wendy. >> Yes, I'm just looking at you. You work so hard and I'm grateful. I'm grateful. You're working hard because you have that fire that St. Paul talked about. Like of just like, I need to share this good news. I need to. >> Yeah, woe to me if I do not proclaim this good news. >> You're right. And we have some good news to proclaim about the feast day. >> That's right. >> On which this episode is being released, which is not the day it's recorded. In case you didn't know that everybody, we record in advance. But we know this episode is being released on December 8th. >> Yes. >> Feast of. >> Immaculate conception. >> And this is a very significant feast day for. Devotees like me to the theology of the body. Because John Paul II started writing his theology of the body on December 8th, 1974. >> And that wasn't just by chance. >> That was not by chance. >> He knew what he was doing. >> He knew exactly what he was doing because up in the right hand corner, I have an image of it right over here. I'm looking at it right now, hanging on my office wall of page one of the handwritten manuscript of the T.O.B. There it is, a priest friend of mine who was in the archives in Rome with special permission photographed that for me and gave it to me as a gift. And under the date, December 8th, 1974, it says, "Toda Polkra S. Maria," which means you are all beautiful Mary. And that's a line adapted from the song of songs. You are all beautiful, my beloved. He applies that to Mary because the church has always seen the woman in the song of songs as Mary. You are all beautiful Mary. Immaculate, that's what the word means. In Ephesians 5, we read that Jesus gave up his body for his bride so that she might be without spot, wrinkle, blemish or any such thing. The Latin is immaculata or immaculata or say, "I don't know, I'm not a Latin scholar," but it's Latin immaculate means without immaculata, without spot, wrinkle, blemish or any such thing. So if you're looking for a biblical reference for Mary's immaculatness, well, there it is. And what the church is saying that when the church says, "Mary is immaculate," what the church is saying is that what Christ did on the cross worked, right? For redemption to be complete, it has to be perfectly given, fully poured out. That's the work of the Redeemer. And it also has to be fully received, perfectly received. That's the openness of the church. And Mary is the embodiment of the church. And when the church says, "Mary is immaculate," she's saying what Christ did on the cross worked because Christ gave himself up for his bride to make her immaculate. And you might be thinking, "Whoa, whoa, that's his mother." Yes, in the flesh she's his mother. But in the deeper mystical dimension, she is the bride. She is the new Eve. Christ is the new Adam. Mary's the new Eve. All of these ideas, all of this teaching of the church, it's not arbitrary. It is beautiful to see how everything the Catholic church teaches holds together. And one of my favorite courses to teach is theology, the body, and the Mary and mystery. And it is for sure one of the favorite, if not the favorite of our students. Like the evaluations we get on the Mary and mystery course is like, "This is my favorite course I've ever taken at the Teobe Institute." And I can see why it's my favorite to teach. One of my favorite sections to teach from in that course is the section on Mary as the immaculate conception. And I'll just throw this out because I love it. What we're saying. What we're saying here is that at the moment of her conception, the full power of the redemption was applied. And the conception here of Mary is not abstract. The Eastern Church understands this even better than we in the West. I remember years ago when I was at Father Thomas Loya's parish. He's a Byzantine Catholic priest, friend of ours. This was, I don't know, 20, whatever years ago. And he was showing me all the icons in his church. And he pointed to this one, which was clearly a married couple, embracing. And they were embracing in front of what was obviously their marriage bed. And he said, "Do you know what that icon is?" I said, "No." He said, "That's how the Eastern Church depicts the immaculate conception. That's Joe Camanan." And I thought, "Wow! Wow! In the West, when we hear immaculate conception, we think sperm-meeting egg, which is obviously part of it. But in the East, what they think of is the marital embrace of Joe Camanan. I did some research into this and found some fascinating things the saints have said about the glorious loins of Joe Camanan, how they generated an immaculate human being through the power of their redemption. And what does this mean? It means, I think this is absolutely theologically correct. But the holiest marital act ever to take place on planet earth took place between Joe Camanan. And in some way, I think we can say, the full power of redemption came to bear not only in the conception of Mary, not only in the sperm-meeting egg, but in the act that led to their conception. There was never a holier marital embrace than that of Joe Camanan when they conceived Mary. Thank you, God. And we're assigned to all of us that we can grow in holiness in the marriage bed. That's the goal to sanctify the marriage bed as St. Paul says. Let the marriage bed be holy. Let it be undefiled. Let it be sanctified. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice on the altar of your marriage bed. Let it be made holy. St. Joe Camanan. Pray for us. Pray for us. Anyway, I could go ony-none, ony-none, on that. That's why you teach a whole course. Come to the Mary and Mystery course. Yes. So speaking of courses and work of the Tubi Institute, what's your update for today? Yes. Please do check out our course schedule in the show notes below, both for our online offerings and our in-person offerings. I'm sure the Mary and Mystery course is coming up in the online offerings. I should know when it's coming, but I don't know when it's coming and off the top of my head because I got too much stuff in my brain. But check out the list of courses. And I just want to shout out again to everyone who's doing your end of your finances and you're probably thinking, oh, I have some money to donate. Where could I put it? Would you please prayerfully consider either becoming a patron of the John Paul II Legacy Foundation as a monthly giver or making a one-time donation to us at the year's end here? Everything that you do to support the foundation goes to support the work that we do at the institute. These are sister organizations that work very closely together. And we need your help. We can't do it without you. We have big, big plans at the institute and at the foundation to bring this message to the ends of the earth. It's going to take us millions and I mean millions of dollars to fulfill the dream that we have, the vision that we have to get this to the world. We don't have millions of dollars, but everybody out there collectively, if we join forces, we could have millions of dollars to bring this to the ends of the earth. So if you prayerfully consider that, I would be grateful. If you are by chance a multi-millionaire and you want to just write out a big check, we'll be grateful for that too. And I am not afraid to ask. I know the Lord wants to support this mission and I know people in the body of Christ have the means to support it. So I entrust that to you, Lord, if you're feeling that Holy Spirit nudge, thank you so much for following that nudge and supporting this mission. And now I have a question for my patron named Anthony. Hello, Anthony. I'm writing to you as a newly married man. Congratulations. Less than three weeks in. Oh, my word. I love marriage and my wife so much, but have encountered the greatest challenge of our marriage so far as sex and how to understand it and put it into its proper place. By God's grace, we have remained chased throughout our relationship. When we married, I was a virgin and she had been absent for over 10 years. so strongly to give myself to her daily. Her desire is also strong and she enjoys our experiences of sexual union, but she's okay with us not uniting daily, though she still wants to cuddle, kiss and be close to me. We are struggling to understand the proper place of sex, especially how often. We both see it as an invitation to share and divine love, but we're both hindered by woundedness for her a fear of being used as her high school boyfriend used her. For me, a deep fear of rejection when she doesn't want to engage in the marital act. I'm also struggling with a fear that when she doesn't want to have sex, it's because I've failed to love her well and to captivate her heart and bring her to a place of readiness to receive me, a fear that I'm not good enough for her and can't win her over. Since marriage sex is almost all I think about and I hate the burden it's causing me. These feelings I'm experiencing are all very new, painful and difficult to grasp. My dear brother Anthony, my dear brother Anthony, my dear brother Anthony, thank you, for your honesty. Gosh, yeah, yeah. The heart is so fragile here. The marital embrace are desire for it or lack of desire for it and the interplay of the husband and the wife learning to dance together here, learning to find a certain level of harmony here in desire. It is a delicate tender, painful matter and I'm seeing in my mind's eye as I'm just closing my eyes here praying for you and your wife Anthony. I see your hearts and I see E.T.'s glowing finger. No, I'm dating myself here. Maybe you don't even know what E.T.'s glowing finger is but go watch E.T. from I think it was 1982 E.T. came out and there's this alien who had this glowing finger that could touch wounds and when he touched wounds with his glowing finger he would say, "Ouch!" and then the wound would heal and I just see that as the Lord's glowing finger. Like the Lord knows your wounds brother. He knows these tender places. He knows your fears. He knows your questions. He knows the cry of your hearts and I see that glowing finger of the Lord in E.T. fashion just going right into where the tender places are in your heart to touch them, to touch them with his tender love. And from that vantage point, from that perspective with that in mind I would ask you Anthony, have you entered into a dialogue with the Lord in prayer about what you're experiencing in your heart? Have you put that out to the Lord? Do you do you keep a prayer journal? If you don't maybe start and just start writing letters to Jesus, just say, "Jesus, this is what's going on in my heart. These are my fears. These are my concerns. I'm afraid I'm not enough for her. I'm afraid that she's projecting onto me that I'm like a old high school boyfriend. I know I'm not like her old high school boyfriend in many ways, but guess what? I'm a fallen human being too. There's fallen stuff in me and she probably has the antenna to perceive it all. Yes, I can't claim I'm 100% pure in all my motives. I'm sure she feels that and she doesn't like that. I want to be pure, but I'm growing and she desires union too, but maybe not as much as I do. Does she love me here? Do I love her there? How do we find harmony? Let it all out, brother. Get it all out to Jesus and then quiet your heart and listen. Just listen. Maybe a memory will come to your mind from your own teenage years or childhood. Something that the Lord wants you to look at. Something the Lord wants to point out where maybe some of your insecurities come from. Maybe you'll see a scene from a movie flash through your mind and maybe that scene from that movie is going to speak directly to your heart about your own feelings and what you're going through or something you need to look at. Maybe you'll hear lyrics from a song or maybe you'll see a scene from a novel you once read. These stories and memories are windows into our hearts. Music is a window into our heart. The Lord can and does use all of these things to speak to our hearts, to enter into dialogue with us. Prayer, John Paul II says, is a dialogue of love. Now what does that mean? It means yes, we get to speak to the Lord, but he also wants to speak to us and he wants to attune the ears of our hearts to the ways he speaks to us. And when we learn how to tune in to the way the Lord speaks to us, oh my goodness, the healing that can come, the pilgrimage that invites us on. You're on that pilgrimage already, brother, but I just wanted to say don't be afraid to enter into that dialogue of love with the Lord. Of course, Anthony, that dialogue of love with the Lord, it's foundational, but you also have to enter into a dialogue of love with your wife, a dialogue of love with your wife. JP2 gives us some beautiful, beautiful insights here in his book, Love and Responsibility. And this is from the final chapter called "Sexology and Ethics." And he's drawing from what "Sexology teaches us." Sexology is a kind of scientific study of human sexuality. And it's looking at the sex drive in the male versus the sex drive in the female. And what can we gain from what "Sexology teaches us" to find what John Paul II calls "Marital Harmony." Marital Harmony. And he says that in order to find this harmony, I'll just read from JP2 here, he says, "If spouses are to find harmonization in conjugal intercourse, they must educate each other. The man must reckon with the fact that the woman is a different world from himself. Not only physiologically, but also psychologically. And since he is to play an active role in conjugal intercourse, what does he mean here? Obviously, look at the anatomy of the marital embrace. It's the man who must rise to the occasion and penetrate to pour himself out. That's what he means by active. He does not mean to imply that the woman is just passive. In fact, the whole point here is that the woman if she's only passive, this cannot be an active love. She must actively enter into with him the marital embrace. This is what brings about harmony. So let's go back to what he says. He says, "Since he is to play an active role in conjugal intercourse, he must get to know this other world of his wife. And indeed, as far as possible, he must learn how to project himself into her world emotionally. This is precisely the function and the positive function of marital tenderness. Without this tenderness, the man will attempt merely to subject the woman to the demands of his own body and his own psyche and desires, frequently harming his wife in the process. He goes on to say, "Of course, the woman too must try to understand the man and simultaneously educate him to understand her. For one is not less important than the other. And neglect with respect to either one of them can be equally afruit of selfishness. The insights of sexology itself help us to understand why this mutual education in marriage is necessary." Yes, sexology shows us on a biological level these differences between men and women, the sharp curve of arousal in the man, the slower curve of arousal in the woman. These are all insights from a scientific study of human sexuality. What is required here to find harmony both in the man and woman? Engaging in the marital embrace and harmony in the frequency of how often we engage in the marital embrace. We have to learn to understand each other's inner world. And that's where we have to enter into that dialogue of love with each other, where we take the risk, and it is a risk of exposing our hearts of saying what's really going on. Brother, you're only three weeks in at the writing of this question. You got to, there are many, many weeks and many, many months and many, many years ahead of you. And if you do the hard work now of setting a kind of pattern in your life, a habit in your life where you are being very vulnerable with each other in conversation about what's really going on physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally in your sexual relationship, it'll be bumpy because men and women are different. We have different thoughts, we have different desires, we have different expectations. Finding the harmonization here will be a bumpy road, but it's not optional. It's not optional to take up this road. It's not optional. Not to journey down this road. It will only cause grave dysfunction, grave problems, real resentment, real bitterness. If you don't take the effort now in learning as awkward as it might be, as difficult as it might be, to enter into a very honest dialogue of love and underscore the word love. This woman gave her life to you. She's already pledged before God and all of your friends and family. She will never leave you. She will never forsake you. You've done the same for her. That means you can get naked, not only physically, but you can get naked emotionally and not be abandoned, not be rejected, not be left behind. Do we do this perfectly? No, we don't because we're wounded and we can close our hearts and we can reject the other person in any number of ways, but you can trust in her sincerity and she can trust in yours and you can enter an honest, open conversation that will lead you towards harmonization. Those are my initial thoughts, brother. I hope at least it gives you some food for thought. Yeah, I don't know if you even anticipated it when you started answering, but the beauty of that just complementarity of a dialogue of love with the Lord and a dialogue of love with your spouse is just something really to treasure. And just chew on how important both are. Both are so important. Maybe even the sense in which sometimes we're still in the midst of dialogue with the Lord about something and it's not quite time yet to share it with our spouse. So we've heard a little bit more from the Lord and that's okay. That's a lot to think about and a lot to try to bring the wisdom and just to be honest. The knowledge of the goodness the Lord has in his heart towards us and yet challenging, we're different. And Adam and Eve, we're different. You. It's because of the fall that we're different. We're just different. That's my opinion anyway. I just think we have to, we're required to get to know the other and to just be challenged both to really communicate our own reality and also come to understand the other. And I know that can seem frustrating because, well, where do we go from there? Because when we understand one another, we're going to understand that we're different. And that there's always in our marriage there's going to be a sense of kind of needing to meet one another and be tuned into the Holy Spirit. And into the just dynamics of growth between you as a couple. This is not for the faint of heart. Not for the faint of heart, true. And the difference here is intended by God precisely to bring about harmony, right? For harmony to take place musically, you have to have at least two different notes, right? And I remember when we were going through something that was hard. And I just wanted you to be like me. I just wanted you to think like me. I just, I didn't like that you were different in that moment because it was hard. And I remember, I entered into that dialogue of love with the Lord. Like, Lord, this is really hard. Can't she just think like I think? And what I heard in my dialogue of love with the Lord was if she thought like you thought Christopher, she'd be a man. Is that what you want? Do you want her to be a man? Well, oh my gosh, that opened up a whole world to me of some understanding of one of the dynamics involved, I believe. It doesn't tell the whole story, obviously. But one of the dynamics involved in homosexuality is I just don't want to deal with the difference. I'm safer here. I get myself, I get male libido. Imagine it's horrifying to me to think of two male libidos going at it with each other. Because there's no harmony. There's no difference. There's no possibility of my bumping up against difference in such a way that it calls me to grow. Your difference as a woman, yes, is challenging in many, many ways, but it's the challenge of love. It's the challenge of getting out of myself and into your other world, learning your other world, which becomes a source of profound enrichment. Prof--wendy? Your--wendy. Your differences have enriched me so greatly. And they've challenged me so greatly, but in as much of these--as they've challenged me, they've enriched me. And as much as I've embraced the challenge, they've enriched me and expanded me and stretched me and brought me to new horizons that I would never have arrived at if you weren't different than I am in all the ways you're different. The same is true for me. And it's powerful. And I think both of us can feel in certain moments like this is the Lord at work in my life through this person. This challenge is intentional. I needed this challenge. And the marital act is meant to be the joyous celebration of all of those differences and how they bring about harmony. But because we're ruptured, there can be a union of bodies without a union of hearts. And that's where we need to enter that challenging, but also necessary, dialogue of love so that our hearts also come to a unity and that the physical aspect of our union can be a true expression of the union of our hearts. And that's a lifelong journey for every married couple. And JP2 says, in fact, ensuring that the marital act is truly that is the internal problem of every marriage. The internal problem of every marriage is ensuring that the marital embrace is really an embrace that harmonizes the differences of the husband and the wife. That's beautiful. Are you ready for the next question? I am. Okay. This is a question from a listener named Barbara. Hi, Barbara. About 10 years ago, when I was 45, I learned that I have a genetic marker which predisposes me to a long list of cancers, including endometrial and ovarian cancers. I did not have cancer at the time, but two of my sisters who have the same genetic marker did have these cancers, one each. Since become a breast cancer survivor, another cancer on the list, my doctor told me there is no effective screening method for ovarian cancer in particular and encouraged me to have a hysterectomy. Since I was unlikely to have a pregnancy anyway and ovarian cancer is often found too late for long term survival. I did have the hysterectomy, but my recent study of Theology the Body makes me question my decision. My goal was not to prevent pregnancy, but to prevent cancer. What does the church teach about this? Bless you, Barbara. Bless you, Barbara. I can very certainly put your mind and your heart at rest. You did not have a hysterectomy for a contraceptive reason. You had a hysterectomy to rightly so because it was clear to you and clear to your medical team that you were at high risk for a cancer that could kill you. You removed your uterus to save your life. It had the unintended side effect of rendering you obviously. sterile. But that remains an unintended side effect of a medically very important procedure. So there is no contraceptive will here. Your intention in removing your uterus was not a contraceptive intention. The sterility is an unintended consequence side effect of this medically necessary procedure. So you have acted in good faith and in good will. And this is entirely in keeping with Catholic teaching on the proper use of medicine, the proper use of surgery, the proper use of intervention to secure your health. If it were a directly willed procedure to render you sterile and that sterility was directly willed or if it was a directly willed to kill a life that exists to save a mother. That is not acceptable. You cannot do something that is inherently evil so that good may come of it. But you can rightly endure an unintended evil for the sake of a greater good. And the unintended evil here is that you are now rendered sterile. An evil is not a moral evil. It's a physical evil. You can endure, let me say that again just for clarity sake, you can endure a physical evil. The physical evil here is your sterility. It is not willed. So there's no moral evil. You can endure that physical evil for the greater good of saving your life. You may never commit the evil to save a life. You cannot do evils for good to result. But you can endure a physical evil here for the greater good. So this is the church's teaching. Be at peace my dear sister. I'm so glad you wrote to us and I'm so glad we can answer that for you. Yeah, I agree. And I think we actually have a close friend who has that same sort of genetic marker and know that there's a lot that goes on. It's very, very scary to learn something like that. And it's an emotional thing. It's a spiritual thing. I just think from the perspective of the theology of the body, I think it's important just to as you're learning theology of the body and you're learning just the significance of the way God designed us to be a gift to our husband, to be a gift to our children physically. But in our whole being like there could be some aspect of just a morning that goes along, a grieving that goes along with some of these things, with illness in general and with the fact of having had a surgery that removed your uterus and I imagine also your ovaries. You know, that's difficult. And there's a, I have a friend, I was sure this so beautiful how it touched my heart, her honesty. She also had both her uterus and ovaries removed and her breasts. So you know, has really experienced a dramatic change in her physical body as a result of knowing her genetic predisposition and actually having experienced breast cancer. So very much like you. As she shared with me just this crying out of her heart to the Lord, like asking him as she kind of just just your toward her own body and ask like, is this how you want me? Do you want me to come to you like this? And I felt it in her heart like she, she wants to enter the embrace of heaven. Like and yet she's feeling like she's lost a lot of her femininity and and in that cry how she heard the Lord's full love for her as she is like how healing that was for her heart. So I just share that with anyone out there who's struggling with these questions of, you know, as Barbara put it, it kind of seemed like, well, I've been learning about the out of the body and wondering about the moral side of that decision. But I think there's a heart and a spirit side of it as well that just wanted to acknowledge. I'm so glad you did windy. We're so vulnerable here and and that cry of your friend's heart is this the way you want me? It just speaks to how she had a proper sense of how integral her womb, her ovaries, her breasts are to her person. And so of course when we have that integral understanding, this is experienced as a tragic loss. And it's a physical evil. It's not a moral evil. It's a physical evil that is endured for the greater good of saving her life. Now I do think it's it's pertinent here because I imagine there's some listeners out there thinking, well, my doctor told me I can't get pregnant anymore and I would be at risk for my life if I got pregnant anymore. So I got my tubes tied. How is that any different? So let me just address this quickly because I imagine it's on people's minds, right? Tying your tubes is directly willing the moral evil of rendering the sexual act sterile. Right? That is a direct willing of an objective evil to render the the marital act sterile is never under any circumstance justifiable. And there's always a moral alternative. Right? The goal here maybe there really is a serious reason like a life-threatening reason to avoid a pregnancy. Well, sterilizing yourself is not the only approach to that. That is to commit a moral evil for a good to result. We may never commit an evil for a good to result. And there is always a moral alternative. And the moral alternative sometimes we don't like because it makes my life difficult. It's hard. Following the moral path can be really hard. And so the real sin involved here often is not only the sin of sterilization but also the sin of sloth because sloth is the sin that that recognizes how difficult it is to do the right thing and says, I don't want to. It's too hard. Sloth is the sadness we feel that the good is difficult. And the difficult good here for a couple who maybe the maybe the doctors are right. Maybe she has a life-threatening condition she can't get pregnant again. And the moral choice here might be a lot of abstinence. Doesn't necessarily mean 100% abstinence but a lot of abstinence. Well, that's hard. Yes, that is hard. That is hard. But God never asks anything of us that He does not give us the grace to accomplish. And so let's trust in this prayer of St. Augustine. I love this prayer of St. Augustine. Lord grant me the grace to fulfill it and ask of me whatever you will. Let me pray that again. Let me say it again. This is St. Augustine's prayer. I think we fall into sloth. I know I fall into sloth when I'm just looking at my own resources. And I rightly conclude that's not I can't do it. Don't empty the cross of its power. Yes, it is hard. On our own power we can't do it. I remember what the disciple said when when Jesus spoke about the demands of marriage, the disciple said, well, it's better not to get married if that's what marriage is. And Jesus said, for men, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. We are not alone. His grace is sufficient for us. Bless you, Barbara. That's a beautiful encouragement. I love that story from the scripture. Our next question is from a listener named Daniel. Hi, Daniel. I was in a Shaffenberg, Germany. I'm not sure how to say a Shaffenberg. But anyway, that's where he was. Where Christopher recently gave two talks and it was really beautiful. I have a question about suffering, how it can be glorified, and the omnipotence of God and the face of human freedom. My wife and I had two miscarriages this year. Bless you. Bless you, brother. Bless you. This hurt us both deeply. And while my wife is angry with God, after the second miscarriage, I realized that I had repressed the pain of the second miscarriage to avoid the suffering. For a few days now, I've allowed myself to feel the pain. And since then, I have to fight with tears whenever I think about it. I miss my two children and wish I could be with them. Of course, we're asking God, why? I can't imagine how this suffering could be glorified in this world. Are there sufferings who's good? We can only see in heaven? And another question. I can understand that because of the immense gift of freedom that every human being receives, suffering and wounds also arise from our brokenness. What about physical imperfections and the resulting suffering, such as illness or miscarriage? Is God to blame for my children's miscarriages, or is this part of the price of freedom? And does the Lord allow it to happen out of respect for my freedom? I keep doubting whether it makes sense to pray that the child grows well in the next possible pregnancy, because I have a doubt that God can even intervene. I still love the Lord. I don't know where else to go but to Him, and I know that He sees me in sufferers with me. And I realize that I have deep doubts about His omnipotence when He has to respect our freedom. Daniel, my brother, I have such reverence for what you have suffered. And I want to ask for the grace to be courageous enough to enter into your "why." We have a right to ask why. Why? Because God gave us intelligence. God gave us reason, and sometimes things seem really unreasonable. And when things seem unreasonable, unfair, unjust, the heart cries out, "Why? Why?" There are certain flavors of false piety out there that conclude, "Well, if you really trusted God, you'd never ask why." You should never ask why, to which we should respond why. Why should we not ask why? No, that is false piety. We are followers of Christ. And where did Christ go? He sank the whole way into the abyss of the human "why." And that "why" of Christ was aimed right at God the Father. My God, my God, why? Why? Why have you abandoned me? And anybody ever says you should never say why to God, say why? Christ said why. Christ cried out why. That why is perhaps the most honest human prayer ever prayed. That why welled up from Christ's human heart and his human experience of abject suffering, of bearing in his human heart what seemed like, what felt like, what was reasonable to conclude was abandonment from God. That is a reasonable conclusion. And yet, and yet, and yet, and yet. I've said this before on this podcast. If the person crying out on that cross, why is God? And if Christ, who is God, is with us in our why of feeling abandoned, then in the very feeling of abandonment in a profound paradox, we are not abandoned by God because God in Jesus Christ is with us right in that cry of why. Brother, in hearing your question, I hear Jesus. I hear the why of Jesus. And I think it's cruel to deny people that why. I think it's cruel to try to explain it away. I would be doing an injustice to you to try to give you answers that explain away your why. I don't think there's any getting around that why. Yes, we can talk about freedom. We can talk about God's omnipotence and in light of human freedom. And yes, it can be helpful to enter into those theological math problems, so to speak, where we do the theological math and we realize as the cataclysm itself says that that God's omnipotence is revealed, his all-mightiness is revealed in his very ability to bring about a greater good through allowing evil than ever could have existed had he not allowed evil to exist. God allows evil to exist. That does not mean he wills it and these are very important distinction. Does not mean he wills it and he allows it only because this is what the cataclysm teaches. He allows evil only because he is so powerful, all-mightily powerful, that he has the power to bring about greater good from the evil he allows than if he had not allowed the evil. In the final analysis, we have to say, "Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief, help my unbelief. A story I'd recommend that you take to Prayer, Daniel, from the Scriptures would be the story of the blind man. Remember the people questioned Jesus? Why was this man born blind? Was it his sin? Was it his parents' sin? Was it the sin of some ancestor? There's the why. That's a prayer. It was addressed to Jesus. Why? Why? Why? Be afraid to enter that why, but also take to heart Jesus' response. Jesus' response, it's not because of this man's sin. It's not because of his parents' sin. This blindness was allowed to reveal the glory of God. His blindness was allowed by God to reveal God's glory. What kind of glory will be revealed that will lead us to say all that I suffered was as nothing compared to that glory? This is what Saint Paul concludes. I believe it's in his letter to the Romans where he says, "I consider that the glory to be revealed in us will make of all that we have suffered seem as nothing." Seem as nothing. What kind of glory? And I hold this out for your prayer, Daniel. What kind of glory? For you to say, the suffering you and your wife have endured here in the loss of these two children is as nothing compared to that glory. The utter surpassing glory to be revealed will make all human suffering from the beginning of time to the end of time seem as nothing. This is an astounding glory. I love that when Jesus' friend Lazarus died, he wept. I love that he wept. It shows his real humanity. I love, Daniel, that when you recognized you were suppressing your grief because you didn't want to feel it, you had a change of heart and you let yourself feel it and you can't hold back the tears when you let yourself feel it. That is a tremendous grace. And just as your why is the why of Christ, so those tears are the tears of Christ at the loss of his friend Lazarus. He is weeping with you. He's asking why with you. You are reeking of Jesus. You are a strong aroma of Christ in your grief, in your questions, in your agonizing prayer, why? And in the end, that's the only consolation we have in our suffering. I'm not alone in it. Christ is with me. And if Christ is God, then God has not abandoned me in my sufferings because He's with me in them. And when I cry out why, it is Christ in me crying out why. Daniel, the mystery of suffering that you and your wife are enduring is mysterious. Here we are on just recording a podcast, not sitting with you, not holding your hands, not trying your tears, not. just entering into the suffering with you. We're wishing we could because it's so honest and both the anger at God and the questioning why are signs of deep faith because who gets angry at God if you don't believe in God? Who asks a question of God you don't believe in? You do believe. And the journey that you're on as a couple right now in this season is is holy. I have said at times when speaking about sufferings in our marriage that that our marital bed is sanctified by our tears. There is real pain and there is real clinging to one another in those very painful times clinging to one another and crying out to the Lord together. Some of the glory may be the deepening of that bond through suffering that doesn't feel glorious right now but may bear tremendous fruit in your life and in other people's lives. You asked you know what could can this be glorified and oh we don't want that glory to come through the cross and here you are taking up a very painful cross. There may also be just in your journey as you are you know as time passes as you experience kind of a refreshment from the Lord that I know he is faithful to bring their may come this readiness to okay Lord we still desire a child. How can we open our hearts to this? How can we open our bodies to this? It may be that that questioning and that anger would lead you to a health care that you didn't know you needed but could you know be an answer to questions that that bring about not only a healthy pregnancy but greater health for both of you. So no we don't know yet but we want you to know that we wish we could be present with you right where you are that in our hearts and our prayers will be praying for all the next steps that the Lord will lead you on in your journey as a couple knowing that you truly love one another and the Lord truly loves you and that this suffering doesn't separate you from one another doesn't separate you from him it creates a deeper bond. Lord we lift up Daniel to you and his wife all that they're going through we lift up Barbara to you and Anthony and everyone who submits questions to our podcast you know the questions of our hearts Lord you know our limitations also the limitations of when the end of of my own that prevent us from giving full answers but we ask that whatever we have spoken that is of you that the seeds planted today in hearts would come to full flowering. If you've been blessed by anything we've shared today and you think others would be blessed by it would you please hit that share button you can also rate our podcast that that helps us a lot in just other people becoming aware of our podcast we always want to grow our listening family out there and you can help us do that we'd be very grateful we pray that your advent is a blessing to you that your heart is being stretched and opened and longing for the coming of the bridegroom and that as we prepare to receive the gift of Christ we would know that we ourselves are a gift and we would be given the grace to become what we are. As Christopher West is brought to you by the Theology of the Body Institute with music by Mike Mangione Christopher and Wendy hope that the information provided is helpful to you but remind you that they are not licensed counselors if you're going through serious difficulty a list of Joseph counselors and psychologists can be found in the show notes.