On Marriage

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All right, very well. So we're now.

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third lecture on marriage this this one will focus on the flood will the introduction the idea of moral imperative so

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We've already covered, so this is a Bible study in eight parts, we've already covered the prologue, which was sort of introduction to important ideas that we needed for this Bible study. And then last time we went through Eden and we talked about Maertel Union. And today what we're going to do is go through the flood, like I said. Yeah, the format is 75, yeah, maybe somebody can raise your hand every 10 minutes or so, so I can keep track of time a little bit better.

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I'll try to do it in seven, I'm not good in time, I'm telling you right now, so sorry about that. And then hopefully we'll have some Q &A afterwards. The target is again, Catholic and adults, children at parents discretion. And my style is direct, it's two by four. I don't like ambiguity, I aim it at Catholic living, I'm not forming theologians, I'm just helping people to better understand the scripture and find a better way to live their lives. The Bible I use is the...

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Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition because it is the closest to the literal sense. yeah, you can bring a notepad, Bible, and water. When you ask questions, just ask a question and then stay on topic. And if I don't know, I'll tell you. That's basically for the format. You can phone your questions if you'd like to. You can catch that QR code.

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And then through the study, can feel free to write the question and submit it. And then when I hit the QA, that's the first thing I'll do. I'll look at the questions and then go there. So let me know when you're ready before we proceed forward.

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If you want to know where the second talk is, it's right there. Otherwise you can go to Corbono.com and select marriage and you will be able to listen to it. You can find it also on Spotify and on most sites that do these talks type thing. I also want to point out that I have another series on Corbono called the 7%. It's also about marriage.

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but it focuses on one particular book called The Top 7 % the Happiest Couples. It addresses marriage from a different angle. It's also a good talk, but it's not biblically based. I mean, it's not against scripture, but it doesn't take the biblical approach I'm taking here. So it's a different kind. Feel free to listen to it as well. I'm pulling specific elements out of it that you will find here. There is some level of intersection, but by and large, they're different talks. I just wanted to mention that before I proceed.

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All right, for that we'd like you to stand up and then we are going to pray together. In the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, Amen. And all out loud, Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit,

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we may be truly wise and ever enjoy his consolations through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom. Saint Joseph. All ye holy angels and saints. Name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. All right.

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Our agenda, we're gonna go through a bit of recap and I'm gonna again talk about covenantal curses. And yeah, it's not divine curses in the Old Testament. I'm gonna actually give you the typology of curses. I didn't change that, I pushed it out. Then we'll talk about something called the moral imperative, which is really important. And then we'll dive into the flood. Before the flood, during the flood, and after the flood. And we'll look at it at its implication for marriage. And then we'll hit some Q and A. So, Christ.

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The notion of recapitulation is a very important one, I covered it extensively throughout this study and I have a specific study on recapitulation as well. But Christ recapitulated the history of humanity in his own life to redeem us. Christ's life, death and resurrection provides a complete picture of our lives and our marriages. Christ's recapitulation is the basis for our prayers of petition and recapitulation is a valuable guide for man's life. Basically what we do is we look at scripture as a blueprint for our

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married life. You can also look at scripture as a blueprint for your own personal life. So, for instance, on a personal level, you can look at the Garden of Eden as a blueprint for your soul. The trees in the garden are your virtues. The river flows from outside the garden into the garden. That's the grace of God that flows from outside the garden, waters the garden. When you start looking at the garden this way, you ask yourself, what am I supposed to do with my soul? Well, God tells you.

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till and guard. Till what? Your virtues. Guard what? Your soul. So that is an example of the way you can use recapitulation on a personal level. Here we're it within the context of marital life. And then I'll show you how that works when we the flood. Biblical interpreted principles, the way we interpret scripture is through the four senses. The literal meaning is the meaning that was intended by the author when he wrote the book. So for instance,

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When in the Gospel of St. John, they speak of the temple, they mean the temple built by Herod, not the temple built by Solomon or the second temple under Ezra and Nehemia, but the one built by Herod. So it's a specific historical context. And then the analogical meaning is when you take that same literal meaning and you apply it to Christ. For instance, destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days, John 2.19. Christ took the literal meaning of the temple and applied it to himself.

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The analogical meaning is when you apply the meaning of the temple to the end times or to the church. So the temple of Jerusalem is a symbol representation of the Catholic Church. And then finally, the moral meaning, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. That applies to us as persons. And if you're taking notes, you don't have to try to take as much as you can, but all the slides are available with.

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the talks on the site. So you can always feel free to download them. You'll get all those notes available to you then. All right. And finally, the covenant. A covenant is an agreement between a strong party and a weak party. The strong party is God. The weak party is us. In the context of marriage, marriage is a covenant. The agreement is between God, who is the strong party, and the weak party being the man and the woman getting married.

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The strong party spells the condition the weak party must fulfill. It is not fair. The covenant is not fair. There is a strong party, there is a weak party. The weak party has no say in the conditions. The strong party defines them. The weak party agrees to them. And then if the weak party is faithful to the covenant, the strong party will bless them. If they are disobedient, the strong party curses them. That's how it works. Blessings and curses.

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All right, so again, have, if you go to the site, the Catholic Foundation Library covers the covenant extensively. We've covered Eden, where we looked at what happens when you are alone, before you meet your spouse. How best to use that time. And then we talked about the union, courting, what should you be looking for and what is merit or love. As we look at the garden and we learn from it what God had

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planned for us in marriage. And now I'm just going to go through, cover this business of curses because it is something that unsettles quite a few believers these days is that it's not, you know, talked about much, but it's all over the scripture. So there are some objections that people will give me. A loving God would not curse. Well, hmm. God is love.

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So cursing seems incompatible, right? But God's justice is part of his love, Deuteronomy 32, 4, and curses are consequences of sin. Okay? That's as simple as that. And it's something that we actually all know and do. If your child misbehaves, you punish them. The purpose of the punishment is to teach them so they can behave properly, where a lot of curses are medicinal in nature. They're...

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The reason for these curses is to bring us back to God. They're medicinal. Some of them are terminal when we refuse to repent, when we harden our heart, when we have stiff necks. That's essentially the structure. It's called divine pedagogy. It's the way God deals with us after the fall. Second objection, God permits evil but does not actively curse. This business, you'll hear a lot of people say, talk about

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God's divine will or eternal will and God's permissive will. And I'll tell you, it's a quagmire. It is actually not very helpful. Because at the end of the day, if you think, God is permitting this, in the back of your mind, you can't help but think, but God is God. Couldn't he have done stuff so he didn't have to permit this? You see what I'm saying? It doesn't solve anything. Because at the end of the day, it is God's divine will that'll allow God's permissive will. So...

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The end result is that God allows it. Don't go there. Better yet, to take God for who He is and then learn to deal with God and accept His decree instead of trying to parse whether it is His permissive versus His perfect will. I never find it very helpful, personally. Some argue that God simply withdraws protection rather than actively cursing. The problem is...

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Scripture describes both active and passive judgment. There are parts of Scripture in Genesis 3, 14, 19, Romans 1, 24, 26, where God actively curses. And you can't play it out by saying, is stylistic writing, it doesn't work. So no, God actually does curse. And if you think about it, what is the judgment of Christ when He condemns someone to hell?

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And again, the way people try to work their way around this one about saying, oh, but God doesn't condemn you to hell. You, by your own action, condemn yourself to hell. The problem with that argument is that if that's true, then you, by your own action, get yourself to heaven. It's got to work both sides. It can't be that God, you know, when comes to hell, I'm not going do with it. But when it comes to heaven, oh no, you have to come through me. That's wonky theology. Right? So doesn't work that way.

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No, you can't send yourself to hell just as much you can't send yourself to heaven. It is Christ, because Christ is the Lord. We're not.

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Curses in the Bible are just ancient language. You gotta love that one because if that's the case then blessings in the Bible are just ancient language. Can't be choosy. Biblical curses reflect the primitive view of God and should be seen as cultural. You know, I am from that culture. I'm from Lebanon. Very close. I'm a Semite. I do take exceptions.

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It's personal. When people say, it's just cultural.

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Response, Jesus and the apostles affirm God's justice in Matthew 23 Galatians 1 verses 8-9, warning against sin remains. If that's the case, if it's just ancient language, why did Christ curse the tree? It was a tree. It didn't commit any sin. Went, wanted to eat figs, it wasn't even the season for figs. Do understand? When Christ in Matthew, in the Gospel of St. Matthew went to eat figs,

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from the fig tree, it wasn't the season for figs.

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He didn't find any, he cursed the tree. The following day, it had withered.

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We have to be careful not to turn Christ into a God that sort of scratch where we itch.

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We need to be very, very careful not to appropriate Christ and turn Him into something comfortable. At the end of the day, Christ is God, and God is always unknowable.

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He is divine and we can't possibly know Him. So we have to be very careful. That's the principle of humility. Jesus abolished curses by His death on the cross. Well, the objection is Galatians 3.13 that says Christ became a curse removing divine curses. Well, the problem is redemption is available but judgment remains for the unrepentant as we see in Gospel of...

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St. John chapter 3 verse 18 through 19 and Matthew 25 through 41 and then the book of Revelation which happens after Christ ascended in heaven. So that doesn't hold either. And the last ones, God wants us, wants to save not condemn. Yeah, sure, absolutely, God, that's what He wants. That's absolutely the case. So that's taken from Ezekiel chapter 33 verse 11. God desires repentance not destruction. Absolutely, that's what He desires.

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But that's not what always happens, right?

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Curses, often times, are warnings because they're medicinal. And then God does allow repentance. It's true. Like in Jonah chapter 3 verse 2, in the letter of St. Peter chapter 3 verse 9. But rejection leads to judgment. By the way, did you know in the Gospel of St. John, it's interesting. The Gospel of St. John, how do the supernatural act of Christ

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presented, how are they presented in your version of the Gospels? More often than not, they're presented as miracles. The word miracle is used. So the miracle of Cana. Yeah? Christ heals the leper, it's a miracle, that's what we say. In RSVCE, they use a little bit more of stricter language, but still, I'm not super happy with it. They use the word sign. And so when I speak of Cana, they say this was the first sign.

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that Christ provided and his disciples and his apostles started to believe in him. The problem is that it just doesn't translate the Greek appropriately. The Greek word that is consistently used in the Gospel of St. John is doxa. What is doxa? Judgment.

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Judgment every time Christ performs these miracles. It's a judgment

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Why? Because he is violating the Farizate law in every single case. Like he does it on purpose to go and violate those laws to irk them. It's a judgment.

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So anyway, so I, look, I don't have an agenda to push, all right? I don't. I just take scripture as data and I try to see what scripture means by applying the four senses and then making sure that the interpretation remains consistent with all scripture. I have a formation as a mathematician and so I'm driven, I'm driven by this process. You have a set of axioms, you have a proposition, you prove it or you disprove it.

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And I can in no way push out the idea that these curses aren't real or that God doesn't curse. It doesn't work. I'd rather accept that and then work with it. That's what I do. And I'll show you in the flood, which is a curse, how that works. Okay. So, divine curses are consequences of sin, not arbitrary punishments.

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God's justice and mercy are inseparable. Christ's sacrifice provides redemption for those who seek it, for those who want it, for those who repent, absolutely. But for those who don't, judgment remains. Curses in scripture often serve as warnings leading to repentance, which is the hope.

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Now, let's talk about moral recapitulation.

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Catechism Catholic Church, 1762. The human person is ordered to be attitude by his deliberate acts. The passions or feelings he experiences can dispose him to it and contribute to it. The be attitudes, in this case, to be attitude, not the attitudes with an S, they're not talking about the be attitudes, they're talking about joy. We are ordered to joy. We are ordered to be happy.

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That's why God created us. Right? There are many passions. The most fundamental passion is love, aroused by the attraction of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining it. This movement finds completion in the pleasure and joy of the good possessed. The apprehension of evil causes hatred, aversion and fear of the impending evil. This movement ends in sadness at some present evil.

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or in the anger that resists it. So this is talking about morality. The reason why I'm quoting these things is because today morality tends to be negative. Morality tends to be, you will not do this. Morality tends to be related to sin. But if you go back to the Cargazim, who are basically quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, you will see that in particular in St. Thomas Aquinas, morality

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is rooted in joy, not the prevention of sin. To St. Thomas and the classicals,

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If you want to be happy, you must be moral. Morality is so that you can be happy. There is no happiness outside of a moral conduct. That's why the moral, the morality is so important. Okay? And the Catechism states it so.

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Moral recapitulation. It is the recapitulation of man fallen in Adam, so we're taking the moral sense and applying it to recapitulation. It is the recapitulation of man fallen in Adam, which is realized through renewal in grace and the final full restoration of the resurrection of the dead. Only they achieve this goal who are one with Christ, that is, only those who have followed Him in obedience.

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So moral recapitulation consists in taking scripture, reading it in the light of the salvific work of Christ, and applying it to ourselves. And this is really the angle that we take in this whole study. But instead of applying it to us as individuals, we're applying it to scripture. And by the way, this works even when I'm talking about natural marriage. Because natural marriage must still be ordered to Christ, because natural marriage is about truth, and truth is Christ.

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It is not complete, but it is ordered to Christ.

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Moral sense of scripture, I read that already to you, but I'm re-representing it.

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The moral sense, the events reported in scripture ought to lead us to act justly. So we read the events in scripture, we apply them to our own lives, and then we say to ourselves, how should I act now? The events of scripture should influence, impact my life. So that's really interesting. The reason being that most of us do not have a biblical reading of our lives. Scripture is over here.

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A life is over there and the two don't connect.

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So events are happening in the world, events are happening in my own life, there's things happening in the microcosm of my life, there's things happening on the global scene. We don't tend to look at those events and say, where in scripture did this happen already?

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What is God trying to tell me? That is recapitulation. It's when I see my life in light of scripture, instead of taking scripture and finding inspiration, which is a good thing. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but it is... I find it to be too constrictive. And oh please...

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don't do this. Don't kind of open the scripture and see what the Holy Spirit is telling you. Right? Because you might hit a, you know, like somebody did that once and he read the one verse that said, and then he got up and hung himself. So don't play random games. Instead do what I just described. Where does scripture talk about something that is similar to what's happening right now?

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Alright, so events reported in scripture ought to lead us to act justly. To act justly is to act morally. Back to joy. Because if you read the first what events reported in scripture ought to lead us to act justly, we think of justice, and when we think of justice, we think of constraint, and when we think of constraint, we think of the do not. Don't do this, don't do that. And so, it has sort of a depressive effect. But if you relate it to morality,

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and you relate morality to joy you understand that acting justly is acting joyfully. The act is ordained to the good and therefore to our Beatitude. Just as Christ recapitulates in himself what Adam had left undone, so we who are his followers ought to recapitulate in us what Adam has done and what Christ has completed. The events of Scripture are seen as a map or a pattern for our own life in Christ. That is moral recapitulation.

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While in our mother's womb, for instance, here's an example when we apply it to an individual, while we are in our mother's womb, are in Eden. We're in the garden. We're protected. When we are born, we're thrown out of Eden. Our adolescent years are spent in growth where we tend toward Christ and we move away from Him. Well, that's Genesis, for the most part. It's one step forward, but four steps backward.

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We experience the flood when childhood is taken away from us as we reach maturity. Now we have to find a job. Now we have to work. Life is no longer a long vacation. We go to Egypt and experience the pleasure of life. We become slaves to our desires. You can see how I'm just applying the pattern of scripture to our own lives. Does this happen to everyone? No. I'm not saying this is happening to every single person, but you can see how a lot of the things that we

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know about, or heard about, or happened to us are already in Scripture.

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God meets us and awakens in us a desire for righteousness, that is, God calling Moses. He leads us into the desert to know ourselves. We eventually enter the promised land only to find strife. So, those of you who became Catholic later in your life, you enter the Catholic Church and what do you find? Is it peaceful and ordered and everybody is the same?

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Anybody who's working for God?

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Exactly like the promised land was. It was fighting these people, fighting those people, and corruption within and corruption without. And then when the kings started to come after David and Solomon, this so-and-so became king and then did evil in the sight of God. On and on, the majority of kings did what was evil in the sight of God.

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When we have a pope who is elected, who's not to our liking, we start to gripe. Because we are not reading our life in scripture.

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Our struggles lead us to encounter Christ in a more meaningful and deeper way and He hands us a cross. Carried across to Calvary, we die and we are reborn in Him, we divinized. Welcome to the program.

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All right. Now that we've covered all that, we're going to use it as we talk about the flood. And then the flood is divided into three parts, before the flood, during the flood, after the flood. And I've selected specific events. I could have selected others, but those ones I think are very meaningful for our conversation around marriage. Let's start about the fall. So when the woman saw.

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that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened. The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of thee.

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in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, when I ate. That's how you should read it. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is it that you have done? The woman said, the serpent beguiled me.

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Okay, there's a lot to be said here.

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Before we get into the meter, there's one thing I wanted to point out.

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Remember how I told you that...

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When you use the garden as a blueprint for your soul, the trees represent your virtues.

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The trees represent your virtues. So, here's what's really interesting.

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The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees.

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among the trees. So they hid themselves among the trees, sort of like how we hide ourselves with our virtue.

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That is hypocrisy, which is the sin that is most often on our Lord's lips. You hypocrites. It is the sin that He brings up the most and more often than not, you hypocrites. And yet I would wager, I would wager that if you would ask every priest today, alive, how many people go to confession and confess being a hypocrite?

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I'd wager the number is pretty close to zero. Because obviously, none of us.

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hypocrite. We tend to do that. Hiding behind our virtues. We're really good at it. Something that to really...

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meditate on. Alright, now let's go back to this.

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Here is the anti-sequence. This is what we shouldn't be doing. This is what they did. The woman saw, she took an eight, she gave to her husband. He ate, God calls man, man lies. God calls again, man accuses the woman. God calls his third time, woman accuses the serpent.

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So, here's the first sin. Watch how deliberate it is. She saw, she took, she ate.

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It is completely deliberate. There no excuses there. There is no, the serpent beguised me and I ate, uh-uh.

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You see, when you shirk responsibility, when you don't take accountability for your own action, it is a form of spiritual blindness.

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when you're not accountable for what you're doing, when you blame others.

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It's a form of spiritual blindness.

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And it's really hard to heal from. Not easy to break this. So you need to watch yourself if you get into an argument. How often when you get into an argument and you talk about something, you start by accusing yourself versus accusing your spouse.

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Now, I want to be very clear. This is not me putting you in a tight spot. I'm not here to judge any one of you. I'm just using the template. That's what I'm doing.

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If that is in the scripture and that's what happened and Paul tells us all of scripture is meant for us then that's what we're dealing with. This is the part where we're not really questioning ourselves enough. She saw, she took, she ate. There's no beguiling here. It's a straight lie. She gave to her husband

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He ate. There is no, she just gave it to me and I, no, no, no. He received it and he ate. She didn't shove it in his mouth, did she now?

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It's a complete lack of accountability, a complete rejection of responsibility. It's a destruction of the image of God in them.

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Then God calls man

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And the man lies. Why? What was the first lie?

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I heard the sound of thee in the garden and was afraid because I was naked. That was not the reason why.

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The reason is because he violated the covenant. He did what God told him not to do. What does he do? He covers it with a veneer of virtue. I was naked so I just hid myself because I was afraid.

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So, the second sin is when he ate, the third one is when he lies. God calls again. What does the man do?

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Passes the bucket. The woman! That was, the woman at last. Right? Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. Now it's the woman! Notice how he phrases it also. I'm not gonna go back, this thing's gonna keep running. The woman.

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Thee gave to me. I have to do with it. It's your problem, God. So not only is he now passing the bucket, accusing God...

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and also the woman. No accountability whatsoever. Why do you think God is asking these questions? Where are you? Doesn't he know?

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Of he does. But it's like, you know, when you have a five year old, you're sitting in the living room and the five year old is walking by and his face is smeared with chocolate. You don't know what he did? Really? You have no idea what this kid is about? But what do you do? You ask him. What's that on your face? What does he say? I don't know.

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that we find it funny because it's five-year-old but that is the structure of original sin embedded in us. Comes from here.

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Complete lack of accountability. Why are you asking these questions? Because you want him to say, oh, I saw the chocolate cake and I couldn't resist. I I'm sorry. That's what you want. What do you want? You want conversion and repentance. That's what you're looking for. That's what God is looking for. He doesn't know what they were up to. He doesn't know they were hiding.

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He's giving them a chance, he's giving them every possible chance to take accountability and say, I messed up, I'm sorry. Had these two bozos did that, we would not be where we are right now.

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But we can't be too mad at them because we do the same thing.

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Okay, and then finally, the woman accuses the serpent. Five sins committed in one conversation by two people who were born without original sin.

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Hmm. More importantly, this is the anti-pattern of conversation between couples. That's what you should not be doing.

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You shouldn't be trying to be right. You shouldn't be trying to justify yourself. You shouldn't push the bucket away. You should do the exact opposite.

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Why? Because when you justify yourself, when you defend yourself, when you push the bucket, when you don't take accountability, what are you really doing? You're pushing God out of the conversation because you're ignoring the covenant. You're ignoring that it is not just you and your husband or you and your wife. It is you and your spouse and God who is in the garden watching.

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And so if you are able to take accountability even if you're not responsible, if you're willing to take accountability even when you're not responsible, what do you think God is going to do?

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through the covenant, he will see your obedience and he will bless you. But when you don't, what do you think he's going to do?

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Do you see why the covenant is so important? You understand? You're never talking to your spouse. You're talking to your spouse in front of the divine court.

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And when you defend yourself, you protect yourself, you justify yourself, you don't take accountability, what are you telling God? I'm afraid of you. I'm hiding. Here's the pattern.

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Okay, so look at this, the sins and the vices. She saw took an eight, vanity.

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Yeah, Lord have mercy. She saw it took an eight, vanity, right? She gave to her husband he ate. He was tempted. That's Eve being the temptress. Not only did she do it, she tempted him to do it as well. What does he do? He's slothful, doesn't even think about it, doesn't even take the time to wonder about it. And then he's a coward, because he doesn't stand up to her. Or he is too attached to her.

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to do God's will, I don't know which one, pick your poison, and then finally, impiety. He just ignores God and goes for it.

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Adam lies. Cowardice is first lie. He was a coward. He is showing irreverence and near blasphemy by lying to God and to His face.

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Then he will lie again, that's cowardice and slander because he falsely accuses Eve and God. It's a reputational problem because he's saying, she's the one who made me do it. Really, she twisted your arm. She rested you to the ground and shoved the food in your mouth. Really.

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And then Eve lies, again, she's being a coward, she's being a slanderer, she's falsely accusing the devil. He made me do it, he didn't make you do it, he whispered in your ear, you're gonna shoot him away, tell him to go, but you did it.

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you chose to act on it. Malice and lying. So here are two people who have no trauma from childhood, no parents they could blame for anything, who are living in pretty good ideal condition.

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Look what they did. So here's one of my pet peeves.

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Stop dismissing our lady's efforts because she's immaculately conceived, as if it was just a walk in the park. Because those two were also, in a sense, immaculately created, right? And look.

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So no.

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No, it wasn't a walk in the park for her.

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Okay.

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Let's recapitulate the sequence. How should you act in a situation like this? Alright. And I'm just following the pattern. You could flip it by starting with the man. I'm starting with the woman to map it. That's what I'm doing. Alright, I'm not saying this is about women. I'm just saying I'm following the pattern the way it was. Alright, could be flipped around. The woman saw. So you see something as the wife. You see something.

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What should you be doing? You should ask yourself, should I pray about it? You don't need to pray about everything, but that's the question. Should I bring it to prayer?

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Should I ask someone's advice? In other words, become knowledgeable and wise before you take action.

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You're allowing God to come in. Right? You're opening yourself up to the Holy Spirit by doing the right things. Not sitting and then waiting for the Holy Spirit to come and talk to you, but you go talk to people who know. Like, okay, I want to replace the kitchen. Okay, Lord, should I replace the kitchen? You can pray about it. Or you decide I don't need to pray about it. Fine, but at least you gave it some thought. Then I'm going to talk to people who know about kitchen. Don't talk to your dentist about it. Go talk to people who know about...

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the kitchen. And no, they don't need to be Catholic. They need to be expert in their field. If you need brain surgery, you need the best brain surgeon there is, Catholic or otherwise. Because God gives talents to all. He is just. Okay. Then, once she built her case, when she understands the case, she presents her case to her husband. She's knowledge, she has knowledge, and she's wise.

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So she has a level of certainty and calm and peace. So she will come across as knowledgeable and trustworthy. She presents the case, the husband should listen. He should listen. And then what should he do? Again, he should consider some things. Will it violate the marital covenant? That's the first thing comes to mind. Most cases the answer is no, or at least superficially no.

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Some things could be, but it requires more depth. I don't have time to go through all of them. Would it strengthen the marital bond? Is it good for our marriage? Those are the questions that Adam didn't ask. Had he asked those questions, he would have said, no, no, I'm not going to eat this. This is going to be a problem.

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Is it good for the family? Is this the right thing to do at the right time? This is where he shows leadership. That's what God expects of him. I don't make up the rules. He said, you, the guy, you need to do this. And I told you this last time, I'll tell you again, if we could, we would run away. Like if we could go sit on the lake and pretend that we're fishing and do nothing, we would love to do that. Okay? We don't see this as, oh, proof of superiority or whatever. No, no, no, no.

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This is a chore, trust me, for guys.

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But that's what we're supposed to do. That's what we should do. Should I pray? Should I seek more advice? Can we decide? If the answer is no, go back.

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And then if the answer is yes, the case is closed.

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You understand? That is what those two bozos should have done and they didn't. And we are where we are right now. Okay.

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Let's now move to, fast forward and think about the flood. What precipitated the flood? Why did God want to cause the flood? The sons of God, Saff, watch that word again.

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The sons of God saw. Eve saw. Right? There's this beautiful Catholic expression, right? The custody of the eyes. The custody of eyes. Control what you see. They saw. Saw what? That the daughters of men were fair and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Watch. Saw, took, chose. Three actions. Eve's three actions. She saw. She liked. She took. Same deal.

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The structure of sin is right there. Now, very briefly, the sons of God are the sons of Seth. And the daughters of men are the daughters of Cain. And the two are not supposed to connect. But what did they decide to do eventually? We'll just go for it.

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That's a violation of the covenant.

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And then what happens? The Lord said, What God is doing here isn't saying that the flood will happen in 120 years. What God is saying is that I'm going to limit the lifespan to 120 years. That is the curse, which is a consequence of death. When he spoke to Adam and Eve, he told them, will die. But their lifespan was pretty long, almost a thousand years.

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Now the curse is added, it is tightened to 120 years. On the flip side, can see that God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden as a curse, but also it's an act of mercy because if they failed when they were perfect, now that sin entered into them, they would fail again. So instead of keeping them in the garden so that they can continuously be tempted,

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He moved them out. The garden is no longer suitable for them. And then here again, because men refused to do God's will, he shortens life span, lest they continue to sin and their pain in hell would be even stronger. You understand? The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Now, this is a continuation of that. Temporarily speaking,

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think of this is happening after that. This leads to wickedness and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

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Nothing is new under the sun. Nothing is new under the sun.

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Book of Ecclesiastes, vanity, vanity, all is vanity, nothing is new under the sun. Here we are. There were no internet, no Instagram, no TikTok. Here we are.

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And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, men and beasts and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them, but no I found favor in the eyes of the Lord." This language is a way for us, for the writer to indicate God's sorrow. That God is a father and cares about his children. It is not meant

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to talk about God's unchangeable nature and God's simplicity and all of that. It is really meant to say, what we do in a mysterious way affect God. We can please God, we can anger God, even though God doesn't change. So, this, I will blot out man, is nothing more than the consequences of death. God condemned all to die, he is now going to execute death in a specific way.

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It is all part of the covenant and it is all according to his justice. However, Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

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This is the anti-deluvian anti-sequence. Anti means before, deluvian means the flood. Anti-sequence. Here's what they did. The sons of God saw. They took whom they chose. God shortens man's lifespan to 120 years. What happens after? Wickedness spreads. Every imagination, thought of the heart is evil. God decides on the flood.

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Okay? So let's see now.

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This is the recapitulative sequence. The sons of God saw. So you meet a young woman, you meet a young man. What are you supposed to do? Take? Whomever you choose? Hold on. Maybe you want to pray about it.

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Maybe you want to seek counsel. You do those things, virtue spreads. Every imagination, thought of the heart is good. God decides to bless society. That happens inside your family. That happens in society at large.

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Don't think that if you're living an upright life it has no impact on the world around you because you don't see it.

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Because if that's the case, you're making a mockery out of Noah. He certainly didn't see anything.

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The end of an age. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. So you can see how that snowball that started with the sons of God picking

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the woman from whom they should not have chosen, how the sexual depravity destroyed the entire society.

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I mean, compared to what happens today, those sons of God and these daughters of women look like angels, compared to what's going on today.

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That is the way things have a ripple effect. It always starts with the family. It always starts with the marital covenant. And it is that that causes society to flourish or get destroyed. That's what scripture shows us.

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So, this is just showing you the sequence. The son of God took whom they chose. Wickedness spreads. Imagination and reason become evil. Violence fills the earth.

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So you could translate imagination and reason to movies and shows and art.

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Yeah, the depravity starts here and it just flows.

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God foretells of the flood, make yourself an ark of gopher wood, make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die, but I will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. Noah did this, he did all that God commanded him. Now,

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That sounds very lofty and beautiful. Let's put it in context. Where was Noah living? So let's say he's living out in the desert. He's not near the coast.

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God comes to him and says, build a boat.

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And then you and I are just driving by his property. He's got a ranch. See this guy building a boat.

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What do you think his wife and his sons may have felt?

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Right?

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That starts to put it in context.

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Noah did this, he did all that God commanded him. Key in on this. What God commands we shall do, what the church teaches we shall observe. This is the pattern. No matter how absurd it may be, no matter how counter-cultural it may look, we do what God tells us to do and we do what the church tells us to do. Why? Because we are in a covenant.

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with a strong party and it doesn't matter how many weak parties can complain or unhappy or laugh at us they have no power it'd be suicidal to listen to them and ignore the one who has all the power if you're covenantly centered you wouldn't have to worry about any of this all you worry about is what's God saying because he's got all the power and watch how I'm talking about it I'm not even talking about it from a question of

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loving God and wanting to please Him. Just talking about saving yourselves. Just basic. You do what God wants because He's got all the power.

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during the flood. Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me. Again, this business of seeing comes back, the echo. In this generation, take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the air, also male and female, to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth.

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For in seven days I will send rain upon the earth, forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground. And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Seven. Why is seven important? Because seven is related obviously to the Shabbat. It's the same word. And in Hebrew, if you want to make a covenant, how would you say that? You would say to seven oneself.

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7 is the number of the covenant It is the covenant So all these references are all about the covenant

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Noah did what the Lord had commanded him. In the sixth hundred year of Noah's life, in the second month of the seventeenth day of the month, on the day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened and rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and his sons Shem and Haman and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark. Okay, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?

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Hmm. Contemplate this.

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What happened to Noah's extended family?

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Most likely had brothers, sisters, who were married, their families, their kids. What happened to them? What happened to Noah's wife extended family?

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She probably didn't even have to say, she couldn't even say goodbye. Because they probably thought, they're crazy.

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What happened to Noah's son's wife's extended family?

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You think it was easy? How did this man convince his sons, their wives and his wife to do all this? One day went up in the ark

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It was fine.

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Else the gondola was completely dry.

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How did he convince them?

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You understand?

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And just them, because God told him them, right? His marital covenant. You understand? This is a covenant with this couple, Noah and his wife.

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But how did he? Oh, sorry about that. How come his wife listened to him?

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mean, you understand how crazy that was. From a human standpoint, that was nuts. What did you listen to?

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How come his sons listened to him? And then finally, how come his family remained united and cohesive? How come none of the kids rebelled? How come none of the wives said, forget it, I'm just going back to my family? How come they all stayed together?

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Here it is, that short sentence. He did as the Lord commanded him. We know nothing about Noah. doesn't say, Scripture doesn't say Noah was righteous before God. Scripture says that about Enoch.

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Noah's ancestor who was assumed into heaven. But not about Noah.

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He may be irascible, maybe he raised his voice, maybe he had problems, we don't know. But the only thing we know is this, he did as the Lord commanded.

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That's it guys. You want God to bless your family? You want God to bless your marriage? You want God to make sure that your kids stay in the faith? Here it is. He did as the Lord commanded.

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So in this little write up, take a look at it. I talk about three examples or exemplars of obedience that mean quite a bit to me. The first one is Saint Hardini. He's a Maronite monk who became a saint for one reason only. didn't, he wasn't a martyr. He did not.

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go through what he didn't do with Saint Charbel. He was Saint Charbel's teacher, but he didn't do any of the things that Saint Charbel did. But the one thing that Saint Hardini did was obey the monastic rule perfectly. That made him a saint. Second example is Saint Germaine de Priebac. She's French. She's a little girl who had a deformation of the face. Her stepmother didn't like her, so she forced her to sleep outside the house.

01:00:22
under the stairs.

01:00:26
And all her life she was separated from the family. She was a shepherdess and then she kept the sheep. And whenever she wanted to go to Mass, she'd ask her guardian angel to keep them and go to Mass and come back. And not one sheep was ever lost. When she died, she was forgotten. And then 50 years later, when the priest decided to expand the church, they moved the cemetery and they found her body in corrupt. And then I found out who she was. She is...

01:00:56
in Notre Dame's cathedral, her body is there, and then twice they tried to burn her body, once during the French Revolution and the second time in 2000. She is a perfect example of obedience. Germaine, Germaine, don't know, Germaine, you say that? Of Pribac.

01:01:22
Grab that document and then you'll find it. And then the third example I want to give you, they're not saints, but I'm praying for a canonization. They're two of my heroes. They're Tagashi and Midori Nagai. They're Japanese. And then Dr. Nagai, they lived during the Second World War in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was dropped. And he was there taking care of all the wounded. It was a scene from hell. And when he went home, he found the home was completely blasted.

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and on the floor, on the ground, he found the outline of his wife.

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and the outline of the rosary next to her wife. There was nothing left of her. And he knelt and thanked God that he allowed his wife to die with the rosary in her hand.

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Extraordinary life, amazing witness. Check him out. And anyway, obedience, that's it. He did as the Lord commanded him. Do this and he will bless your family. Why? I'm gonna get to something that is really important. Sorry, it's taking a little longer, but I'm getting there. God takes action, your marriage suffers, you don't understand. So this is what the flood is all about. You're gonna get hit sideways. Every marriage...

01:02:40
gets hit sideways, one way or the other. God takes the action. You suffer and you don't understand.

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Now, what do you suppose? You don't rebel. You don't cause a scandal. You do as the Lord commands you and God will bless you. Why? Because of the covenant.

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He's the strong party, you're the weak party.

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So, God entered into covenant with the husband and wife, right? I mean, you're human, repeat this over and over again. He is the strong party and the husband and wife are the weak party. He blesses you, them, if you're faithful to the covenant. Now here's the bit that I want to bring to your attention, which is very important. He is bound by his justice to bless you.

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the blessings aren't because of his mercy, because of his justice. Why? He bound himself to the covenant. As soon as he does that, he owes you those blessings because of his justice.

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It's his justice that blesses you, not his mercy. If you understand that, you understand that as long as you are faithful to the covenant, he will bless you. He puts himself under that obligation.

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So doesn't mean, it has nothing to do with whether you're holy or not. It has nothing to do with whether you're perfect or not. It has nothing to do with whether you are, you know, living a perfect life like he wants you to. All that matters is you do as he commands you. And by the way, this is mostly for the guys.

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It is mostly for the guy.

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That's what he's called us to do. You do as he commands you.

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Now, last bit. I just want to talk to you about one of my hero in the scripture, Noah's wife. I find her absolutely remarkable. She's amazing. She's not named. She doesn't speak, foreshadowing St. Joseph. She's a true helper for her husband. She doesn't complain, doesn't nag, and doesn't protest. She supports her husband in the face of rebuke and mockery. She leaves everything behind to follow him. Amazing.

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I don't mean it facetiously, I mean she displays the stack of virtues which is incredible.

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She had every reason to complain. What is this thing you're building out there? Nothing.

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So in this way she prefigures Mary, the new Eve, who in her faith and cooperation with God's plan participates in the redemption and renewal of the world. By the way, I could say all of this about Our Lady at the foot of the cross. It would apply just as well.

01:05:56
Okay. Tradition and extra biblical sources. There are some interest in her. Book of Jubilees, this is non-canonical. They name her Emzara. In Genesis, Rabba, Jewish Midrash, they call her Nama, which means blessed. And Lamech's daughter. In the Sibylian Oracles, it's epigraphical. She's named Norea. And then the Armenian also have a name for her. But.

01:06:23
Through scripture and Salon over on her name, Jewish and early Christian traditions offer various suggestions and none of this is binding. This is not part of Catholic dogma or doctrine, but they reflect early efforts to imagine and honor the woman who helped preserve humanity and creation alongside Noah.

01:06:45
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took off every clean animal. So he makes an offering. And then as a result, God says, I will never again curse the ground because of man. Okay. What does that mean? Watch this. The ark reaches from ground. What does Noah do? First thing, he builds an altar.

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and then he takes of the choicest animals and offers them.

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He does as God commands him.

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God, as a result, promises never to flood the world again and the harvest won't cease. So what happened here? Noah did as the Lord commanded him. He worships God in truth and spirit. God makes him an intercessor for all of humanity. It is because of his actions that God makes that promise.

01:07:35
That's pretty rad for someone who did as God commanded him. So yeah, the covenant is not fair, but it goes both ways. What God does isn't fair either, that he is willing, because of one man's obedience, to bless all of humanity. That's not fair either. That is going beyond the marital covenant with Noah and his wife. But that's how all the families who do God's will end up blessing the world.

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Because through them God blesses the world. It's his prerogative. It's not theirs.

01:08:14
That's a blessing beyond covenantal scope. So, obedience and power intercession. What gave Noah power of intercession? His obedience. What gives you power intercession for your family? Your obedience. What must be carefully formed in children? I don't have to talk too much about it, the imagination. Remember how we said imagination was evil? So one thing that is not a lot of focus on these days, but it was really important in medieval times, is the formation of the imagination. The imagination...

01:08:44
must be formed to beauty. So for instance in my case I never allowed my kids to watch the Simpsons because they were ugly.

01:08:56
You must form the imagination to beauty because the imagination is the most angelic of all faculties. And how the devil and the angels speak to you through your imagination. They pick in that store what's available to speak with you. That's why it was important to form the children to beauty. Because beauty is connected to truth. Okay, I don't have a lot of time to talk about this but I just wanted to mention that. So, God will hit you and your wife sideways. It's gonna happen. It is his prerogative.

01:09:25
It's his prerogative as a strong party in the covenant. And that's the end. Sorry. What I mean to say is that no matter how you look at it, what God is looking to do is to magnify you. He wants to give you the best possible outcome because He loves you. And in order to do that, He is going to use the covenant to perfect you. And it's never going to be pleasant. It's never going to be easy.

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But if you trust him as the strong party, and you do as he asks, and you remain faithful, just as we see with Noah, you will be blessed. All right, let's stop here, take a break, and then come back for questions. God bless you.