Dr. Ted Sri: "Men, Women And The Mystery Of Love" | SEEK 2015

all right good afternoon you excited about this topic I have to say out of my many years speaking of focus conferences this is my favorite talk to be able to to give and it's always a slightly a little bit adjusted as the years go by but I'm really gonna be drawing from this book I wrote called men women in the mystery of love that draws on John Paul the second wonderful teachings from theology the body and especially an earlier book he wrote called love and responsibility and so we're going to be taking a look at that here today as we examine the great mysterious dynamics between men and women and how we want to navigate those well and as I think about this I'm reminded of kayaking I always think about kayaking when I think about this topic my wife and I we were living in Kansas in the early days of focus all right and so focus you know was born at Benedict in college and so we were so it so focus launched there my wife was the first woman missionary in focus and working part-time and then we would come out to the Colorado where we would do our and I loved every state in the country and the world now so I'm reminded about how in the early days of focus we would my wife and I we were living in Kansas at the time and we would go out to Colorado for the summer training where we would train the missionaries and all the young missionaries would love to go do these adventures in the Rocky Mountains and one weekend they were going to go kayaking and they invited us to come along and we were excited because we were Flatlanders at the time we were living in Kansas and I thought well we never get a chance to do anything like this let's go for it and we got up there into the mountains and there was a guide who was giving us all these instructions on how to operate the kayak and I don't remember much of what he taught us that day but there's one lesson I will never forget he said this if you happen to fall out of your kayak don't try to stand up in the river is the river shallow so you'll think you could stand up but it's also so powerful it'll knock it down so what you really want to do is just hold onto your lifejacket and get above the surface and make it to the side and so my wife and I we get into our kayak I'm in the front seat she's in the back seat the rest of our group gets off and we're going down the Arkansas River and it was June beautiful blue skies there was still some snow-capped mountains we're just taking in this incredible scenery here in Colorado as we're going down the smooth peaceful waters of the Arkansas River but we knew that we eventually were going to be tested we knew eventually those whitewater rapids were going to come and sure enough I heard the sound of the roar of those Rapids coming and my my heart started pounding all the adrenaline is flowing now and we go into those waters and our boat almost capsizes to the left we get splashed with all this water we corrected and got splashed all over on the right side but we pushed through we made it to the other side we conquered those first rapids I was so excited I turned around to Beth and said we did it honey and she had a look of horror on her face she was going like this because what happened was when I turned around to celebrate prematurely the kayak turned sideways with me and we were now going sideways down the Arkansas River and the current just carried us all the way around we did a 180 we're now going backwards down the Arkansas River and I just let the momentum carry us so we can get straight again we did a whole 360 I was straight up again but it was too late you see there was a big log that had fallen halfway over the river and everybody else in our group followed the guide around that log we were headed straight for it I don't know if you know what happens when your kayak brushes up against a log in a powerful river immediately the river sweeps that kayak we lost our kayaks and we're clinging on for dear life unto this log it was a big log and we couldn't pull ourselves over it we're just the rivers trying to sweep us away too and I couldn't see what's on the other side of this this log I don't know if this is a big deep Beaver Dam is there a bunch of rocks there gonna be a waterfall am I gonna die if I let go of this thing so I just looked at bat I say I love you honey been a good first year marriage but then our guide came back to us all these poor souls dangling there it says it's okay just let go you're not gonna die you'll be fine so we did one of those one two three and we let go and the river sweeps us away and I'm choking in all this water and I have no control my body and my rear end is hitting every rock in the Arkansas River boom boom boom boom and I didn't like that feeling so guess what I did I just instinctively just tried to stand up cuz of a shallow I stood up and boom the river knocks me down I'm choking in more water and out of panic I tried to stand up a second time boom it knocks me down and then a third time boom and actually does I remember oh yeah don't try to stand up in the river so I held on to my life jacket I got above the surface took in some much-needed h2o I made it off to the side and I found my wife alive half mile downstream and we've not been kayaking sense but I certainly learned a great lesson that day and that is this it is really hard to stand up against the current of a powerful River and I'd also like to say that it's hard to stand up against the current of our culture in many ways but especially when it comes to relationships between men and women our culture just has a certain way of getting us to approach these relationships looking at these relationships and it's really hard to not take that in we could be devout Catholics we could go to Bible study we could go to daily Mass and we're still very much influenced by this culture but if we look at what's really happening with culture we have to ask ourselves is that the kind of river I want to be going down and if we just look at the bigger picture of relationships between men and women let's talk about marriages how our marriage is doing these days you know what does statistics show us about half of all marriages end in divorce and there are many college students and young adults that I meet all around the country that have they want to get married but they're nervous is it really going to work there's a lot of insecurity in their relationships but everyone talks about that side of the picture but if you remember math class you had your little pie diagram you know the big circle if you got half of its shade and divorce that's a sad thing but everybody talks about that I'm not going to talk about that today not because it's not real I've got dear friends who've gone through the pain of divorce and I I've worked with college students and young people for close to 20 years now and I've met many of them as they move into their adult years and as they enter into relationships of their own they describe how if they grew up in a home like that how much it hurt it affected them and they realize that only as they get older how they approach relationships and all so if this is real III know how hard that is but I'm not I'm not going to talk about that side of the equation I want to talk about the other half how the other half of marriage is doing are those marriages happy ones are those marriages in which husbands and wives really feel close together they feel like they married their best friend do you want some studies show that about guess what percentage of marriages are really happy they have emotional closeness together only about 12% so picture that half of all end in divorce so got that half and then on this other half it's just a sliver of the pie that are really happy marriages we want something better in our lives thanks be to God they're staying together that's a good thing but a great marriage isn't one that just stays together ya know I mean just think about that imagine we bump into each other at you know focus conference a couple years from now and they say oh just remember you talked about marriage how is your marriage with Beth going I said oh it's great we haven't divorced yet that doesn't make a great marriage thanks be to God what someone stays together but you know when a great marriage is one in which you can look your spouse in the eye 10 20 30 years into it and say I love now today than I did when we were first married that's what we want to aim for but if we follow the path of the culture we're not headed toward a great marriage and let me ask how many of you are doing marriage prep actually all of you should raise your hand if you're called to marriage you're doing marriage prep right now right now you're doing marriage prep if you feel called to marriage the way you interact with the opposite sex right now is forming certain habits that is preparing for your marriage the way that you approach dating relationships is already forming certain habits so it's very important the way that you are interacting with the opposite sex right now to develop the right habits that you can take in to your long-term marriage so a lot of when look at is to be very applicable for for marriage but it's also going to be very applicable for right now because I made a lot of people than describing about the kind of insecurities they have in their dating relationships the the fears that they have in their relationships they're unsure how do i navigate these relationships i think john paul ii has a lot to say about these matters as well I think of a true story of a friend of mine we worked together many years ago and she was someone had a lot of ups and downs in a relationship with men and there was one time I remember I'd left the company had gone somewhere else and then I got married and then she gave me sent a gift for our wedding and I called her to just get caught up and asked her how she was doing she said she moved to a new city and I said why'd you move there just as all because my boyfriend lives here and I just moved in with him and as soon as she said that my heart sank and I thought oh no she's gonna go through another train wreck I could see this I didn't say anything I was just listening and we talked about other things old friends and other stuff and then we came back I came back to the boyfriend I said so tell me about this guy you know how's the relationship going are you happy it was a very simple question I asked her we just simply asked her are you happy and there was dead silence on the other end of the phone and after about 10 20 seconds of silence I started hearing a little sniffle and then some tears and then outright sobbing and in the middle of her sobbing she was telling me she says you know I just moved here two weeks ago and I already know he's not the one I know he's just using me and she's bawling and she just starts saying Ted why does this keep happening to me why does this keep happening to me why does this keep happening to me my friends we're going to look at today from John Paul the second is not just some abstract theology or philosophy it's beautiful practical insights that are going to help you prepare for your future marriages help you experience much better friendships with the opposite sex much better dating courtship relationships with the opposite sex but also it's going to help many people in our world today avoid having to say why does this keep happening to me as they follow the plan of the culture and going down that River we're going to go a different path we're going to take a look at john paul ii and his vision for men women in the mystery of love let's begin with a quick prayer here and the name of the Father and the Son Holy Spirit amen we'll ask Mary to pray for us as we say hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the Father and the son of the Holy Spirit amen many years ago when I started teaching on theology the body my very first class I wanted to get the background to TOB and that was to go to a work called love and responsibilities which he wrote earlier when he was a young priest working with college students and I remember using my Christmas break down at Benedictine college down in the crypt of the abbey there and I was reading through love and responsibilities very thoroughly preparing for the class and wow it was amazing I I would read probably about ten pages an hour partly because it's so thick but also I was just deeply personally moved challenged inspired it was like an examination of conscience challenging me to think about my relationships with the opposite sex in general but especially with my wife and thinking about the ways I fall short of what real love is and and I also saw that in this work there were so many practical insights that the college students I was going to be teaching there could really benefit from for their dating relationships real-life relationship issues we face in friendship attraction what are the differences between men and women the way they approach relationships the two key aspects of love the role of the emotions the battle for purity modesty of dress you name it all these amazing topics were in this book and I was so excited I wanted to incorporate love and responsibility as a text book now for the class it wasn't just background and then when we got into the class we spent half the semester on the theology of the body class on love and responsibility and every time I've talked to you'll be sense I've always done it this way because if you know love and responsibility well you're going to be really prepared to understand theology body but more than that you're going to find it's immediately applicable as one of my one of my favorite TOB speaker says Theo B is great but love and responsibility changes the way you wake up on Monday morning and treat your wife it changes the way a college student wakes up on Tuesday and treats his boyfriend or her boyfriend or her girlfriend is it her boyfriend or his girlfriend gotta be really careful today what we say about these things yeah but but it's right it's immediately practical for all walks of life and and that's what we're gonna look at here I'm going to cover a couple quick nuts and bolts things so just work with me for about five minutes on a couple nuts and bolts things we're going to get to the real dynamics between men and women so the first major point I'm going to cover is what john paul ii calls the personalist principle the personalist principle and it's simply this it's the golden rule you know treat others love others as you would want to be treated I never treat another person merely as a means to an end John Paul the second each says each person has their own intellect they have their own will they can think for themselves make decisions for themselves and so we should never violate that beautiful order and want to use someone for our own purposes so that's the personalist principle but the attitude that gets us to use other people is what he calls utilitarianism utilitarianism emphasizes the usefulness of anything whenever I make a decision I make I evaluate how much advantage do I get from this or what benefit is there for me what pleasure do I get out of this what comfort do I get out of this and I know something's basic things in life you make decisions this way but the utilitarian attitude could get me to look at other persons this way and treat other persons as a means to an end in other words I look at this other person in my life not in terms of a friendship or I'm seeking what's good for them it's more about what do I get out of this person what do I get out of this relationship I only value this person insofar as they're useful for me or their advantage they're advantageous for me to know or this person gives me pleasure this person just I have fun with this person the problem with utilitarian relationships is that once this other person no longer gives me this great advantage or this pleasure or this fun time then I no longer value them and I break off the relationship and deep down we all know that we shouldn't use people this way we shouldn't treat other people merely as a means to our own end always looking at them in terms of what I get out of them what do they do for me but sadly most of us in this room fall into this all the time let me ask you this I like to ask this question now here if it was Tuesday on campus and a friend of yours comes up to you and says hey there's a great new movie being released Friday night do you want to come how many of you would commit on Tuesday to go to the movie Friday night some of you would how maybe wouldn't ok that most of you wouldn't why why wouldn't you do it why won't you go let's say if you really were free you were free Friday night and the movies okay you'd like you would mind seeing it why don't you commit on Tuesday night to go to that movie Friday something better might come up right there might be a party that I didn't want to go to or maybe that girl you're hoping well you can go on a date with will be available then either suck if some other option can come up so you don't commit you don't say yes right away well then here's my question why don't you say no why don't you just come back and say oh thanks so much for the invitation that's really kind but I think I might do something else that night why don't you tell your friend no because you don't wanna be a loser on Friday night all right what if there's that what if there's nothing else better to do so you at least want to have this as an option so we often particularly our generation we're just so afraid to commit to anything not just marriage or a relationship but just what I'm gonna do on a Friday night I'm afraid to commit to that so what we do is we don't tell our friend yes but we don't tell them no so instead we say well hey I want to let me get back to you let me think about that I can't commit now but I don't want to say no to you because you my dear friend I want to keep you as a backup how many of you done that that's a form of utilitarianism john paul ii would actually say that that there's an element in which i'm looking at this person more in terms of what i get out of them and i want to show you that as an example of how this this this attitude can creep into even very good christian hearts but now let's talk about men and women relationships let's talk about attraction john paul ii i think is one of the best explanation of the mysterious dynamic between men and women when they're attracted to each other so let me throw out a certain scenario imagine there's a certain coffee house back on your campus okay and there's a man sitting in that coffee house sipping on his his coffee and happens to notice an attractive woman walking in he immediately puts down his book he's drawn to her beauty and his heart stirs and he keeps wanting to look over at her but this attraction is more than physical he's seen her here before with her friends at this time which is why he's here again at this time and he's been drawn not just to her beauty but also to her warm personality her cheerful smile her kindness to her friends so there's something more than physical going on that these kinds of attractions happen all the time and many times they happen very quickly we don't have to work at this this just kind of happens right you know some man could go into the grocery store and notice an attractive woman walking by a bloom he's interested or there's some woman at church she goes up and receives Communion and on the way back HAP is a no-lose and you got here at daily Mass Wow he wondered what's he's like him starts thinking about him and the rest of the I wonder if he's gonna be at Mass tomorrow and I wonder what my wedding dress is gonna look like with him you laugh ladies but you know it's true you've told me I talked to college students around the country for over a decade about this that this really happens you know when one little thing like that might happen like that you know but but what's going on when a man and woman are attracted just immediately like that or if it's something that develops over time through friendship what's going on there John Paul the second talks about how we're attracted to the sexual values of a person now he also emphasizes that every person has value as a person just as a son or daughter of God you have value beyond your physical looks your physical features beyond that you have value as a person but we find ourselves also more immediately attracted to the sexual values that God gave each person now what are these sexual values if I had a little diagram on class I'd have the big word sexual values here and have two arrows coming down like this one here and one here and under sexual values I would have two things when I would have it's the physical qualities of the person on this side and then the other part of the sexual values is the psychological qualities of the person we find ourselves very attracted to the physical qualities and the psychological qualities the physical qualities this kind of attraction is it's a physical attraction it's what john paul ii calls sensuality it's a sensual physical attraction to the the physical features of the other person their good looks so they're good lucks retracted to their physical features to their body but we're also attracted to something more than just the good looks were attracted to their psychological qualities john paul ii says and he calls us an emotional attraction sentimentality it describes this as an attraction to the to the femininity of the woman or to the masculinity of the man now he doesn't really define femininity and masculinity and many people often ask me what does he really mean by that I said well I'll tell you what he says in the book he didn't really say much he just says a woman is attracted to the man's masculinity and then he puts in parentheses strength he says and the man is attracted to the woman's femininity and then he put some parentheses charm that's all he gives us so I wish she gave us a lot more but back in 1950s Poland there wasn't many questions about what it means to be a man or a woman back then but what I think he's getting at is simply there's a certain mystery to the opposite sex as the mystery of the woman that were attracted to that's beyond her physicalness there's a mystery of the woman and there's a mystery of the man that that we end up being attracted to and it ends up being an emotional attraction so you got this we got two main ways that were attracted you wanna make sure you're following because this is the key to unlocking everything else all the fun stuff we're gonna get into next but it we've got a physical attraction called sensuality to the body of the person and then we also have this emotional attraction to the mystery of the woman mystery of the man the femininity and masculinity okay now God put these qualities in us and made us attracted to those physical qualities and psychological qualities so that then we would be led to the person who possesses those qualities so they're kind of like the nice diamonds that sparkle and draw attention but just like the diamond earrings are not meant to do to a lady doesn't want the guy just staring all while those are amazing diamond earrings I quit looking at me I just wanna look at your diamond earrings oh the lady wears the diamond aries to draw ultimately attention to herself and these are the beautiful things that God has given us these physical psychological qualities that are meant draw us to the person and remember every person has value beyond their physical and psychological qualities the challenge is that sometimes we focus just on those qualities we focus just on those things because we get certain a certain pleasure or some enjoyment out of them and we have to realize that these qualities they don't exist in the abstract they exist in concrete real human persons they don't exist in the abstract what I mean by that what is on paul ii mean by that means that there's no man that goes around just and he's attracted to blond in general like he's look at wears blood I need blond where could I find blond you know you don't have that he may be very attracted to a particular woman a particular concrete human person a woman that has blond hair but he's not attracted to just blonde and there's no woman that's just attracted to masculinity legs in I just a moment I need masculinity where's Maskull I got to find masculinity where's masculinity here no no she may be very attracted to a particular man that is very masculine very chivalrous very decisive it but she's not she's not attracted to masculine in the abstract these qualities reside in concrete persons and God wants us to be loved as a person that's what's on all of our hearts we want to be loved as a person and we want to love others in relationship as a person but the problem is sometimes we get too caught up with the physical and psychological qualities that that they give us a pleasure and we end up using other people for those qualities a great way of looking at this is to see the difference between animals and persons and how they respond you know animals react just on instinct you know it's like a reflex mode of action the animals don't their sexual the way that they're wired sexually is not dependent on any thought no deliberation they just act and you see this with all their appetites say their hunger for food if I were to bring a hungry dog in here they hadn't eaten for several days and I brought a big steak right after a big juicy steak and here's that dog and I put him right here and I show him the steak is that dog gonna run up here and go oh wait it's a Friday and Lynn or oh no wait I'll let the lady dogs go first you no no no no the dogs just gonna go in and act on his appetite right that's what a dog does he's he just acts on instinct similarly a cat in heat when a cat is in heat the cat doesn't go around the different alleyways looking for the perfect male cat oh I choose you to give myself to you in good times and in bad sickness or no a cat doesn't do that the catch is acts right that's how animals work but we john paul ii says we as human persons are different we're not meant to be enslaved to our passions into our appetites we can rise above these desires and attractions that's why it's so sad where our culture in this big powerful river just tries to enslave us to our sexuality so we can't really even control it we just have to give in to it and fulfill it and satiate it every time we experience sensual desire that's so sad because at that point we're living like animals whereas we were made to be something so much greater as human persons so john paul ii says we're capable of rising above the sexual urge we're not meant to be enslaved to it in fact our God gave us a mind he gave us a free will so we can deliberate we can choose what to do with these initial attractions and that's the key for us as we move forward here is that we must have great responsibility for when we notice those initial stirrings of attraction whether it's a physical nature or even just an emotional nature we must have great responsibility with what we do with those nothing wrong is that with noticing wow very attractive woman if you happen to notice a beautiful woman guys that means you are just working really well you're you're operating the way God made you that's a wonderful thing there's nothing wrong with that or if your heart stirs and you happen to be thinking about a certain woman that you saw earlier in the day and you have an emotional attraction to her you have good feelings there's nothing wrong with that the question is what do you do with that do you allow those initial desires to lead you to go then just use this person physically which is one thing we can do one of the main ways we can use some essentially we can use them sensually we can use them with weather physical actions or even just in my own thoughts in my own mind my own imagination and this is why john paul ii says when we have lustful thoughts for someone else people wonder am i really hurting anyone when I have a lustful thought what's the big deal you know but we are hurting someone when we do that because when I actually look at someone lustfully I take this woman and I reduce her to a mere body I'm reducing her judges to a body not a person but a body a body that I can exploit for my own pleasure from my own enjoyment and that woman has so much more dignity than that and when I do that I'm keeping myself the more I give in to lustful thoughts the more I'm training myself to look at women this way which makes it hard for me to really love them and one day if I get married speaking I in the general I am married I've got seven kids and very married so you know but one day if a college is that wants to get married if they have to 'le looked at women this way they're going to look at their spouse this way and they'll end up treating their spouse is just an object to use for their own sexual release as opposed to a beautiful gift from God that they're called to cherish and care for and it many times abstain and sexual relations with for her good and her happiness and the good of your marriage and not just use her for your own pleasure so it's very important that we avoid using people essentially but there's a lot of people that talk about that there's a lot of chastity speakers out there and they all talk about why we need to be chaste so I don't grate resources out there I don't think I need to touch on that what I'd love to talk about is the other side of Attraction because that's not something many people think about that we can end up using people this way and that's our emotional attraction they're sent to mental attraction toward others john paul ii says that today he's concerned that we fall into sentimentality that hinders love from developing he said today love is often reduced to feelings now he wrote this in the late 1950s day love is often reduced to feelings now imagine this this is john paul ii in poland in 1950s saying love is often reduced to feelings but would he say today oh my goodness feelings is that's how everyone measures love if I went no I'm in love I check my feelings you know so if I feelings really strong then it's greater if my feelings aren't there then it must not be love anymore john paul ii says okay feelings are bad they can be a part of a relationship but they should be a part of a relationship you know and i'll clarify that because a good relationship isn't feeling 'less i mean imagine if i go home to my wife and say bath I love you I'm committed to you I'll never leave you I would die for you but I have no feelings for you I mean that's not an ideal marriage right right because the emotions actually help unite the two worlds of each individual together so I feel like this other person understands me I understand them we were sharing life together so that's a good thing the challenge though is that if if we make feelings one of the key aspects of love we're gonna be mislead John Paul the second said feelings are often misleading he in fact said feelings are blind feelings are blind why does he say feelings are blind in our culture says trust your feelings you know like obi-wan trust your feelings Luke you know trust your feelings you knows your feelings you know just as mobile guide you in a relationship and John Paul's like I'm saying actually no don't trust your feelings nothing wrong with feelings but you want to trust something else more and what's that something else your mind he says feelings are blind feelings don't discern what's true what's really happening in a relationship God gave us the different parts of the souls I'm going to give you like in one minute basic theology 101 we all have an intellect of mind which discerns what's true now we're all given a will free will so we could we can choose and were meant to choose the good and we're also given these passions these emotions and and and originally all of those passions emotions were good they were ordered properly because they helped us pursue what was true and good with the full intensity of our passions that's how God made us originally but what part of the mind I'm sorry what part of the soul figures out what's true what part of the soul figures out what 2+2 is what part of the soul your mind it's not your will and it's certainly not your emotions so just imagine if in your math class and the teacher says two plus two is four and someone raises their hand and says no no I think two plus two is five you know because for me I just feel that it's five you know all right I just get these warm fuzzy feeling so people shout out in my talk there we go but yous might imagine somebody just saying go for me two plus two is five you know I get these feelings you know cuz five you know you got the two straight lines and then there's a curve and that just feels it just feels so right for me you know you'd go this guy's crazy right but when it comes to someone's relationship they often turn right there they go well from me this feeling just feels like this is the right relationship but we wouldn't do that with most other things in life now before the fall as I mentioned God made us so we could see the truth clearly and it was easy for us to choose the good and all of our emotions were ordered to help us pursue what's true and good but after the fall what happened after the fall we don't see things we don't always know what's right is easily that to work harder at it and I might know what's right but I don't do it all the time I say I'm gonna get up but I don't get up at this time I say I'm going to do this work and I procrastinate I say I'm not gonna eat this thing and I still eat this thing my fool is weak but what's going on in our emotions our emotions properly ordered though our emotions are going all over the place our emotions are crazy sometimes I'm happy that I'm who's sad I'm frustrated and now I'm excited and emotions are all over the place and yet our modern world is telling us if you want to know if you're in love if this is a really good relationship if you should stay in this relationship or is this the kind of guy you want to date where do you go to search that you search right here in this mess called feelings that's what the modern culture is telling us now nothing wrong with checking in on feelings but know that we want to bring our mind into the game we're going to bring our mind into the game we want to ask important questions and not just be led by all he's so cute or oh you know she's just so beautiful and I like you this about her and yeah those are that's all fine we got to ask some really good questions you know so a gal for example needs to bring her mind into the game of a relationship with another man she's got to ask a lot of questions that's the kind of man that's going to work his tail off for you is a kind of man that's easy for him to deny himself to make sacrifices to serve other people do you notice him sacrificing to serve his roommates to serve on campus interacting with his family and serving his mom and his brothers and sisters do you notice that or is this the kind of guy that just sits and watches ESPN all the time and plays video games all day entertains himself all the time because if it is probably bees always just entertaining himself it's probably not easy for him to sacrifice and serve you and any future children you may have together guys you need to be asking more than hey is she a good-looking gal oh wow she's just great to be with we got to ask more than that we got asked can this woman carry a lot of weight and I don't Wow can this woman carry a lot of weight and I don't mean physical weight although that happens when she gets pregnant you know but but more could she shoulder a lot of responsibility because motherhood is incredibly demanding being a mom is it just about all I got this cute little baby and it's fun to have kids it is incredibly demanding a mom is constantly laying her life down for her children it's not about comfort and is this the kind of woman that has the character the virtue there's going to be able to pour her life into any children that we may have those these are many questions we should ask but those are some of the things that we should be considering but sometimes we're just so eager to find love so driven to find that perfect person that our emotions take over and we don't see the truth clearly and we allow ourselves to end up idealizing the other person and our culture in this big river here just constantly takes advantage of us you know with all the music that that's out there a lot of most of the love songs think of the average love songs they're all about either sex or they're going to be about emotions and feelings and there's nothing wrong with talking about you know the good feelings when one may have together but but really how many love songs are actually about sacrificial love and virtue which is really what love is all about - will the good of another to seek what's best for an other person even when it means paying for you sacrifice for you then self-denial taking the cross up that's what real love is and yet most of the love songs out there don't focus on that all the love songs are all about all I need is you it's like I'm sorry I know you've lived up to this point without this person you can live without this other person or you know yeah you know I can't live without you yes you can you know so there's all these all these false songs that are very high percent to mental and then there's all these movies out there the average chick-flick out there is all just about all this play they can fall in love they meet someplace oh now little conflict and that's all resolved well if I just had someone like that it'll be perfect and don't think that those movies don't affect us I tell you I've met people III do conferences like this for young adults I do conferences for married couples around the country and I remember once flying to a country somewhere in Pennsylvania and there's a woman sitting next to me is Tommy alright Pennsylvania she is telling me uh or she's asking me what I was traveling for I was talking about my talk and sharing uh some of these ideas and she said yeah gosh I've been married 20 years and we've had so many hard times I wonder if it's because I think I've always been thinking my marriage was gonna be like those love songs I listen to all the time and I hear what you're saying is that maybe love is more than that and I'm like absolutely it's a lot more than that you know a lot of young people think you know well love is just you know we're you know we're gonna be really Catholic even and we're gonna just have love we're gonna sit by the fire together when we're married sip wine hold hands and quote theology of the body to each other it's just gonna be beautiful yeah let me just tell you that is not what the average married life is like you know I'll tell you but most marriage life especially once you have kids is much more about this okay I come home or if I got the kids cleaned up okay all right you guys kids got that kid blushed and T thought oh this kid you a poopy diaper okay got to work on this alright kids no longer naked oh we've got this kid we fed the hungry we could cook gave clothe the naked we visited this person in timeout over here okay this is greater right we got the kids down they are aggregate said their prayers or a sleeper you okay honey I'm okay good night constant dying to oneself but that's what love is is these two people were working side by side each other to serve some greater good outside of us that's real love the problem is most of us think love is this we're just going to stare in each other eyes and about oh I give you these feelings you give me these warm feelings it's just so great being together but real love goes outward it's not about just gazing each other's eyes and so self-enclosed that's a dangerous kind of love that's going to probably collapse a real love is when two people can go shoulder-to-shoulder and look outside of themselves and serve a greater good outside themselves some mission outside themselves most especially their children and that's all about self-denial the problem is again that's not in the average love song you don't hear that and that's not in the average music movie out there how many of you saw the movie Titanic of the 90s how many of you saw okay guys you can raise your hand - you saw it come on you own that Celine Dion CD come on admit it alright alright you know and so many people have thought of that movie is this what a beautiful vision of love isn't this just great this is just the perfect vision for love here you know he he dies for her you know and that's true that's that is a noble element that's one normal element of love in Titanic it was Jack died for rose that was a good thing but the but I would say the rest of the movie is almost as big of a disaster as the original shipwreck in terms of its it in terms of its vision for love I think I'm seriously I think think about what happened I want ladies lady I met so many women that that love this movie they're all just all that I just wanted that kind of love you know why did the ship have to go down you know they love would have lasted forever so but I want you to bring your mind to the game now by the way did you know that there have been many the teenage women there were studies showing this this is true teenage women would go back over and over again and watch that movie in the theater when it came out they kept over and over and over again I'm gonna cave on DVD they watched many many many teenage girls watch that moved like seven times when it first came out do you know that do you know why because teenage women love movies about boats no because I think it totally connects with our modern cultures hyper sentimental total emotional understanding of love uh but but ladies bring your minds to the game and guys you can do this to bring your minds to this movie that's what you should do with every movie bring your mind to the movie don't just be swept away ask the questions here is this the kind of guy you would want to marry let's talk about this first of all how long did Jack and Rose know each other in that movie 3 days 3 days right and then even in those 3 days they didn't spend that much time together right because she's in the first-class deck he's way down below so even in the three days they barely saw each other and and then what is Jack do for a living by the way do you remember he's a painter but what does he paint he doesn't paint trees and forests what does he paint naked women is that the kind of guy you want to marry yeah but they just all but it's just so beautiful you know you know the real undid the real picture of love you had to pick a picture of love this is this is what love is and Titanic remember this I'm guessing up at the front of the bow at the ship do you know my wife read an article a couple years after the movie came out say that cruise liners had to put a security guard at the front of the ships after the movie came out seriously cuz all these girls would take their boyfriends on the ship and so no just hold me like Jack cauldros will play Celine Dion in the background it would be perfect then I'll know you love me but that's not real love you know what happens is we often idealize this is I'm going to read you a quote from John Paul the second here about love he says when we're emotionally attracted of someone else the other person the other person grows in value enormous ly as a rule out of all proportion to his or her real value so when we become a motion attracted to someone else he says as a rule this other person grows out of all proportion to their real value in other words we we all do this so don't deny if you think I've read the ology the body I came to focus conference I'm in a Bible study I control my emotions you're a liar or you're deceived John Paul the second makes it very clear this is as a rule this is just what happens normally because our emotions were falling human beings they get out of whack and this is going to happen to the best of us we just have to be aware of it and we tend to exaggerate the person we meet somebody and we have exaggerated and make them to be like this great Saint on a first meeting this happens all the time we idealize other people there could be again woman shows up at the Newman Center for some social events and new guys there and they talk for 20 minutes and and she can't stop thinking about him you know and feel maybe this is the one and you know and that could happen guys in a 20 minute conversation by the way that does happen sometimes and to all of a sudden exaggerate this other person you know I met this guy at the event he's a good Catholic I've talked to him for 20 minutes he must be like blessed pier Giorgio just a perfect holy saint this is gonna be wonderful there's a guy I knew that I went to college with and he did this over and over again with Gow see we just idealized these girls that he would start dating and then he break up with him like every or get dumped a couple weeks later it was just crazy and he happened all the time he had this one line there would always come up he would talk about all she's a lot of fun she she's really athletic that was real important to him that she was athletic and liked to run or something things like that or she she was very caring and then he would pause and saying you know what she reminds me of my mom and every time I gave that mom line I went oh no here we go again but you could tell he was searching for something he was longing for this ideal person and so he meets someone that has just a sliver of that ideal and almost a boom magnifies her qualities makes her out to be something much greater than she really is why do we do this we do this in the end john paul ii says because when we think that this might be mr. right mrs. right mr. perfect mrs. perfect we get a lot of emotions from that so when I can magnify an exaggerated this person's qualities I get this rush of emotion this eruption of emotions come and I just can't stop thinking about this person I go to the holy hour and praying for this person I'm just thik praying about this person I'm not really talking to Jesus anymore but it's all about this other person this is great and so I'm just thinking about this person so much and I get so much good feelings out of it but I really loving the person I'm loving this ideal I created and not the real person himself or herself and we tend to do this because we're longing to find this this this this ideal person with all our heart and so we notice one small quality and we exaggerate it but when we do that what I want us to see here is we're really just using the person we're not really loving them we're not even loving the real person we're actually just using them to exploit them for our own emotional pleasure so I can get this big rush of emotion I saw this all the time when I remember teaching a Benedictine you know been eating wigs very Catholic campus and all the students have to talk about it we got to be very Catholic you know we don't date a Benedict and ricourt you know so it's very serious and you know they have to follow all the right rules and all and we're gonna do this all right and it's all Noble I'm not making fun of it but there's giving you the sense of the environment on the campus so many people doing it this way and so they'll start a relationship and you know that you'd see these people they go for late-night walks together they would pray they'd pull out their rosary beads they'd walk along the bluffs there and pray the rosary geração sounds all very holy and you know they go to Mass and you know they sit next to each other Mass because Jesus is right there and then at the Our Father they get to hold hands kind of in that special way you know you know so they're you know with Jesus and they pray after Mass and it's all sounding really wonderful and I can remember the freshmen would look up at this couple and go wow what an ideal couple I hope I can find a boyfriend or a girlfriend like they have this wonderful relationship and then all of a sudden they break up and they hate each other's guts and it's really awkward anytime they see each other on campus I don't really talk to each other anymore and everyone's wanting what happened the freshmen are all discouraged oh my goodness how did that happen I go totally I know what happened it's called idealization you know when we when we open up so quickly sometimes in a relationship sharing our hearts sharing our emotions so much then it creates a false sense of whether the relationship is really at so we want to be careful and not just kind of open up all of our emotions and bare our souls together so quickly we want to be cautious and gradually unveil ourselves and be very careful that we're not falling into the idealization of the other person true story there was a campus in the South many years ago Curtis tells the story actually it was with Campus Crusade and they once spring semester they just they had men's Bible studies women's Bible studies but they decided to set up prayer partners between the men and the women okay so every man had a woman prayer partner and they would get together and pray together pray for each other's need share each other's what's going on each other's life and they did this in spring so here they are you could guess what happened with all these prayer partners many of these prayer partners became dating couples eventually right and they all started falling in love with each other and then summer break happens and then they're away from each other for three months in the summer and then these couples all come back together in the fall and guess what happened in their relationships most of them broke up what happened there it caused a big big big problem for the ministry for them but what happened was in the in the spring you know he's sitting there you know he's saying okay dear God I pray for Sally here and she's going to go home for Spring Break she had some difficult situations with her mom and dad and I just pray that you send your spirit to give her guidance and wisdom and know that that you're gonna be with her and that she'll know that I'm praying for every day and it just imagine some woman hearing some man praying for this way it's like oh what a good godly man and you know they're sharing each other's life in this way and when we have that very emotional relationship bearing our souls to each other especially early on a relationship that's very dangerous for creating a false sense of where the relationship really is so let me conclude by highlighting the big picture here we've seen two main ways we're attracted to each other we're attracted essentially physically and emotionally but if we focus on this here these two aspects to guide our relationships we're really not going to grow in love this is what john paul ii calls an immature love an immature love he says this is not love he says this is just a psychological experience that they're having together they they like each other's bodies they're attracted to other's bodies and they get these emotions from each other that's all it is that's not love real love a mature love is a love is characterized by self-giving where I give of myself and love to this other person and this is the key thing I want you to see here in an immature love what am i doing utilitarianism I look at this other person more in terms of what do I get out of them I get emotions from them or I get physical pleasure from them and when we're in a relationship like that deep down from this side we were fraught with insecurity and fear because we deep down know that's how the person's just using me if I bring anything up that might make this person upset they're going to run or break up with me there's no real vulnerability is no real exposure if this is Who I am and I'm really being loved as a person because I deep down know this other person's using me we've got to get out of an immature love that initial attraction has to grow into self giving and what is self giving characterized by the catechism of Catholic Church teaches what love is love is to will the good of another it's to seek what's best for the other person so in this kind of relationship of authentic love I'm looking at the other person not in terms of what I get out of them but more I'm giving myself to them and I'm serving them and as I mentioned that earlier it's not just about me serving them it's also about then we together as a team starting to serve other people people ask me all the time what should I do in I'm going into a dating relationship with someone how do I make sure I don't close in on ourselves and it's just that I - I face-to-face kind of relationship that is closed in on itself how do I avoid that try to do things in groups try to do things you need one-on-one time yes but try to do a lot of things with other people and do things where you're serving other people you're serving in your campus ministry you're serving and focus your serving on your campus you're going out of yourself the more you're doing that together you're actually developing the habits that you need for your future marriage and that is relationship characterized by self giving love and that is the conclusion of what I have to say at least for now I have so much more I'd love to talk about you

Channel: FOCUS Catholic

Views: 14,628

Rating: 4.9004974 out of 5

Keywords: Real Christ-centered, Faithful, Relatable, Joyful, Available, Committed, college students, Patient, Jesus, catholic, Prayerful, FOCUS, Authentic, Honest, Passionate, Dr. Edward Sri, Dr. Ted Sri, the mystery of love, relationships, seek2015, seek15, seek, seek conference, focus, fellowship of catholic university students, kayaking, adventure, conference, tennessee, nashville tennesssee, men and women, dating 101, theology of the body, love and responsibility, john paul ii, marriage, dating

Id: XX2EKMxYxfY

Length: 53min 3sec (3183 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2015