I attended the WBC24 conference in Perth, Western Australia in September 2024. https://www.evangelisationaustralia.com/events
Below was the line up from the days I attended, and some take away points from a selection of the talks.
Overview
Thursday
- Prof. John Bergsma – The Bible as story of God’s family
- Simon Carrington – Rediscovering the masculine heart: Becoming the man god created you to be
- Madeline Carrington – The feminine mystery: Becoming the woman that God wants us to be
Friday – I only attended the day time tutorial by Prof. John Bergsma
- The sanctification of time – Making time holy
- Jesus, Melchizedek and the Jubilee – Fulfilling Israel’s hope for liberation
Saturday
- Fr Christian Irdi – Discernment
- Madeline Carrington – Discovering your call to sanctity
- Simon Carrington – Celibacy: going all in for God
- Prof. John Bergsma – The Bible and marriage
- Madeline Carrington – Building a household of faith
- Simon Carrington – Parenting purity to teens
- Prof. John Bergsma – The Bible and marriage (part 2)
Here are parts of the talks on masculinity and marriage from both Simon Carrington and Prof. John Bergsma that I found most impactful.
Simon Carrington – Rediscovering the masculine heart: Becoming the man god created you to be
Summary
- Christian men are not pursuing their dream. Not using their talents.
- When living out of your talent, your passion comes out.
- Pope Benedict – “we are not here for comfort, we are here for greatness”.
- Every Christian man should have an ambition to be great. Be ambitious to do something great for God and others.
- A question to ask yourselves. If you did fulfil your dream
- How will that bring glory to God
- And how will that bless others.
- We often do not pursue things we are proud of, things that we love. So regular life becomes boring. This is where addictions like porn can come in.
- The addiction is never the problem. It is a response to a pre existing problem, that is a lack of fulfilment.
- Jesus wants us to live a John 10:10 life – The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. Living life to the full, living our God given mission. Living my masculine mission.
Am I a man worth following?
- This question impacted me deeply. It got me thinking, am I someone, who if I met a stranger, would they see that I am different. That I have something different, something that they would be attracted to?
- Would my life, draw people to Christ? Would who I am, draw people to Christ?
- If not, why not? What am I doing in my life, that if I changed, would make me a man worth following, and therefore draw people to Christ.
Living out our vocation (we will touch on this later in Prof. John Bergsma’s talk)
- Husbands are supposed to love their wives and children.
- This is our responsibility. To lead my family, my wife (and children) to him. To Christ.
- He gave a great quote (I can’t remember where he said he got it – I think he said it was his father): “When I get home from work and put my key in the door, that’s when my real job starts”
Ephesians 5 tells us:
- 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour
So this speaks about how women should subject themselves to their husbands. How can we expect our wives to allow us to lead them COMPLETELY if there are areas in our lives where I am:
- Not fully alive
- Bored
- Or I’m just straight up not worth following
We are called to
- Serve – Lead by serving
- Protect and defend our wives and children
- Both of these come in so many forms. E.g. phones, screens, TV, internet, etc.
- We must become the spiritual leader of our home. This is a serious role.
- We should be initiating family prayer, Bible reading, active participation in Confession, frequently attending Mass, praying the Rosary, etc.
- Praying for guidance in how to lead our family, and praying for protection and wisdom for my wife (and children).
- There should be no excuses for this, no “too tired” or “too busy”.
A couple of other points he made:
- Being a Christian man is not just about being nice and kind. It’s sometimes about being brave and standing up for truth. Who do we love more? Man or God?
- Satan is hell bent on destroying our marriage union and family unit, because our marriage is a sign of God’s love for the church.
- Our marriage should inspire others to love more deeply.
Prof. John Bergsma – the Bible and marriage (part 2)
Section/Portion of the presentation
- Marriage is intimately wrapped up with the Gospel. The Eucharist is us talking the body of the bridegroom and being united to him as his Church.
- Ephesians 5:21 – Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ
- Ephesians 5:22 – Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord
- The word for “Be subject” = “under place” in Greek. It’s a reciprocal action. Means place yourself under your husband. In what sense? Under the protective love of your husband.
- This needs to inform the Christian culture as a whole. We also need to raise young men who know they are to protect girls. To be a source of protection and safety. So your spouse can feel confident and safe in your arms.
- An attitude of deference and humility should characterise the whole Christian community. Deference = polite submission and respect.
- Throughout Ephesians 5 there is a reciprocal submission and respect between husbands and wives.
- It does not say husbands subject your wives. There is no verse in the Bible that tells husbands to make your wives do anything!
- The Bible never authorises husbands to use force against their wives or compel them to do anything.
- Sirach 25:16 – “I would rather live with a lion or a dragon than live with an evil wife.”
- Even in Proverbs, the husband who has a belligerent wife, he’s told to hide in a corner.
- Proverbs 21:9 gives the advice: “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.”
- Paul is respecting wives as independent moral agents. Here he asks wives to do it of their free will. No compulsion. There is freedom here.
- This leads back to the earlier question from Simon Carrington: Can my wife entrust me, put herself subject (or under the protective love) to me in all things?
- Trusting that I won’t take advantage of her? And that I will make the best decisions for her and the family.
- For people discerning marriage
- If women can’t do this, they should not marry the man.
- Christian marriage takes a lot of faith. Have faith, if the Lord wants you to be married, he will help you to find someone you can fully trust.
- Ephesians 5:23 – For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour
- Husband is a leader in the family.
- Being a leader also means being chief servant.
- Luke 22 – Jesus teaches the apostles how to be leaders. He who is first must be servant of all.
- If husband is head of the wife, then he is the servant of the wife. It’s entrusted to him to lead his wife and lead his family. The buck stops with me. I have ultimate responsibility for everything.
- Book – former Navy seal. Extreme ownership, by Jocko Willink.
- A leader is one who takes extreme ownership of the welfare of the people under his leadership.
- If anything goes wrong, he takes the fall. Goes right, praise goes to the team. No one gets thrown under the bus.
- This is what Jesus did for us. The whole team failed. Was it Jesus’s fault? No. But he’s the one who took responsibility.
- This is in contrast to Adam. Adam threw eve under the bus. “The woman… that you gave me”. Everyone’s fault but Adams.
- Husbands/Fathers are called to take ownership of their family.
- Ephesians 5:25 – Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
- This takes a lot of trust.
- If our wives don’t trust us, it’s because we are not Christ like enough.
- Husbands, work towards being Christ . Be responsible and self sacrificial.
- When husbands have the complete trust of his wife, he will feel a healthy pride and very good about himself.
- Women love to know when her husband is rock solid.
- It’s like a dance. Even dancing requires leadership. The guy normally leads the waltz. But when you watch them, you look at the woman. The guys are the frame for the picture. The woman is the picture, dressed beautifully. The woman needs total confidence in the guy, especially in ice figure skating.
- Figure skating is an icon of Christian marriage.
- Ephesians 5:25
- Demanding instructions for husbands.
- “Gave himself up for her” this is the language of being handed up to your enemies (in Isaiah)
- We are called to sanctify her.
- The language in these verses is cultic language from the priesthood. The husband has a priestly role at home and to the wife to lead her in worship.
- Nourish – Greek word here is talking about nursing, e.g. mothers and their children. That’s the root word here. It’s a tender, maternal expression. He’s calling husbands to be maternal in their tenderness towards their wife. So there is deep intimacy here.
- Cherish – Greek word comes from mother birds brooding their chicks.
- Tenderness is what a husband should have towards their wives, like Christ had towards his church.
Fr. Christian Irdi – Discernment
- St Therese – “Holiness is simply doing God’s will and being just what God wants us to be.”
- How do I know what the will of God is? What he wants me to do? Because that is the path to holiness
- That’s what discernment is about.
- Holiness is to be like God.
- If we decide to be holy, which we should all be striving for it, (because this is doing God’s will), then we should want to do his will.
- What God wants for you (in every moment of every day, and in your whole life) is
- to choose the path of greatest love.
- In small moments and big moments God wants for you to take the path of greatest love.
- Because God is love. The whole point of the spiritual life is love.
- Love is to will the good of the other person (Aquinas). It’s not a feeling, it’s a choice.
- Every moment I’m faced with “am I going to love, or am I going to be selfish”
- Discernment does not equal just God telling us what to do and us going and going it like a military commander
- 1 John 4:19 tells us – we love because he first loved us. The Bible is not about man’s search for God, it’s about God’s search for us. We seek to do his will, because he first loved us.
- In discernment I’m trying to respond to the god that loved me first. The first step is an encounter with the god who loves me. I must know him
- Know God – We need a foundational awareness that God loves us.
- Know my identity – Healing encounter with Jesus, he wants to meet us and heal us in the encounter of love. Then once I’ve experienced the love…
- Having the desire to respond
- Know God.
- God is love, and loves us first
- If I’m not prepared to love in a sacrificial way, then how am I going to follow the god who is love?
- Did Jesus ever say, you have to convert first, love me fully, then I’ll love you in return? No, the opposite.
- While we were still sinners, he died for us.
- Even if I’m living in sin, God still loves me and has a plan for me.
- Know my identity
- Jesus reveals God to man, but also man to himself.
- When we encounter the god who loves us, we also discover our true identity, as a beloved child of God by baptism, I’m grafted on to God’s family. He calls me by name.
- When Jesus was baptised, God said this is my beloved son, then Jesus began his mission.
- When I come in contact with God, he gives me my identity, and then I can start seeing my mission.
- Without knowing
- Who God is
- My identity
- How can I know what god wants me to do?
- Pope Benedict – “each of us is an independent thought of God”.
- We each have a specific plan that only we can do. Jeremiah 29:11 – For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope
- If this is not our foundation as we are discerning our vocation, then we are going wrong.
- We should realise these things in our prayer.
- So Discernment of God’s will is about
- Finding out who I am created to be.
- Then I’m happy, then I’m holy.
- When we come to know just how much God loves us, a yearning will awaken in our hearts.
- This is the contact with which discernment must take place.
- Psalm 40 – to do your will is my delight.
- Jesus – not my will, your will.
- This is the essence of sanctity.
- 1 kings 3:5, 7-12 – Solomon prayer for a discerning heart – This is a prayer God will answer
- Solomon, as a young king, now lord my god, you have made me your servant…
- God says: “Because you have asked for discernment…”, and He gives it to him.
- Read Wisdom 9 every day (also The Prayer of Solomon)
- When I wake up,
- I have a choice. Pray, or reach for phone.
- I meet my family. Do I love them as they need to be loved.
- At work, difficult colleagues. Do I love them, or do they get on my nerves.
- The thing that will make me happiest is to do the will of God
- There will be both a sense of fear AND attraction when discerning vocations.
What can help when trying to seek God’s will/discerning
- Mass (do I go regularly?)
- Spiritual director (Bernard of clarveaut – “he who directs himself, is being directed by a fool”) – helps you discern, and tell between good and bad spirits
- Read Galatians 5 – fruits of the holy spirit. If I’m on God’s path for me, those fruits are going to multiply. If the fruits are not there, I’m doing something contrary to God’s will.
- Joy and peace are two good signs that I’m doing what God is wanting me to do (recommendation to read Ignatius – 14 rules for the discernment of spirits. Is God leading me or the devil pulling me off track). When I discover God’s true will for me, my life will have a sense of joy and peace about it.
- God doesn’t compete with us. We should not be looking to compromise with God, and have two wills competing. It’s about me discovering who I am, who I’m called to be, and walking in that.