When Priests Can’t Reach My Heart, Masturbation & Getting Engaged?, Is My Ache for Chris the Bridegroom Normal? | ACW351
Ask Christopher West
Theology of the Body Institute
4.9 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Questions answered this episode:
- I’m struggling to find a spiritual director who can really speak to my heart. The priests I’ve met at the Institute understand integration deeply, but I can’t find anyone like that locally. My current director stays in the intellectual and rational, but I long to share my heart—its joys, sorrows, and complexities. How can I do that if I can’t find a priest who can truly receive it?
- My girlfriend and I want to get engaged soon. I’ve battled a masturbation addiction for 15 years, and while I’m free from porn, I’m not fully healed. In Next Step we were warned not to expect marriage to fix this. Should I wait until I’m chaste to propose, or move forward in trust? I don’t want sin to hold us back, but I also don’t know if I can fully be a gift.
- I’m 82, and Jesus revealed himself to me as bridegroom nearly 60 years ago. I thought I was alone in this until your ministry confirmed what I’ve long believed. After two abusive marriages and decades of celibacy, I live in longing for the marriage supper of the Lamb. At times, I’ve ached so deeply for Jesus it felt like being separated from a beloved husband before consummation—sweet but painful. Is this longing normal, or am I treading on ground too sacred?
Resources:
Our Bodies Tells God's Story Book
Ask Christopher West is a weekly podcast in which Theology of the Body Institute President Christopher West and his beloved wife Wendy share their humor and wisdom, answering questions about marriage, relationships, life, and the Catholic faith, all in light of John Paul II’s beautiful teachings on the Theology of the Body.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Theology of the Body Institute, this is the Ask Christopher West podcast. |
| 0:15.2 | Welcome to another episode, everybody. |
| 0:19.1 | Yes, hi podcast listeners. |
| 0:20.5 | Thanks for tuning in today. |
| 0:22.6 | We have a fun little gift to share with you at the start of our episode. |
| 0:27.3 | Our son, Isaac, he's 18 years old, and he is a singer-songwriter. |
| 0:36.9 | He produces all of his music right in his bedroom here. |
| 0:41.3 | He records all the parts. |
| 0:43.3 | He writes all the songs. |
| 0:44.3 | He sings. |
| 0:45.3 | He does all the instruments. |
| 0:46.3 | He produces it. |
| 0:48.3 | It's pretty impressive. |
| 0:50.3 | Like the tools that you can use today to create music are all new to me. When I was back in the day, |
| 0:57.0 | and in my musician years, I recorded some albums, but you were actually recording it onto tape. |
| 1:04.0 | That sounds so old-fashioned. But anyway, we didn't have all these fun tools, but I wanted to |
| 1:08.6 | play a song from his new album. |
| 1:18.7 | The album is called Father Father, and I'm just going to hold up my smartphone to the microphone here, so it's not best quality. |
| 1:20.6 | But check out the link below. |
| 1:24.2 | You can get it on iTunes or Spotify, wherever you listen to music. |
| 1:31.0 | His music name, his kind of stage name, is Sogan. Is that how he pronounce it? Sogan. S-O-G-E-N and the O has a line through it. Is it Swedish? |
| 1:37.0 | Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, this is a song called Save It All. It's one of my favorites from the new |
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