Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 And reappraised him on the name of father, son? Holy spirit. Well, just before we get to this turn, I'll start today with a serious warning. Uh, and I mean, uh, Pope Francis has invited fellows instead of Catholic charismatics, the members of the Pentecostal and evangelical churches to wrong, to celebrate Pentecost, Mark, the 50th anniversary of what became the carer Catholic charismatic renewal. There'll be a prayer visual June 3rd to Eva, Pentecost at Roman circus Maximus and open field. That was a site of an ancient Roman stadium used for charity races. So we're going to have Catholics Pentecostals, the Magella Coles all gathered together, invoking, uh, whatever spirit the devil is an opportunist. And boy, this is an opportunity for him and you don't want to open any doors too. So don't watch this on TV or the internet to watch an eclipse of whatever happens there. Mortify your curiosity, just pray. Don't even look at pitch or stuff, anything that goes on in there. So if you, uh, if you want context for the whole charismatic movement, you might watch a documentary called Marsha. It's hard to watch. It's a Pentecostal preacher. That's really taken advantage of, of nice people, but largely it was filmed almost 45 years ago or so marginal. And that'll give you some context, but keep away from this. Don't don't look into it. Tell you have been more.
Speaker 0 00:01:43 Last week, we spoke about the spiritual life of the supernatural life of grace. We saw that in that life, the supernatural life of sanctifying grades, there are three youth which are analogous to the three ages, childhood adolescence, and adulthood of the natural. We saw it at the first age of the scripture. The age of a spiritual child is known as a prerogative life or the life of beginners. The focus at this stage should be on continually staying in a state of grace by avoiding all more sin and all deliberate videos on denying denial on concrete advice, evil tendencies. And I crawling in the virtues by faithfully performing exterior and interior modification and developing a true life of prayer. We start, there are two very, very different forms of productive life. In some, this form of life is very intense. They're generous. We saw these souls are serious about becoming saints.
Speaker 0 00:02:51 They want to follow this straight narrow path and perfect self Dina. We saw that in most, the provocative life appears in a weaker form, very from good souls who are a little weak, all the way down to those local warm souls who are complacent in their lack of generosity, whose motto is really the minimum. Wasn't good enough. It wouldn't be the minimum. And as a result of their worldliness, both souls are in terrible risk of health, where we saw that mental prayer today, we're going to describe just what we mean by mental per. We sought the mental prayer of those and the prerogative life is generally discursive. And that means it goes from point to point, they think and pray about this and they go like this and they go like this and they go like this. And it's typically marked by many sensible constellations.
Speaker 0 00:03:45 What we mean by sense of con constellations are feelings of love, peace, their good feelings. As the people have given themselves over to prayer. It's marked by that. We also saw that if one of these souls is faithful and his driving, he would come to transition. And that's a transition from the age of spiritual childhood, the purgative life, the life of beginner to the spiritual age, which is an analogous to that of an adolescent. This life is called the illuminative life or the life of proficient. And this stage of spiritual life is characterized by a much simpler sort of prayer. So instead of going from one point to the next to the next, they just go to the point and there they are. And they're not doing that. This isn't some kind of weird Eastern exercise. It's by the grace of God. We also saw that during the transition from the spiritual child or the prerogative life to the spiritual adolescence of the aluminum life, there's a crisis it's analogous to the crisis of puberty, the natural life and the transition from childhood to adolescence.
Speaker 0 00:04:51 But in spiritual life, there's a crisis known as the dark night of the senses or the passive purification of the senses. And the crisis is actually caused by God, what's he doing? He's importing his soul, a certain measure of this higher simpler type of prayer. That's proper to those who are in the illuminative way, but since the soul is not yet strong enough for that illumination, it actually blinds. The spiritual life is too intense for the soul to handle it that time. It's roughly analogous to the experience we've all had. If we've walked out of a very dark room in a blinding sunlight, we're disoriented, it hurts. We can tell our eyes adjust. It's very painful. We just can't see. Clearly this is an allergy to that. God is calling us soul in the dark night. The sense is higher. It's called a higher level of prayer.
Speaker 0 00:05:45 And this crisis is something that just has to be surmounted. If there is going to be any progress. And oftentimes people will turn back at this instead of going forward, because they don't realize it's going to hurt to go forward. They look at the crucifix, but they don't really get as red as true. That Hicks actually is the sign for our religion. And that is the way forward. At this time. His soul was also overcome terrible dryness, but if he perseveres he'll enter in illuminative way, it's painful, but it can be done. And always the person growing very significantly in a holiness in this process, he's also getting out of significant amounts of purgatory time. So that pain is awesome because he's growing in virtue. And at the same time, he doesn't have to do time in purgatory for any of that. Huh? In that case, there's also two possibilities though.
Speaker 0 00:06:38 Those who are generous and fix their will on faithfully find out no, it was for less generous. Okay. Finally, we pointed out that by virtue of your baptism, everyone here has been called to limited life. But whether you're not, you get there before your death actually depends on you. It depends on you and your generosity and picking up and embrace your cross. Okay. So much for our review today, we'll talk about one of the most important means. In fact, an absolutely critical means for making advancements in the spiritual life. And that is a mental prayer. So for the rest of the sermon, we're going to quote it at length from a billion little work called the little catechism of life for prayer. That's why the great discounts, Carmelite spiritual director of the late great father, Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene, as usual, the edited, the quotes of in pretty severely edited and cut and pasted.
Speaker 0 00:07:38 It's a question. What is a prayer? Prayer is conversation with God. What you manifest desires of our hearts for can be vocal or mental. What is vocal, prayer, vocal prayers, that and which we recite a formula, which expresses our desire. For example, our father, we were side for the intention of honoring God. And the same often we do not think in a distinct way, the sense of the words we're pronouncing, but that doesn't hinder our prayer from being true prayer. As long as the solar means, turn towards God with the desire of honoring it. Can't just be chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. What is a mental prayer? Mental prayer consist in talking to God with a heart and spontaneous manner without prepared or memorized formulas. What do we say to God in mental prayer, we share with God all the desires of our heart, the great doctor of the church st.
Speaker 0 00:08:41 Trace of Jesus said, Saint Teresa teaches that we should prefer to tell God that we love him, or at least that we desire to love him. Why speak to God, especially of love, because it's love that makes friendship flourish and leads to intimacy. And according to st. Trees that we ought to become great friends, intimate and friends of our Lord. Is it also necessary to think in prayer to love God is necessary to think of him. This might be a somewhat prolonged reflection on God's love for us, but it also might be a simple remembrance of the Lord's lovableness and of his goodness in prayer. We think only to the love. That's important in prayer. We think point to love to nourish love. Saint Teresa said that prayer consists not in thinking much, but in loving much what is love. There's a sense of a love.
Speaker 0 00:09:42 And a lot of the sensible love consists in a feeling that draws us affectionately towards someone and makes us experience pleasure in that person's company or in thinking of love the will consistent, willing the good for the person. In other words, since below has to, with feelings with light and love the will may very well not have nothing to do with the feelings at all. It's easy to tell a difference. If we remember the parents always love their teenagers, even though sometimes they might not like them very much. The love is willed. The feelings of that sensible love, which one of these is true love of the will sensible. Well, although it's pleasant is of secondary importance. The experience of the sensible love of God does not depend on us. In other words, if we want to, we're not always going to get these warm fuzzy is by thinking about God, but our love of the will for God, does depend on us.
Speaker 0 00:10:48 Why would we naturally desire? Sensible love? We desire it for its sweetness because it provides comfort and constellation. It's precisely for this reason. Then insensible of we often seek ourself with the love of the will we seek God. Does he often takes a sensible love away from us to make us more walk more resonantly with the will alone. The old expression is we have to be in love with the God of constellations. Now the constellations of God, constellations are sensible. We have to be in love with the God of constellation, not the constellations of God. And that's why he will take away sometimes with which love should we love God and prayer. Certainly with the love of the, will this be more important? If sense of the love constellations happened to be added to this, then it's sit out of our seeking pleasure. We should profit by its aid to strengthen our will and giving ourselves to God when sense a love is lacking.
Speaker 0 00:11:54 We should continue with the will. How can I get started in this loving with our global work in the beginning of the life of prayer, many people encountered great difficulties and experience bored, or else the conscience of being very distracted. And it's important for me to insert here. If you get serious about starting life, mental prayer in the beginning, it is going to be difficult. I'll guarantee you and you will be fine in about 40 11. Really good reasons why you don't need to do it right now for today, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. See, once the devil sees you getting serious, he just puts out a cigarette and then he goes to work cause like, Oh, and then he's going to go out here. How's he going to do that? He's going to attempt you to do things that are good, but they're not praying.
Speaker 0 00:12:43 Most people don't realize that the devil does tempt to do good. Cause he'll attempt to you towards a lesser good. If he sees you're going to go pray and say, well, you better call this person to do that. No, if you want to do this, you have to make up your mind to do this and make up your mind that nothing. And that means nothing barring and stuffing, chest wounds and things of that level, that nothing is going to stop you from doing it. And then you just plow ahead, meant a prayer of something you have to will to do. And that's something also that you can learn. So it is going to be difficult in the beginning. You make up your mind, right? We do it. And it's going to be difficult. Kind of learn their methods to mental prayer because there are today.
Speaker 0 00:13:27 We're free from going to cover the Carmelite method. It's based on the teachings of those great doctors, the church st. Teresa Jesus, the Saint John, the cross. Now, before we get to that, I would like to suggest to you pick a time and a place to do this daily and be somewhat a stickler about both of those points. Some people have to travel and so forth, but outside of the pick a time and a specific place. If you have a big closet, you can put a crucifix in there. For sure. If he can do it, a corner of the room someplace consistent, and that you can go to every day, senior angel, the blessed sacrament, unless you look across the church from across the street from church or something, do as the same place at home and be like to cartoon, praying their selves and they send their games with the bus, sir.
Speaker 0 00:14:15 Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with going to was a sacrament that's idea. You don't already have the habit. That's not the good way to start. Then you're trying to start two things at once. One is going to a church and get you done. Others, give you the mental prayer. Start with the mental prayer in one place. Okay? If you already go everyday great, then you can do that or send your angel to pleasant sacrament. And when he started, I would recommend 10 to 15 minutes for the first three months. So you just, you pick one of those stick with it, 10 or 15 minutes. And then at the end of three months, yeah, five minutes. And so next three months later, you had five minutes over time. You'll build up your time and mental prayer and you get better at it. And if you're faithful to this, somehow, even though you're spending more time in prayer, it's not going to impact your duties for the rest of the day.
Speaker 0 00:15:07 And that you can only experience, you have to take it on faith God or later your charges things. So somehow they stretch things around like when a priest was really busy, I tell him, you don't need to do one hot polio or you need to do two. Cause you got a lot more responsibilities that it's completely the opposite of a natural way. Thinking. I know people, you know, mothers obviously are going to have to be somewhat creative, more flexible. If you're nursing, for example, you can use those times, but I know couples that are very, very busy homeschooling, et cetera. Still find time to do an hour virtually every day, each one of them, but they didn't start there. Be humble. Start with 10 or 15 minutes. Now, five minutes every three months. And you can get up to quite a bit of mental prayer and you should strive for let's turn the method of mental prayer.
Speaker 0 00:15:56 What are the steps? This method of mental prayer. It's easy. I'm going to give you names, but once you listen to them, you'll see how it all works. The steps, preparation, reading meditation with a loving color colored, Kuwait Thanksgiving offering petition. So preparation, reading meditation. What was a loving couple of queen on Thanksgiving offering petition. Don't so many steps make this method too complicated, not necessarily the first two steps, preparation reading or not yet for, but only sort of an entrance to the last three strips Thanksgiving offering and the petitioner option and its essence, the heart mental prayer, it's meditation accompany, but intimate conversation with dark Lord. That's just loving call out. What's the best way to understand the Carmelite method of prayer by keeping in mind the teaching of Saint trees and the metal prayer consist in an intimate conversation with our Lord in which we speak to him, especially of love responding to his invitation, to love him.
Speaker 0 00:17:07 The point of preparation reading is delete as gently to this loving conversation with him. How does the preparation serve this purpose? Since we can't speak intimately with anyone, if we're not near them, our preparation consists of Senator angel, the blessed sacrament, and then placed ourselves in the presence of God with a lively faith in the humble attitude of a soul that knows itself to be a child of God. Now, how hard is that? Neil? You said your page or the blessed sacrament, ask them to pray there. And then you just place yourself in prayer, in the presence of God saying, I believe, I believe on your presence. I know you're on your job. Anybody can do this. Children can do this. What's the purpose of reading, reading, good. Visit the topic for the loving conversation with our Lord. What books should we use for this reading?
Speaker 0 00:18:05 Well, besides books, collections of meditation, all spiritual books, they reveal the many manifestations of God's love are good. The gospels imitation of Christ, various meditation books written by Saint Alphonsus for these very purposes, by the way, those are available. There are meditations for every day of the year written by Saint Alphonsus. They're available for free on religious bookshelf.com religious book chuffed up calm. Meditation's written by Saint Alphonsus for every day of the year. They're free. You can just click on it. And there they are religiously bookshop. The books of father, Jack Felipe, certain lives of the saints and so forth. Anything that inspires me, intense love of God. Can you, that's what you're looking for. Something that speaks to you about Hong Kong. You it's implied <inaudible> and not to just turn the time mental prayer into nothing more than spiritually. How should we read? First of all, we should read with attention since the purpose of the reading is to find a topic, to have a talk to our Lord about.
Speaker 0 00:19:15 We should also in that case read slowly and what devotion and recollection, why? Because it makes our soul more attentive, receptive to good ideas, maybe resume our rating during the prayer. Theresa never went to prayer without taking a book with her. And she's one of the great ministers of the church. When it becomes too difficult to maintain our attention, we can turn back to the book, but we have to be careful not to turn that mental prayer time into spiritual free, at least remain a meditative breathing, which we pause from time to time to make affections and resolutions. Then really the reading itself becomes an instrument for a conversation with Christ. So the book, the reading is a means to an end, it's there to help us to have that loving conversation with meditation. Why meditation meditation helps us better understand God's love for us.
Speaker 0 00:20:14 It's shown in a topic that we consider. We're thinking about how he loves this particular topic. If we're meditating on a patch, we can think about how he loves us and what he's going through and suffering for us and so forth. So meditation is the media preparation, that loving conversation with our, of what does meditation consistent. Again, this has a little less, but it's easy to understand for the most part, the Carmelite authors distinguished three elements of meditation. One representation. That's the work of the imagination to reflection that's the work. And three, the colloquy, the word principally of the will, which is an important one. What's representation. That's forming an image, a picture, a representation of the topic. Is it always necessary? No. Some people have lively imaginations. Others are almost incapable of forming image. Some people like to pray with a Holy icon right there at crucifix.
Speaker 0 00:21:11 That's great. That's a representation. There's no need. It's been much tonic flooring representations, a few moments to flies, but of course we could keep up for us during the whole time of meditation. If we're able to do this, it can help us avoid distraction. The point is that it's not necessary, but it's often useful. It depends on the person because a lot of freedom, if you find it useful, help, you know, then use it. If you find a hindrance, don't bother with it, just skip right on. But you don't have to think about it just to hold their imagination for wandering around and showing you some ridiculous movie. That's the only one that felt purposeful right there. And so that we can keep on the topic. What's the reflection. And is it important reflection? It's thinking through the 0.4 points to the discussion and it is important.
Speaker 0 00:21:59 It should last till it produces in our mind an actual conviction of being loved by God and being invited to love him in return. So we pondered the crucifix and think about what he went through for me for thinking about the passion and he'd be nailed up there. What he went through for me, it's something personal is a personal prayer. I'm like, huh? So we continue to reflect until our will is Kendall with love. So as to be able to reign some time at that audition. So this reflection be made in thought if that's the kind of person that y'all even Saint Teresa consuls and the meditation on the passion of our Lord to consider who is and why, who was what disposition and so forth. Again, it depends on a person. If those kind of considerations help you as him, if not don't, the goal is to come to a better understanding of the love of God. What should those do? Who cannot admit it to you? Trees shouldn't, uh, teaches another way of controlling thoughts take site, which can be used by individuals have great difficulty in dwelling on a definite ID in order to be Sam with the formerly reflections. So they simply recite very slowly, a vocal prayer full of meaning to them, pausing to consider very attentively the sense of the words as they're going and taking the opportunity to form some reflections and express affection.
Speaker 0 00:23:30 How does one do ask this meditation, this work at the handling to loving college? Mmm. Transition should not be made some sort of precise, a mathematically determined moment, but in a spontaneous way, by making reflections in the presence of God who we're seeing now, the way in much more clearly how much God loves us, we feel more easily moved to speak leveling to him. Finally, we leave behind all our considerations or abandon ourselves fully to the exercise of love and its manifestations and that sweet pass of loving Cola. Ms. Conversation, we tell we're repeating a thousand ways that we love it, that we desire to loving more and improve our love to him. This gets easier with practice. Some people can do it right off the gate. Most of people have to keep practicing, practicing. It gets easier. Has this colloquia before this colloquy is actually the most important, it's the central part of prayer.
Speaker 0 00:24:30 So for that reason, solely occupied stuff in this way, during the bunch of time of what did we say in this quote, we may have made known to God. Our roots are to love him and approve our love. We base that on a rating reflection. We refer to it all these different ways. And so it can take all kinds of forms. Our love, maybe espressos, Holy Trinity, or lower total 82, the same harsher. That's a colloquially man. You're gonna be made in various ways. We may express our affectionate words, pronounced vocally, if we're along or in a purely interior way with expressions of a heart, or will these expressions maybe breathe and fall into other sort of frequency or they could be rather than prolong, repeating them only fairly long intervals. And it might be enough. And this is actually the best thing to remain lovingly.
Speaker 0 00:25:23 And our Lord's company should have this conversation, but continuum, not in the sense that we should be speaking continuously, Carmelite authors expressly teach that this conversation ought not to be too verbose or too excited, rather peaceful, and oftentimes interrupted as if to permit one, to be attended to God's answers. Does God speak to us? It's called well, if we were the only ones to speak, it would not be a polo where a Sikh Theresa teaches that God does speed. When we pray from the heart, that does not mean that he makes his voice heard in the audible manner and our ears are nor should we desire to do so. The excersice have way more than enough work right now. Thank you very much. But God replies to us by saying grace of light and love, and those who help us understand his way better and inspire our minds with fervor to embrace this way with greater generosity, therefore, to do listen means to accept these graces and strive to profit by hold on.
Speaker 0 00:26:31 She, this colloquial prolong, there are no limits and they occupied the entire time of prayer. The simplification of prayer consists and make your reflections less frequently and better making more room for the affections. And also having a graduate, take a more flat farm with the prolonged ads for beginners. However, it is not easy to remain so long as simple expression of our love. Therefore, we have recourse the last pass of prayer that is to Thanksgiving off to petition. So in the beginning, generally, a person has its discourse. Few speakers had thought, and then these acts of love. They sand periodically hold, but as a person progresses in prayer, if they're being generous, they'll get held at a certain point because God starts moving in and doing it. And so they can just love, uh, without having to go on here with that. What is the purpose of these last three parts of prayer, Thanksgiving offering and petition the last three parts.
Speaker 0 00:27:31 The prayer Thanksgiving offering petition serve to prolonged or easily our loving conversation with our lower. They are in fact only more definitive acts of affection or various ways of mass to manifest in their love. Why do we thank God in our Thanksgiving, we express our humble gratitude to our Lord for the gifts we've received from him. We need to express our gratitude to God. We've received so much from both in the natural and supernatural order. We're Catholic. Most of us were baptized without delay and brought up in the true religion. All of these are gratuitous gifts of the Lord. We can never sufficiently thank him for those. How many creates is this? Glory continued pour down upon us. The very prayer we're making is an invitation from him to penetrate more deeply into our baptismal vocation. So we should show him our gratitude for everything.
Speaker 0 00:28:31 And we shouldn't forget. The goodness of the Lord has been poured out on those that are close to us. Our parents or spouses, children, friends, benefactors, persons, confided to her care. Thank you. Not only our board, but also our lady and the same for their intercession not to be here. What can we offer to God? And the offering moved by gratitude to God for all the goodness he's poured on us. We want to give him something. We should make a particular resolution to practice a definite virtue. And I would suggest you actually write it down and you stick to it for a long time. So it's not just random. So we make a particular resonance with practice, definitely virtue to struggle, generously against the temptation or to accept with all our hearts, some trial or suffering that we're undergoing these particular resolutions, put out prayer to closer contact with daily life.
Speaker 0 00:29:26 What's the petition and the petition to request since we're convinced of her poverty weaknesses, but we still want to really please out of the word, we implore Z that we may be successful and faithful to the resolution just made an offering. So these last three acts are just a prolongation. Oh, that loving week spontaneously from the meditation. That's that's true. What have we seen? We've seen that metaphor, very consistent talking to God with the heart and spontaneous man without a memorized or prepared formulas. We've seen it in the beginning of life of prayer, many people in Connor, the difficulties they get bored or they're conscious of being very distracted. We've seen it once the devil sees you're getting serious about mental illness. You seem to do everything in its power to prevent you from sticking to. We've seen that you just have to make up your mind to do it, make up your mind, but nothing, meaning nothing is going to stop you.
Speaker 0 00:30:31 And then just plow. We've seen it, mental prayer, something that you have to will to do. And it's something that you can learn because you can learn. You'll actually get better at it. We've seen that you need to pick a time and a place to pray someplace. We get to every day, you need to be something, something of a stickler about both the time in so far as they're both under your problem. We've seen them when you start, I recommend 10 or 15 minutes for the first three months. Then at three minutes, after three more months or five minutes, it had five more minutes. So that over time you're going to build up your time. On top of prayer. We've seen that if you're faithful somehow going, are you spending more time here? It's not going to impact your duties. We've seen the Carmelite method of mental prayer, consistent preparation rating meditation accompanied by loving colloquy Thanksgiving, an offering, and a petition meditation with loving.
Speaker 0 00:31:27 We are the essential parts we've seen preparation consists of sending our age and the blessed sacrament in place ourselves in the presence of God. We've seen that really. If it's a topic for that loving conversation with Miller, we've seen the Carmelite authors distinguished the elements in the meditation representation, which is the work of imagination reflection, which is the work of the intellect and the loving Cola queen, which is the work of principally of a will. We've seen that breath sensations simply forming an image or the picture or representation of topic. And although it's not necessary, that may be useful. We've seen that reflection means thinking about the topic until we get an actual conviction of being loved by and being divided into 11 in return. We've seen that by and making a reflections, the presence of God, not seeing more clearly how much God loves us.
Speaker 0 00:32:18 We feel more easily moved to speak lovely to him. And that makes it much pretty easy for us to pass, to loving Cola queen. We've seen that in that conversation, we tell God that we love him, that we desire to love him more and to prove our love. And this gets easier with practice. We've seen this color weight is the most important part of prayer. No, should be careful to keep it peaceful and often pause. So as to be attentive to God's answer, we've seen that God does answer. When we pray from the heart, by sending grace of light and love, which makes us understand his ways better. We've seen that the last three parts of prayer Thanksgiving offering petition serve to prolong them more easily. That loving colloquy with our Lord. We've seen that our Thanksgiving, we express our humble gratitude. The Lord for the gifts we receive from we've seen the offering.
Speaker 0 00:33:11 We should make a particular resolution. I recommend you write it down to practice. Definite virtue to struggle, generously against attempt station, but accept with all our heart, some trial or suffering. We've seen it in the petition request. We more than hated the Lord to be faithful. The resolution we just made and that's class. Well, we encounter difficulties and handout. Absolutely. If for no other reason that we're weak and there is a doubt, we are going to encounter difficulties or we can do everything right the first time. No, not even 50 at the time, probably, but it's Catherine said anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Not on purpose of it. We do the best we can. But even if we're just stumbling, run, we're stumbling around trying to express her love to God. I don't think he won't love it anymore. A mother loves a pitcher that are two year old draw telling her loves it.
Speaker 0 00:34:09 It looks like a bunch of scrawls, but she says, I love you, mom, that'll go up on the refrigerator. It might not go on a gallery with Michelangelo, but it doesn't matter. Cause it's a special love from that child to the mother. And that's what we're doing is expressing art. Do they have any father crap as you go and learn by experience? Remember God is never going to be out done in generosity. Never, never. So make up your mind. You're discharged today. Don't wait till you're laying on that death bed. That day. It's going to come. Don't wait until then start today. Start having that loving conversation with Christ today. Start today.
