Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 Saint Thomas Aquinas, great doctor. The church says that the proper effect of receiving holy communion is to transform us so much into Christ that we can truly say, I live <inaudible> die, but Christ lives in me. Calming Ting on this supernatural transformation affected by the most busted sacrament. This lifting us up in a life of holiness by receiving communion. Bless it. Don Marmion asks, quote, how is this spiritual transformation brought about in receiving Jesus Christ? We receive him holy body, blood, soul, and divinity. Christ makes us sharers of his thoughts and his sentiments. He communicates his virtues to us, but above all, he and kindles in us the fire that he came to cast upon earth. The fire of love of charity that is a result of this transformation produced by the Eucharist. Christ is ever living, ever acting and coming to us unites our members to zone. He purifies. He uplifts, he sanctifies, he transforms it where all our faculties so that we love God with the heart of Christ. We praise God with the life of Christ. We live by his life, the divine presence of Jesus and his sanctifying virtue. Penetrate our whole being, both body and soul with all their powers so intimately that we become other Christs close quote.
Speaker 0 01:37 In other words, by its very nature, God is established holy communion with the power to transform us into saints and very great saints. If we've received our first holy communion and we're not yet saints, if our being has not been completely penetrated and transformed to the point that we'd become other Christs, it certainly can't be because of some lack of sanctifying power and the most blessed Sackman if we're shot saints yet it can't be because of some lack of sanctifying power in him. He's God, what's the problem here?
Speaker 0 02:21 Why aren't we all saints after our first communion or 10th communion or hundreds of communion or the thousandth communion? Why aren't we saying St Thomas points out that the amount of grace we get when receive a sacrament is proportional to our disposition? At the very moment we receive the sacrament. In other words, the more prepared we are at the moment of reception, the more grace we receive. Another way of looking at it or another to say that is the less prepared we are, the more obstacles we've placed to the action of a sacrament. The less grace we receive, the more prepared, more grace, the less prepared, the less grace. In other words, if we're not saints after our first holy communion, it's because of some obstacle in us. Everyone is here because he wants to be a saint. There's not many people left going to mass anymore. If we're going to mass, we presume you want to be a saint. I certainly have that working assumption for everyone here.
Speaker 0 03:41 We want to be safe, so let's ask ourselves, what are the possible obstacles then in us that are blocking the sanctified action, the most blessed sacrament? What are the possible obstacles and what can we do about it? What are the possible obstacles in us that are blocking the sanctifying action of the most blessings? Sackman this morning we'll take a quick look at seven possible obstacles to our sacked sanctification. Seven things that may very well be keeping our spiritual rd choked down or blocked. Seven obstacles that could prevent or retarder spiritual growth in communion. We'll briefly consider the first six obstacles and then spend a little more time developing the seventh. Okay, let's get started. The first possible obstacle, mortal sin just as a hamburger has absolutely no nutritional value to a dead man. So also holy communions have absolutely no spiritual value to a spiritually dead man.
Speaker 0 04:43 Modo sin is the same, the same spiritually dead. It's absolute and total barrier. Absolute total berry. We should rather die than commit a mortal sin. We're trying to get to heaven. We die without mortal sin. We've got it made. That's the first most serious bear. Second possible obstacle, deliberate venial sin, deliberate venial sins. These are ones done with tension, perfect deliberation. They completely close off our path to holiness. We're not talking about venial sins that we commit out of weakness, out of surprise, that a lack of attention without special graces from God, that constant Trent teaches. We can't avoid those kind of venial sins, what we might call semi deliberate venial sins, but deliberate called buttered venial sins where we decide, all right, I know this is insulting you God. I know that I'm showing contempt for you God, but it's not serious enough to send me for hell, so I'll just do it.
Speaker 0 05:38 That sort of venial sin, that sort of contempt for God makes it impossible for us to grow in holiness at holy communion. How can we be constantly, if we, if we're going to Clinton deliberate vineyards, sins, not by accident, but just coldblooded do it like that and then come to community and ask them to make us holy. They don't work together. Third Possible, a lack of generosity in pursuing God's will and uniting our will to his dodging crosses it. God sends us not embracing his clear will when we clearly see it. I'll quote a spiritual, I quote to advance, there must be great fidelity to God's will. Rules in all of the manifestations of God's desires must be faithfully followed. One's own daily duties have to be carried out with great exactness and watchful purity of intention. There is need of generosity in refusing God, nothing for which he's clearly asking, the more one abandoned to one's self, to God's will by cheerfully accepting all his dispositions and lovingly trusting all his plans.
Speaker 0 06:40 The quicker he shall advance close quote father Eugene boiling. So if God sends a sickness rather than health adversity rather than prosperity bad rather rather than good weather crosses instead of caresses and we whined, we complain, we deliberately dodge or daily duties, we're actually closing down our spiritual floodgates so it's much, much more difficult to go and holiness at each communion. It's one of the reasons this little book that if you don't have, make sure you ask it. We've tried to give it out to everybody. Uniformed with God's will by Saint Alphonsus. The glory is so useful. We read this, we put this into practice, read it and reread it and it will help us so much to overcome this obstacle. Mortal sin video center, obvious. This sometimes is not as obvious. If we're whining about the weather, we might not think about that effect in our communion.
Speaker 0 07:31 It will. Fourth possible obstacle, lack of bodily mortification. It's why we have lent quote. There can be no progress with automotive fide life. Now, this does not mean a life of great corporal penance. It is our love that we must mortify. We have to modify ourself, love and attempt extraordinary or unusual corporate penances without a clear call from God and the approval of some proper authority. That's like your director or the confessor is usually only a subtle form of self seeking. There should be sufficient corporate penance to keep the body in subjection. Little things just saying no to little things every day. Huh? That's probably the Eugene boiling. I was quoting little things. That's what lent helps us do these 40 days of lent. Prepare us. There's like little basic training, but it carries us through the year so we get a habit of being, having the power to say no to something.
Speaker 0 08:25 You know, there's nothing wrong with sweets, but I'll have less of them. There's nothing wrong with this, but I'll do less of that. I'll take, it's getting the power to say no to our body so that we're in charge of our body and it's not dragging us around. So that's the fourth possible obstacle and it's a formidable one if we don't have a, the virtue of temperance. Fifth possible obstacle, lack of interior mortification, quote, father boiling. It must also always be remembered. That is by interior modification of the memory of the imagination of the emotions by the ready acceptance of humiliations that the greatest and quickest progress is Maine. What does that mean? Well, he continues to give free reign to one's thoughts, to NGL, Dodgen reveries to build castles in our air, to do a constantly and old memories to nurse one's grievances, to allow wounded pride to dictate one's thoughts or feelings.
Speaker 0 09:19 All such habits are far from bringing truly modified close quote, father boiling. We can't nurse those old grudges. They, there's the saying forgiven, forget we have to forgive, but the devil at least is gonna make sure we don't forget. But when these things come up, we just drive them away. We say a little prayer for whatever, for whomever, whatever the situation is, and we just drive them away, but we don't bathe in it and have some sort of morbid pity party with ourselves. For example, when we find ourselves getting angry at someone, we see a prayer from and move our mind away. And Silva, we have to modify our interior moods, our interior thoughts. Okay? We have to move away from this sort of a thing where we don't want to have a Copernican. We need to have a Copernican revolution. We don't want to keep ourselves as the center of the universe with everything revolving around what we think.
Speaker 0 10:05 That's interior modification. Sixth possible obstacle. We'll quote Saint Alphonsus quote, lack of spiritual reading. The reading of Pi's works, fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires. The person who keeps the mind fill the devout thoughts such as spiritual acts and examples of the virtuous action of saints. We kept almost always United with God. Close quote, Saint Alphonsus. See, we're immersed in this fallen disordered world, but we're meant of course to be headed towards heaven if we don't spend some time filling our memory and our imagination with heavenly images, with holy thoughts, with Holly images that our memory and imagination will be filled with worldly thoughts and images. It's that simple. Either we fill our minds and our imaginations with heavenly and holy images and thoughts, or they'll be filled with worldly images and thoughts. It's that basic. If we spend all our time watching stuff that's trash, we're going to have trash in our mind.
Speaker 0 11:07 If we spend time reading good things and watching good things, we'll have good things in our mind. Okay? Those are all pretty obvious. Sperspe six possible obstacles to the sanctifying power of holy communion to our growth and holiness, our mortal sin, deliberate venial sin, lack of generosity, and embracing the crosses that God sends out into our life. Lack of bodily mortification, lack of interior modification or lack of spiritual reading. That's the first six. Now, let's look in a little more detail at the seventh possible obstacle. Seventh possible obstacle is the lack of mental prayer. We'll rely on seeing our fonts here with my editorial comments thrown in all over the place. See now fonts as all the saints became saints because of mental prayer.
Speaker 1 11:57 Okay,
Speaker 0 11:58 I'll repeat them. All. The saints became saints because of mental prayer. All the scenes became saints because of mental prayer.
Speaker 0 12:12 Mental prayer. Well, what are you here? We're here to become saints and all the saints became saints because of mental prayer. Mental prayer consists in three parts. Preparation, meditation, and conclusion. Fancy words for beginning, middle, and end. It's easy. How hard is that preparation, meditation, conclusion, preparation. There's three. Act, an act. This is according to Saint Alphonsus. It's not the only way I put one in the bolt and a day according to Saint Teresa of Avalon, they work. You just pick a method, but then you go with it. I'll tell you what Saint Alphonsus three acts, an act of faith and the presence of God, an act of humility, of prayer for God's guidance. Preparation has three acts, an act of faith in the presence of God in America where we are. God's there. An Act of humility and a prayer for God's guidance. The acts might run something like this.
Speaker 0 13:03 Act of faith. My God, I believe that I'm in your presence and from the depths of my nothingness, I Adore Your Majesty. Done. It doesn't take long. It's gonna take me a lot longer to explain them to do it. Okay, my God, I believe that I'm in your presence from the depths of my nothingness. I Adore Your Majesty, act of humility. Lord, because of my sins, I should be suffering the pains of hell right now. I'm sorry for having offended the and your mercy. Please forgive me. So he made the act of faith in the presence act of humility, Lord, and because of my sins, I should be suffering in hell right now. I'm sorry. Please have mercy on me. Prayer for God's guidance, eternal father for the love of Jesus and Mary, please give me your light during this prayer so it will be profitable to me.
Speaker 0 13:45 These are just examples. You can use your own words. It's not a formula. It's just if we go through this, it's, it's, we're disposing ourselves to make a better mental prayer. We place ourselves in the presence of God. We make an act of humility. You're God and I'm not, and then we ask him for help. That's what's going on. So that's the beginning. Okay. Falling that we say hell Mary Desker Lady to help and a glory be test Saint Joseph, our guardian angel and her patrons to help. Okay. How hard is that to start men? A prayer act of faith in God's presence. I got, I believe you're here. Present with me an act of humility. I'm nothing, you know, but I, I, and I'm sorry for my sins. Have mercy on me with begging for light, for the love of Jesus. Mary father, give me light. Okay.
Speaker 0 14:29 Then we'd say Hail Mary. Glory be and honor of Our lady and Saint Joseph, our angel nurse Saints. How hard is that? Everyone here? Even little kids, everyone that isn't an infant can do something like this. All the saints became saints because of mental prayer. That's the preparation. What about the meditation? We use a book or holy image of our Lord, like a crucifix or the stations or a statue or something. You don't have to learn how to read to be a great saint. It isn't a reading club. There's nothing wrong with reading, but little kids that have no idea what words are, can read perfectly illiterate people. It doesn't matter about reading. We find something a, a good Spanish crucifix is pretty realistic. That works well. Uh, statute, uh, image of the sacred heart, whatever. If we're reading, we read slowly in a, in a, in a good book and Meditation Book, stop as soon as something strikes us and then move on after we extract the thought and all this is just a means to help us begin to speak to God from our heart by making acts of affection.
Speaker 0 15:30 Now, affection when we're talking about mental prayer doesn't mean that you really strained to get those little Tingley things up and down on your back. It hasn't happened anything at all that if you get them, that's fine. I don't care. But that's not prayer. Prayer isn't about how we feel. Okay? Acts of affection. We're making acts of faith, thanksgiving, praise, charity, adoration, loving Sarah. These are examples. My God, I esteem you above all things. I love you above all things. I wish every man on earth loved you. Make me know what your will is and give me the grace to follow it. Dispose of me and all. It's mine. According to Your holy will, my Lord. I'm happy because you are God the highest good, lacking absolutely nothing. These are affections. It doesn't matter how we feel. That's the affection we're making acts to the will.
Speaker 0 16:15 That's what's important. We're telling God we love him. It's also the greatest importance during meditation to make lots of petitions during mental prayer. We humbly and confidently you're asking God for his guidance, for forgiveness of sins, for perseverance, for holiness, for a holy death, for the salvation of our friends, and especially for the grace to love him more and more. Once a person has a love of God, he has every other grace. What if we get to where we're so distracted, so dry that we can't do anything? Saint Alphonsus, this happens to people recommends using this prayer of David. Oh God, come to my aid. Oh Lord. Make haste to help me. We can just keep saying something like that over and over again. Nothing is more profitable. They're in meditation and the practice of making petitions over and over again in the name of and to the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 0 17:07 He it is who made the beautiful promise. I tell you, truly, if he asked the father anything in my name, he'll give it to you. Have you noticed during mass that we end almost every prayer in the mass per donor <inaudible> liaison, Christian for the tomb. We're always saying through our Lord Jesus Christ, your son. We ask everything we do. Then at the end, and I'm saying something. Why? Because God has promised that you asked the father anything in my name. He will give it to you. That's why I do that up at the alter. That's why priesthood. We can do that in our mental prayer. Why did he become a man? He became a man to help us become holy. Why are we trying to do mental prayer? So we saints, that's what he wants us to. He wants us to be saints and then we've decided to cooperate.
Speaker 0 17:54 Believe me, he'll start making a saint. If we start mental prayer, he'll move you up. Everyone here at the end of the meditation, we should propose to be careful to avoid a particular fault which we commit frequently. We're concert and one virtue, which we have many chances to practice such as putting up with something, somebody highly annoying that we live with or work with, or the more conscientious regarding a particular rule or to make a greater desire to curb our desires for some particular thing. We should never finish mental prayer without making a particular resolution. That is something I'm going to do today, Lord. I am not going to be snippy with my boss. Something like that. Whatever. Okay. That's the meditation. How hard is that? We use a book or a holy image. We read slowly or ponder it slowly and then when something strikes us, we pause on that.
Speaker 0 18:42 We use the book as a means to make affections, to get us going. My God, I love you with all my heart. I wish every man on earth loved you. Dispose of my have you will and so forth. We're making these affections with our heart that we want to give him everything he's got and we're not. We ask God's for all kinds of things. His guidance, especially holiness. If we're asking him to make us holy, he will grant that. We may have to keep knocking, but he gives the very example. If you keep knocking, he'll open. We have to keep pursuing that holiness. He wants us to be holy, but he wants us to work at it because he knows how we are. If he just gives it out instantly, we won't take it seriously, so we have to ask him for it. Okay? He wants to give it to it.
Speaker 0 19:24 He's a good father. We ask him for a holy death to love him more and we ask, especially for things in the name of and by the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. We make a particular resolution. Like today I'm really going to be patient with my obnoxious coworker or rather than walking around all day looking severe, I'm going to smile. I already said that we're Catholic. We can get our sins forgiven. If that's not something to smile about. If Catholics can't smile, then who can? We ought to be able to smile. How hard is that? Even the really little kids can do something like his mothers. You can teach the smallest kids as soon as they're old enough to start doing mental prayer. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. They're talking to Jesus on the crucifix. They're talking to Mary. That's mental prayer. Have them do that.
Speaker 0 20:06 Okay. That's the meditation. We've looked at the preparation. We've looked at the meditation, what it's the conclusion. This is the ending. The meditation will come to an end with three acts. First step. We thank God for the lights we received during the prayer. So the first one is thank you. Second Act, we resolve to keep the resolution. We just made third act. We prayed to God, the father through Jesus and Mary for the grace to keep that resolution. It's one thing to resolve, to do something. We need grace to be good, so we ask him for it. Okay, so we're done with Saint Alphonsus. Thank you very much. We'll go on. That's the conclusion. We thank God for the lights we received. We resolved to file a resolution. We pray to God the father through Jesus and married for the grace to keep our resolution. How hard is that?
Speaker 0 20:51 Even little kids can do that. All the saints became saints because of mental prayer. Everyone here except a little itty bitty babies can do this. Let's make sure we have this part down. Quick Review. Mental prayer has three parts. Preparation, meditation, conclusion, and the preparation. That's the first part. Three acts. Faith in the presence of God. Humility, prayer for God's guidance. Second part, meditation. Read slowly. Stop when something strikes us. Make affections like, Dear God, I love you and would do anything for you. My God. I love you. Above all things here that high school is lacking in nothing. Make petitions, especially for the love of God. Naked particular resolution such as to avoid a particular fault. Third Part, conclusion. Thank God for the lights received. Resolve to follow resolutions, pray to the father through Jesus and Mary for the grace to keep our resolution. Let's close. We've seen if we're not saints after our first holy communion, it's not because of any defect in our Lord.
Speaker 0 21:54 It's not because of any defect in our Lord. It's because of obstacles within us. We considered seven common possible obstacles. First, Pos, popsicle, modal sin. Don't go to comedian mortal sin. Go to confession. Second, Pasierb obstacle, deliberate venial sin. Third, Pos, popsicle dodging the cross. Lack of generosity and pursuing God's will. Fourth, possible obstacle, lack of bottling mortification. Fifth, possible obstacle, lack of material modification. Six, possible obstacle, lack of spiritual reading. Why do we spend so much time on the seventh one because every one of these first six is solved or can be solved. If we get serious about mental prayer, mental prayer, we'll get us the graces to overcome all the rest. Mental prayer. It is true that our holiness comes principally. The grace come that we get in life comes principally through the sacraments, but the grace we get from the sacraments comes principally from our prayer life. It's what opens the flood gates. The prayer life will give us the grace to conquer any of these first six things that we're not doing. If we start men of prayer, the other things that are going to go away, men of prayer and sin can't stay together.
Speaker 0 23:06 They can't. Okay, so the seventh possible obstacle is the lack of mental prayer. All the saints became saints because of mental prayer. I'd like to personally challenge everyone here. It's lent. Coming up. Take 15 minutes a day in mental prayer. It may seem like an eternity and the devil will probably make it seem like that in the beginning if you don't have the habit, but start with 15 minutes a day. All the saints became saints because of mental prayer. It's an investment in your eternity. It's an investment in your happiness here and investment in your happiness here. After all the states become saints because of mental prayer. Get a book, get started. We're here to become saint this lent. Let's strive to remove every possible obstacle to our sanctification.
