Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 Okay.
Speaker 1 00:04 Sooner or later it dawns on everyone that's trying to crawl in holiness. He's got a lot of personal obstacles, problems that scan in the way of this growth and holiness problems that result from ritual and actual sin over time becomes clear for each person or it should. These problems revolve around one particular tendency. It's something that's called the predominant false. Spiritually speaking. The predominance fall is our vulnerable point. It's a spiritual flaw that tends to prevail over all our other problems. It's actually a principle interior enemy that means that if we're serious about growing in holiness and getting to heaven, we have to identify this problem and beat it into submission. So this morning was spend a few minutes talking about how to identify our predominant Saul and then we'll consider one particularly effective and relatively easy strategy for Cochran because of the time. We're certainly not going to give justice to this topic.
Speaker 1 01:16 It's not a complete summary. The church teaching here. What we can do in this time is give everyone here the tools they need to identify their predominant fault and particularly call from means to battle that or any other spiritual problems we're struggling with. Okay? That's what we can do. And next week we'll give another uh, another means to help balance this. And a few other clues on this. Okay. How to recognize the predominant fall and this sexual rely, especially on the late grade foster care, good luck brunch. The first step is we had to pray. We bank a sort of light to truly know ourselves. We can pray prayers like that. Beautiful squishy part Lord that I might see also since our guardian angel has to deal with this constantly for a whole life. When I ask him to give us the light to see jeopardy on fault.
Speaker 1 02:12 And of course we want to turn to the blessed mother. So especially when consecrated to our lady. Anyway, so we wanted to start by begging God or Guardian Angel in the blessed mother for the light to see our predominant assault. That's the first step. You gotta start with a prayer. Second step is we need to make a serious examination of our interior life and we're going to do this taking special care to pay attention along those seven fault lines, the fault lines of the seven deadly sins. Since in most cases the predominant fault will be one of these. If you don't know what the seven deadly sins are, it's easy to remember. If you remember places cheap places g cause everyone goes stances on places. G P stands for PRI. L stands for lust, a stands for anger. C stands for covetousness, e stands for n.
Speaker 1 02:59 P. S stands for slaw and g stands for Gluttony so that places g pride, lust, anger, covenants, envy, slots, and gluttony. Places cheat. So how do we do this kind of examination? We start by asking ourselves questions like what I generally find myself preoccupied with when I wake up or when I'm alone. What am I thoughts are my passions tend to drift or their own accord? What sort of things generally make me sad or happy when I look back over the confessions that made my life? What kind of patterns can I see? Is there anything I'm typically confessing? What sort of remark or action is most likely to hurt my feelings or provoke a response? What kind of temptations do I have to struggle the hardest against? What kind of sin seems to come the most easy for me? Okay. So the first step we ask God or Guardian Angel and the blessed mother to give us the light, to know ourselves, to see ourselves, to see our predominant fault.
Speaker 1 04:08 And the second step is to make a serious examination of our interior life taking special care to pay attention to which one of those seven deadly sins seems to be almost common in our life. Places. G, pride, lust, anger, covetousness and V, slop and gluttony. And we ask yourself questions like, where did my thoughts drift to their own accord? What generally makes me sad or happy when I look back over my confessions? What sort of patterns do I see? What kind of temptations do I seem to have to struggle the hardest against? So that's identifying and that may not be easy, but we have to start there. All right? How to conquer the predominant fall out of the states or come their problems. They will look at one of the secrets in the saints, something that any one of us can do quite easily, a practice that makes it relatively easy to make great progress in holiness.
Speaker 1 05:04 If we're faithful to it. This technique isn't just for the predominant fault. It'll work with anything that we're struggling spiritually. The next time we'll look at another one of the secrets of the saints that's also very powerful and concrete faults that we can use along today with woven along with what we're getting today. Okay, so the basic ideas are easy to understand. Our predominant fall is a problem. It's a spiritual problem. We're broke, we can't fix it, so we're spiritually sick, but we have a divine physician who became man just to help us. Okay? Our Lord became man. He says, behold, I make all things new. It's the basic ideas and understand it's easy. We've got a spiritual problem that we can fix. We need to take it to the divine physician who came to make all things new. The basic is easy to understand.
Speaker 1 05:59 The Council of Trent teaches quote, our Lord wished that this sacrament, the most busted sack and the officer should be received at the as the spiritual food of souls by which they may be Fred and strengthen and as an antidote whereby we may be freed from daily falls and preserved for mortal sins. Close quote everybody here that our Lord wishes that the most busted stack with the altar be received as an antidote to preserve us from daily faults and mortal sin. It's the solen teaching you the church that this is one of the reasons our lord instituted holy communion as an antidote for our daily faults and which fall is it that we must have to struggle with from day to day. It's our predominant fall. Okay. Father, I've been receiving community for years and I don't seem to have made much progress. Let's change that. St Pies. The TANF gives us a clue how, when he tells us that someone going to community unquote should do so.
Speaker 1 07:05 Not Out of routine, but for the purpose of pleasing God or being more closely United with him and charity and of seeking this divine remedy for his weaknesses and affects close quote. We need to make communions for the exact in particular reason of conquering our predominant fall. Here's the basic technique. Suppose that the predominant fall are predominant fall anger. We're stuck with anger and we really want to go over and beat up the neighbor. Okay, we've got, we're really burnt off with the guy so we've got a particular purpose that we need to go to him. Holy communion for we need help. And it's not just nerrick help. We need specific help. We need help in this case with anger and the controller urge to go over there and cloud or the neighbor. Okay? So we don't just show up at mass and shuffle up the community, not a habit.
Speaker 1 07:55 That's not going to help. We need to spend some time planning out exactly what we're going to ask our Lord to do before we go to communion. I think about this, if you're going to go to your boss and ask for a raise, you'd probably spend some time thinking about just exactly what were you asking for and planning about how you were going to go about asking for it. Okay, well, you're going to have an audience with the good God. That means if you do that for your boss, how much more she do it with a good God and spend some time talking about what is it that I need to ask him for and how ought I to ask him. Okay, he's doesn't need anything. He's got, he's coming to us for our benefit. The holy communion doesn't benefit him. He's doing us the favor and he wants to help us.
Speaker 1 08:45 That's why he became brand under the parents of bread so he can come to us. Okay, there's no bread there. Don't think I'm saying something heretical, but this isn't, he's coming to us in this form because we need him and he wants to help us out. Okay? So if we had been having an encounter visit and we have a plan about what we're going to ask him for, what particular things we want to ask him for or where's she at? If we don't even talk to them after receiving small wonder, we haven't made a lot of progress after so many holy communions in small wonder. We're not saints yet. There's no defect in him. One Community is sufficient for us to become a great saint if we're not great states after our first community. It's not because of defect in our Lord. It's because of obstacles than us. It's a defect in our disposition when overseeing him. Okay? We can make great leaps and strides by taking advantage of this. Say, Theresa Abdullah says, after holy communion, Jesus remained who the soul is on a throne of grace and ass. What do you want me to do for you?
Speaker 1 09:53 He's in our soul asking us, what do you want me to do for you? So we've supposed that our predominant fault is anger, was struggling with his temptation to go over and punch out the neighbor. We plan what we want to ask you and then we go to community. Tell her Lord words. I mean, I'm just gonna make this up as I'm standing there. Lord, I thank you for coming to me in holy communion. You know I've got this terrible problem with anger. I've been struggling with it since I've been a kid right now. I'm really having a problem with my neighbor and I want a cloud room and don't see me able to fix this, but you can. You can. I'm going to turn off her like this sort of passions. My soul, this whole part of my personality, you, you came to make all things new.
Speaker 1 10:39 Heal this wound in my soul. Make me into the kind of Catholic you have in mind rather than the kind of Catholic I've made myself. You can fix me. See we keep going on like this. Okay. Words to this forth. You're asking him to give you the grace to control your temper, to be pleasing to him and so forth. This is why he's coming to us in the holy communion. See, we're sinners. He's come to save us. He wants us to be saints, but we have to do our part. We have to ask. We have to do our part. It's worth meditating some time. On the first public miracle, he turned the water into wine. But what happens first? He made the guys pack the water. He didn't have to do that. He could have done it. Just started with nothing, but he made them do their part.
Speaker 1 11:33 Then he does his part. It's the same idea here. He's coming to us. We'd ask him what we want. Huh? It's an act of humility to say, I'm messed up. I need you to help. The proud man doesn't need God's help. The humble man does. We turn to him and he knows that he say tree salad says quote after communion, let us be careful not to lose so good. An opportunity of negotiating with God. His Divine Majesty is not accustomed to pay badly for his lodgings. If he needs with a good reception, that's really worth thinking about. I'll read that again after communion. Let us be careful not to lose a good. An opportunity of negotiating with God is Divine Majesty is not accustomed to paid badly for his lodgings. If he meets with a good reception. Now think about that. It's as if we're charging him and he wants this to and what do we ask them to do?
Speaker 1 12:35 We're asking him to pay off some spiritual problem. Fix this. He's coming to us and he's so humbled that he'll do. He'll pay us for the privilege of coming to us and come in. Yet that's the idea community. We want to have. We're, we're in all humility. We're making demands against God because he's put himself at our mercy. We don't want to waste that. We don't want to waste. We've got to spend time preparing for communion. We got to prepare to receive our Lord wordly and then we've got to spend time asking him to crush our sinful inclinations. We want to ask him for that. The saints are unanimous on his hope innocent. The third quote, by the mystery of the Cross, Jesus Christ delivered us from the power of sin, but by that sac, one of the most holy Eucharist, he delivers us from the inclination to sin.
Speaker 1 13:31 St John on the Cross says, quote, after communion is a time to gain treasures of grace saint there magnum pass, he says, quote, no time can be more calculated to flame us with divine love in the time immediately after communion, Saint Peter Julian Emar has a lot to stay on this matter, quote, the most solid moments of your life are those who spend at thanksgiving. When the King of Heaven and earth, your savior and judge is yours, fully inclined to grant all you ask of him, devote a half hour as possible this Thanksgiving or at the very least 15 minutes. There is no more holy number Salvatore moments for you than when you possessed Jesus in your body and in your soul. The temptation often comes to shorten our thanksgiving. The devil knows its value and our nature ourself love shrinks from its effects. Determine, therefore what the duration of your Thanksgiving is to be and never subtract a moment there from without a pressing reason.
Speaker 1 14:46 Thanksgiving is absolutely necessary if the act of coming in so is not to degenerate into a merely pious habit. Close quote, Saint Peter Julian AME Art Saint Alphonsus quote, Oh, what treasures of Grace's do they lose? Who Pray, but a short time to God after holy communion. Close quote, we need to spend time thanksgiving, but what about you father? Why don't you spend a long time thanksgiving? You tell us to kneel here for 15 minutes or half hour, but after a few minutes, a few go to confessions or baptisms. You're not setting a very good example. Why don't you practice what you preach? That's a good question. When I'm saying a private mass, they do, but when I say a public mass like this, I follow it. St pilot across. Tell us priests quote. When it's time to hear confessions and to assist our neighbor, leave aside everything else, there's no greater thing than to practice charity.
Speaker 1 15:52 Close quote. When one of his passion, his priest complained to Saint Paul the cross that the number of confessions left him. No time to make a good preparation before mass Saint Paul, the Cross said, quote, go on. As you are doing for you cannot make a better preparation or Thanksgiving and to practice charity close quote. So I have what might be called a vocation specific preparation thanksgiving. This would also pertain, for example, the mothers that have to take a fussy child out before making a nice quiet thanksgiving. But these are exceptional applications of a general rule. We need to spend the time with our Lord. So community, it doesn't teach, generate into a pious habit. And if we're not making a lot of progress and it's probably because we're not putting a lot of effort in preparing for communion and then talking things over with our Lord, we don't have to read price curves.
Speaker 1 16:44 We can talk to, there's nothing wrong with prayer. Some could be wrong, but we can talk to them, have a conversation with Christ, tell him what you need. He wants to hear from you. So the basic idea is easy to understand. We've got a spiritual problem we need to take to divine physician who's the only one can heal it, and he specifically came to make all things new and the basic technique. It's also really easy to understand. We plan out exactly what we're going to ask the Lord to do for us before we go to the communion and then we'd spend 15 to 30 minutes talking with him about our problems and begging for mercy. Now before we close today, let's consider a real powerful practice that helps us, that flows right from these kinds of good communions and carries us through the day and through the week it connects one communion to the other.
Speaker 1 17:36 From the time we go to receive one good communion to the next time I'd get to come to communion and that's called the spiritual contract, spiritual contract. Now, assuming we've made good communion, we planned what we wanted to talk to our lord about when they could spirit spiritual contract for the rest of the day for rest week two, the next time we can come to holy communion, every time we perform a certain action, perhaps like a uh, placing our finger over our heart or saying a little aspiration, maybe like my Jesus mercy or something like that, every time we perform a certain action or say this little, that aspiration, what we mean to do is Redo all those things that we spent that 15 to 30 minutes talking to her about. We want to renew mall. It's impossible in the world we live in to sit there and take 15 minutes every time you think about it, we're busy.
Speaker 1 18:24 We have things to do, but we can renew them all and we asked her guardian angel to say all the prayers for us. We mean to renew them all because we have an intention. That's the act of the will. Our Angel will say the prayers for us. That's what angels are good for and I'm not being derogatory at all. They will say prayers like that for us. They're happy to do that, so we just renew our intention by single little aspiration like Jesus Mercier touching over her heart or whatever we've chosen and that Angel repeat this 15 to 30 minute prayers of Thanksgiving for us. Now we can do that from time to time from the time we finished our Thanksgiving to the next time we come. A really good way to connect this everyday is when you see her three hail Mary's have intentioned are in there and when you say grace, so that's five times a day to 300 Mary's morning at night and saying grace, that's five times a day.
Speaker 1 19:12 We're where you're renewing these 15 to 30 minutes of prayer where you're specifically asking our Lord to help you fix your major malfunction. Something that you can't do yourself but that he can't. Okay. That's an awful lot of prayer and a real little package, Huh? It's really good. It's a good practice. That's the spiritual contract. We're here to become saints and if we're not saints yet, if we're not well on the way to become insane, it may be because we haven't been doing a very good battle. That's our predominant fault. Or maybe because we've been squandering so many graces that are available to us every time we go to community or in navy. Both of those make a good preparation, making good thanksgiving, make that spiritual contract get serious about, identify your predominant fall. Let's get serious about these tons of spiritual practices. Everyone of us is here to become a saint. That's why God placed us in the world. We're here to become saints or close with reflection from Saint Alphonsus. Those who say God does not wish us all to be saints make a great mistake. Yes, for Saint Paul says, this is the will of God, your sanctification. God wishes us all to be sanes and each one, according to the state of life, the religious as a religious, the priests as a priest, the married is married, a man of business as a man of business, the soldier as a soldier, and so of every other stage in life.
Speaker 1 21:02 Those who say it, God does not wish us all to be saints. Make a great mistake. God wishes us all to be saints.
