Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:01 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:05 last way. We pretty freaking stair our predominant fault and how to go about getting it under control by food communions that we could extend through the week by means of a spiritual contract. Now this week we'll continue on that kind of theme by considering two other essential practices that Mesh together with that that will help us cover our predominant fault all go. The two things we're going to look at today were made famous by Saint Ignatius. Today we're going to rely particularly on the late great father Dionne, and the two things we'll look at today are called the particular resolution and a particular exam, particular resolution in particular exam, particular resolution. Remember, they were trying to conquer our predominant fall, which spiritually speaking is our vulnerable point. It's a spiritual flaw that tends to prevail over all that other fall flaws. Okay? It's going to have something to do with one of the seven deadly sins.
Speaker 1 01:11 And remember we have a mnemonic for remembering seven deadly sins. It's places t which stands P, l a, C e, s, g, places G. P is pride. L is lust a as anger. Uh, C is covetousness isn't v, s the sloth and she has go out and he said places g. So today we'll talk about how to make a resolution to overcome the particular fall that we have and that resolution in general will sound something like this. This is a general outline. I love you lord and approve that I love you. I resolve the today at such and such a time and sets you such a place on this day, this particular prayer overcome my predominant fall. Now that's not particular eyes yet. That's just the general idea. The general example is I love you lord and to show that I love you. I'm going to add that today at such and such a time in such and such a place.
Speaker 1 02:08 I'll say particular prayer. This prayer to overcome, help overcome my predominant fault. Now it won't do us any good cause particularly what is such and such a time and such and such a place and so forth. Let's see. Last week we were supposing that the predominant fall, our predominant fault was anger who were having strong temptations to go next door and punch out the neighbor. So that was what we were just supposing for way of example, let's make a particular resolution based on that imaginary situation. Here's what it might sound like. I love you, Lord. And to show that I love you. I resolved today. Every time I see my neighbor. And by that we mean the guy that were being attempted to clobber. Every time I see my neighbor, I'm gonna say this little prayer. God, make him happy in this five and the next.
Speaker 1 03:02 Okay, we'll go through that a few times. I love you, Lord, and show that I love you today. Every time I see my neighbor, I'm going to save this little prayer. God, make him happy in this life and the next. I love you, Lord in this show that I love you. Every time I see my neighbor, I'm going to say this little prayer of God and make him happy in this five for the next. That's a particular resolution. We particular eyes it. We've made it fit the situation so he can attack, are pretty down at fault, which is anger and we're being tempted to, to exercise this against her and our neighbor. Okay, so today, every time I see my neighbor, I'm going to say this little prayer, God, make him happy in this life for the next and I'm going to keep saying it and keep saying it and keep saying it.
Speaker 1 03:43 As long as that temptation is with me, okay? That's what my particular resolution means. Now, once we've made a particular resolution, we should write it down. Obviously it doesn't have to be anger for you. Young people might be, you might be having a problem with obedience with your folks. So today you'll be in particular this morning, one of my mom asks me to do whatever it is that you use, their disobedient, make my bed or whatever. Today when mom asked me to make my bed, I'm going to say this for the prayer, you know, and the little prayer might be, thanks God or help me God. And you just keep saying help me God help me. Cause you're being tempted right then to disobey your mom, to not make your bed, to go do whatever it was that you're not supposed to be doing. And she was saying, help me, God help me, God help me.
Speaker 1 04:26 God. It's the same thing. We particularize him. Okay, so we've got this resolution that we write it down after we've got the rest of the shoe, we write it down and we want to keep this resolution and renew it day after day after day two. We get the virtue that we're looking for, which in this case is to prevent sins of anger by saying that prayer, God, make this man happy in this five for next Wednesday. That prayer, a little prayer every time we share neighbory. Okay, so that's how we make our resolution. Notice there's always, always, always a little prayer is part of the resolution. In this case, the pro's God make him happy in this life. My next why is there always a little prayer? Because what we're trying to do is to train ourselves to pray. When we find ourselves in temptation, what we're trying to do is pray, learn to pray.
Speaker 1 05:23 When we find ourselves in a situation in which we typically get in trouble and we want to keep saying that prayer over and over, as long as that temptation lasts, as long as we're in that situation, then we're not trusting ourselves. Especially if we know this is my big weakness. What am I doing? I'm asking God, help me right here, right now and it's very thing where experience shows me I'm going to do something really stupid if you don't help me. That's what we're doing. It's an act of humility. We're begging God for help. Okay, so let's review when we're talking about the particular wrestlers who start with a general format that goes, I love you lord and to prove that I love you. I resolve it today at such and such a place at such and such a time. I'm going to say that this particular prayer about my predominant fall second week consider a predominant fall in what situations were most likely to face.
Speaker 1 06:16 It will cause us trouble. That day example we've been using is anger and a neighbor next door that's driving us crazy. Hopefully everyone hears made some progress in the past week and identifying his predominant fault. Third, we take all this and make a particular resolution how by anticipating the particular situation that's most likely to cause us trouble with our predominant fault that day and then figuring out exactly when and where we're going to stay up. Prayer for help and choosing exactly what that prayer will be. Good ideas and good wishes aren't enough. We have to be concrete. We even have the prayer figured out. It's no time to be sitting there when you're in the midst of this temptation to punch somebody out and say, I think I should pray and be trying to run through a flow chart of what I ought to be saying. Right. Then you're going to lose your temper.
Speaker 1 07:03 Okay? That's your weak point. We have all this written down beforehand, so an example we've used the predominant faults, anger, especially our next door neighbor. We decided that every time we see him, whether he's mowing his lawn, whether he's driving by in front of her house, where he's going out to his mailbox to check his mail, every time we see our neighbor, we're going to say that prayer. You know, if you can predict the prayer, we're going to say God, make them happy and it's five for the next. So we took all that and we made our particular resolution, which in this case would be I love you lord, and to show that I love you today. Every time I see my neighbor, I'm gonna say this little prayer. God, make him happy in this life. The next, okay, fourth, we write this particular resolution down and we renew it day in and day out until we have the habit of same as prayer.
Speaker 1 07:54 When we're confronted with sad 10 patient, we want to keep saying that prayer as long as we remain confronted with that temptation. Okay? In this case, the temptation to punch him up. Fifth, the first thing in the morning when we're saying our prayers and making our morning offering, we renew our particular resolution. This is key every morning where their resolve the same thing. Okay, so starting with the general format, we could sit there predominant all the situations where most likely to have trouble with that day. We picked an appropriate prayer. We come up with a particular resolution, write it down and renewal it first thing every morning. Okay. That leads the second thing, which is the particular examine. Once we finally come up with a good particular resolution, we'll use the particular and to really start making progress. Okay father, but what does that mean? The particular examine is an examination of conscience on just point where an examiner conscious at one thing and one thing only and that's what the particular examine is.
Speaker 1 09:03 That's what it's called. Particular. We're just looking at one thing. What is the one point? Where do we examine our conscience on whether or not we've kept our particular resolution? You'd have the words and the example. Did I say the prayer when I saw my neighbor? That's it. How do we do it? We pray. We start off at the time, Guy, give me the light with a gray, something like that. To make a good exam. That's it. God, give me the grace to make a good examine and then we asked that I keep my particular resolution and this case. Did I say my prayer when I saw a neighbor? If that's it. If he did, we know immediately and if we didn't, we know immediately too. It takes that long. It's taken me a lot longer to explain it than does do it. It's just instant.
Speaker 1 09:50 You look back, did I or did not? That's it. If we did keep our resolution, we thank God because it's by His grace we prayed. If we didn't, we apologize to God and then what do we do? We renew the resolution again after we've done it once doesn't mean proof, unhealed new problem. You know, we've got to get this to be habitual. Okay, when should we do this? We should do it three times every day. We've made the resolution first thing in the morning. We check at lunch, then we renew it at supper and then we renewing that bedtime. She breaking up the day into workable things at lunch. She just like that takes a sec and stuff. We look back and at bedtime you look back, you've broken up your day into three. It takes it. It's taken me way long. It takes a second to do this.
Speaker 1 10:35 Literally a second. Okay. It's easiest pot. Here's another neat thing about all this. This means I confessions become a progress report on how well we're doing and conquering our predominant fault because now we've got a definite plan. We've got a program to overcome our major malfunctions. By the grace of God, it's real prayer. That's what this does for us. Okay? Obviously we are made bond to confess all mortal sins by number in time. That never changes, but this problem gives us the ability by the grace of God to get out of mortal sins if we're fallen and tend to make major strides. I said by the grace of God never to fall into those again and to conquer our major problems are predominant fault, whether our predominant fault at the time as mortal and venial. Okay, it's a program. Let's review. We've taken the time, identify our predominant fall anger.
Speaker 1 11:32 We've taken the time to identify a particular circumstance in which we'll probably be tempted. When I see that neighbor that's driving crazy, we've taken the time to resolve, to say a specific prayer if and when we find ourselves and that particular tempting circumstance and to keep saying that prayer until this temptation. In this case, the prayer was God, make him happiness, life for the next, and we've taken the time to put all that into particular resolution. I love you lord, and to prove that I love you. I resolve that today. Every time I see my neighbor, I would say this little prayer to God, make him happiness. Five for the next. We've taken the time to write this down. Don't trust your memory and commit yourself to paper. Now, every morning we renew that resolution at lunch. We ask God for the grace to make her examine.
Speaker 1 12:26 Well, then we asked, did I keep my particular resolution? Did I pray when I was supposed to? We think, God, if we did, we apologize. If we didn't and we knew the resolution at supper, we looked back to keep my resolution because thank God if we did, we apologize. If we didn't, we knew our resolution at bedtime. Same thing. Okay. It takes way longer to explain than they do now. Our confessions are basically a progress report on how we're doing in conquering our primary interior flaw. Huh? How we're doing on conquering this predominant assault. It gives us a real scientific plan for using the Sacrum, the confession in order to make great strides in holiness. It's not just sort of, there's a flock of birds. I'll pull the trigger and hope I hit one. It's getting serious about them. If we want to make even more rapid progress, we can always update any by giving ourselves a sanction.
Speaker 1 13:23 That's like a little pen. It's like they could say, oh, I messed up three times. I give myself three helmers in three glory, bs or something. Every time we failed to keep a particular resolution, but that's optional. Obviously let's each adopt these practices and parents teach these techniques to your children. Review what we learned last week and this week over and over till they have it down until it becomes a part of their life. The particular resolution examined carry us from confession. The confession, the spiritual contract carries us from urban community deferment, communion. This gives everyone here a framework for spiritual progress. It gives you a framework for actual substantial growth and holiness. Later on, we'll tie in some easy practices for prayer, but if we use just what we've learned in the past two weeks and get serious about it, by the grace of God, we'll start producing saints in this community.
Speaker 0 14:31 Gotcha. Nine mix saturation. He's in charge of that.
Speaker 1 14:38 That's why he has you here.
Speaker 1 14:44 Remember what Saint Alphonsus said? No. Those who say that God does not wish us all the each saints make a great yes for Saint Paul says, this is the will of God, your sanctification. God wishes all to be saints and each one according to a state of life, the religions as a religious, the priest is a priest. The married is married, the man of business as a man of business, that soldier as a soldier. And so of every other state in life. Those who say God does not wish us all to be saints make a great mistake. God wishes us all could be saints and each one, according to the state in life <inaudible>.
