Father Spitzer’s Universe - 2017-06-14 - Who God Is - And Is Not: Affiriming The Unconditional Love

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to father Spitzer's universe the place in our universe where faith and reason collide I'm Doug Keck in the middle of it all your host coming to you from our EWTN studios in the heart of Irondale Alabama where Mother Angelica began at all Mother Angelica way today's topic chapter to who God is and is not and it's all coming from father Spitzer's new book the light shines on in the darkness transforming suffering through faith that's what we're going through week by week so you can check at it out at our EWTN our c-calm if you want to find that out of course for father Spitzer you can always check out majus Entercom don't forget to email us your questions at Spitzer's University wtn dot-com that's how we get your questions you can also post your questions on our Facebook page facebook.com forward slash ewtn online hash tag FS universe of course and send us a tweet at twitter.com /e wtn hashtag FS universe show us all how EWTN viewers know how to use social media and again the magic centers I met is Magic center.com for all things father Spitzer just wanted to mention a big event coming up Corpus Christi very important to Mother Angelica in the whole church coming up Sunday June 18th at 8:00 a.m. Eastern look for a mass and procession coming directly from the shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville Alabama mother's shrine and then at 1:00 p.m. Eastern look for mass and procession coming from Rome so that's all coming up this Saturday don't forget with Mother Angelica is a new book quick guide to the sacraments is also available through our religious catalogue now we take you out to the west coast with the man with the answers in the heart of our universe the one and only father Spitzer at our West Coast studios in Orange County California once again coming into view how are you Father I'm doing great doug great to be with you again right I just wanted to ask you maybe if you'd say a prayer to start us off today earlier there was a shooting which involved some our politicians GOP congressmen in Washington right and there's been some other things that have happened around the world but I think maybe if we can pray for all of us to maybe find the peace in our lives and to maybe pull the tenor down a little it so that we don't argue so much with each other sure and pray for each other and realize that at the end of the day we're all trying to do the best we can do absolutely in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father we ask you this day to bless our country particularly in the midst of this new tragedy ask you in a special way to bless Representative Scalise and his whole family who suffer right now because of this act of violence and ask Lord that you put it into the hearts of not only our Congress and our government but in the hearts of the citizenry to come together in unity and to calm our emotions and to seek the common good together and transform this tragedy into a real source of unity and a source of of the common good for our people that will lift our culture and lift it toward you and lift it even towards faith instead of toward division and turmoil that we've been experiencing in recent months we ask all of these things through Jesus our Lord amen amen Mary seat of comfort pray for us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen amen and also father I wanted to ask you you've celebrated in the last month or so and recently more so a couple of events in your own personal life maybe you want to share with our audience here of you become fans of you on the show well well thank you yes I celebrated my 65th birthday and also was able to celebrate my 34th anniversary of ordination looking forward to my 35th so I'm almost surpassed my silver anniversary by ten years and it's just been just it was a wonderful day and I had joined by a lot of friends who just that were celebrating birthday and priesthood with me so thank you for mentioning it Doug that's right I know your wonderful assistant Joan and her sister were oh yeah integrals we're getting that whole thing put together and done and central to it I'm sure listed in a fine affair in addition we want to make everybody know that just because you're turning 65 no plans to retire right no gosh I mean that would be the last thing I'd ever want to do in a million years so I love what I do and I love being on the show with you and and of course hopefully you know trying to answer some questions for folks and building up a good foundation of Christian thought very good very good of course we've been going through your your new book which is really part of an entire set a quartet that you put together and and this is the latest one and we're working on into chapter 2 and then hopefully next week into chapter 3 my guess is we may be going a little slower than we may intend to just because there's so much to cover as people can see the all four books included there on the screen right now they can see that of course the light shines on in the darkness the one we're focused on okay so let's talk about today's topic is who God is and is not affirming the unconditional love of God and I thought in reading the book the whole part about who God is not I actually thought in a lot of ways was almost more interesting than God is kind of interesting but before we get there let's get one of the questions from last week somebody wrote to us from a couple weeks ago of course we're in the year of Fatima the 100th anniversary we've just come out of May obviously each 13th of the month on here on EWTN we in fact are featuring a special program with the late the message from that month all the way through October 13th as we celebrate that here on ewr family celebration coming up in Worcester in September we'll also focus on Our Lady of Fatima as well people can find out more information about that at ewtn.com as well so here's somebody wrote to us dear Doug and father I usually enjoy your show oh okay where's this going okay but on episode when speaking about fatum it seems that show may have been too dismissive on the truth revealed by a lady to the children that their friend would be in purgatory till the end of time I don't think our Lord would give children false impression and this is for Mary and I remember the question in the discussion I think we got it oh yeah I remember oh yeah art Linkletter discussion about house party and kids say the darndest things and I think it's important for people to realize that you know people it's kind of an analogous situation in a theophany like that where somebody's taking on and that those things are conveyed to us in the ways we can understand them right oh yeah no no I think that's a fair point and and certainly something you don't want to take lightly so maybe I can clarify it in a few points here well first point number one I certainly believe in the veracity of the Fatima apparition the Fatima miracle of the Sun the the Fatima prophecies from Lucy and and there's so much evidence in favor of that it's unbelievable I mean just looking at the the evidence for the miracle of the Sun including you know Lucy's own prophetic you know a prediction of it the thousands of people who witnessed it certainly so many of her prophecies have come true dead-on accurately you know who can doubt really the veracity of the Fatima message is so that's you know I just wanted to say that from the beginning that the second thing you know I think that's important is this is a private revelation so the church doesn't require that we believe every part of every message in the sense of not that Mary didn't deliver it I think Mary certainly was present was saying things but that you know sometimes the interpretation of what you know one of the visionaries might have heard you know can you know be obscured because whatever is received is received in the manner of the receiver in this case the receiver is a seven-year-old child who is somewhat uneducated but yes very pious and good and intention but still you know there can be misinterpretations and so the church doesn't require us to believe that of course we are free to believe it or free to to ask questions about it because it's not doctrine nor is it the gospel the third point is notwithstanding that you know certainly in you know you know for the viewer there you know Mary you know the Blessed Mother and our Lord is certainly not misleading anybody and I hope I never implied you know that that would ever be the case because I don't believe it I think that's beyond question that they would never do this and so you know just as straight in that matter out the question is not about our Blessed Mother or the Lord the question is about Lucy you know in other words what did she hear and did she interpret what she heard or thought she heard 100% accurately and that's that's something as I said the church allows us some latitude to look at and even to question you know freely right and the fourth point of course is well why why would I even question that particular message of it if I'm not questioning the prophecies you know and so forth you know why would I question this I certainly don't question that when the Blessed Mother told Lucy this she intended to say that grave sin is a really clear and present danger not only to individuals like their Lucy's friend but also to the culture itself and that there is need for reparation there's need for the Rosary as part of that reparation certainly she is saying that there's no question in my mind about it what I did I have a question about and still have a question about is two things actually because I think they're somewhat incongruous with the Lord's way of proceeding in the New Testament Jesus is way of proceeding in the New Testament the first thing is in that particular message a person is named a specific person is named and there's almost a chastisement uh you know in the form of you know that's person's going to be in purgatory to the end of time there's almost a chastisement involved attached to the naming of that person which is very unusual by any standard in the New Testament because Jesus never ever chastises an individual a sinner ever he never even chastised as an individual Pharisee though he obviously criticizes the Pharisees as a whole he never does chastise them certainly doesn't you know you know tell them you know in public they're a serious sinner or that you know or give a sentence you know almost of being in purgatory to the end of time it's just very very unusual indeed in fact Jesus's Tech is just the opposite he actually defends sinners right so he defends a Zacchaeus you know when he calls mana tree he defends the woman that's caught in adultery he defends the woman who comes into the house of Simon the Pharisee you know and he's continuously defending these sinners against the attacks and the disdain of the Pharisees just shifting over for a second to the to the Pharisees themselves again as I noted that Jesus doesn't really um you know he doesn't attack an individual Pharisee but what he does criticize the group for and and roundly criticized them for is that they are loading burdens onto people's shoulders without lifting a finger to budge and that they are excluding people from the kingdom of God they're excluding sinners from the kingdom of God who are literally banging on the doors trying to get in so um this is his criticism and so normally Jesus's tact with sinners is compassion is to include them is to call them right it's generally not to chastise or criticize and certainly not an individual person so I'm just left scratching my head here literally going now I don't get it I I mean I just it's so in Congress with the Lord I mean it she absolutely could have said it you know no doubt about it in an effort to try and and and say you know how to be deeply dark that the the culture has entered into sin and that was it was a relation that was in response to the question that was asked of our lady right yeah I mean they yeah that's her just wondering because it was somebody they knew had passed on and like you said I think kind of the idea of showing the greatness of the center I think the other thing we have to remember ourselves is purgatory is is a purification to heaven which means we're not talking about somebody oh yeah who was then going to hell it was somebody him ultimately was going to be was saved but needed to go through some purification so let's move on to and absolutely some other questions because I there's so much in your book that I want to make sure we catch up to everything so in the light shines on the darkness going back into chapter one one of the stories you talk about is the clinical death of a Linda Stewart and you talk about you're in the book why did you point that story yeah well I did it for three reasons number one you know Linda Stewart of course her near-death experience resembles you know truly thousands of others in many respects right so she is it's literally swept up into heaven and as she swept up into heaven she does see a white light that is absolutely incomprehensible loving who literally just completely fills her and brings her to peace of mind and so I thought okay there's great parallels here between this and thousands of other cases but the second reason I point I thought it was important was because she had a life that was filled with suffering this book is about suffering I mean she was suffering from physical pain she was suffering also from psychological anguish I mean the woman you know if you kind of read the the precursor was you know suffering squared or cubed I mean like we would never know I mean she should she even felt that it was hard to breathe and here when she is swept up into heaven is this complete alleviation of suffering so there's really nothing there's no residual left you know of this suffering and and because of it you know that um you know I thought well if people could just see that the Lord's promise to you know that every tear will be wiped away that the Lord's promise that suffering will disappear that st. Paul's you know promise that you know that when we get to the kingdom of heaven in the resurrection that the suffering will be as nothing compared to the glory of God because there is no suffering in the glory of God and this woman is swept up into glory she swept up into love she swept up into peace and all of her suffering completely goes away and so in in light of that you know she is really a good example of what you know I wanted to illustrate and she writes thirdly she writes very well and because she writes well and describes well and knows her interstates well and is very nuanced I selected her I mean they're literally honestly hundreds of these stories that you know are very similar but I just chose this one because it seemed to have a lot of good features in it but they're there many others that could have been there an interesting point you know with with Linda's story too is you know frequently the the bright light the unconditional loving bright light is identified with God the Father she identifies him with Jesus Christ and just says I just knew it was Jesus now when children see Jesus and their near-death experience they see Jesus in that more you know in his existence during his ministry right they see Jesus in the flesh and looking just like a you know a human being and and so forth however when adults see Jesus in a near-death experience frequently it's like what Linda identifies it's she identifies Jesus with this incredibly white bright light who is unconditionally loving and and you know she felt that she intuited that this was really the glorified Christ and so I just thought yeah that's that's a you know you know very spot-on to what the apostles I believe saw at the resurrection was this incomprehensible loving unconditionally loving right glorified beautiful light glory transformation that that Paul calls a pannu mati console a spiritual body and so I thought oh this is very illustrative of the very point I'm trying to make in this chapter namely the resurrection perspective just keep that in mind that's what we're destined for the suffering of this world says Paul it's nothing compared to the glory of God to be revealed in the life to come and boy it illustrated it well okay very good I'm going to move on to the next question because we have so much to talk about in your show rather than so we're busting through a break because we have a lot of questions that people have sent us and I've got a lot of questions too but let's go to one of our emails this one came in father said in Matthew the Lord said again I say to you that of two of those among you have agreed on earth about anything whatsoever that they have requested it shall be done for them by my father who is an and what does this mean my family all prayed that my sick son would live yet he died anyway yeah yeah I you know when you take a look at a passage like that from Jesus right that does have an mean in front of it that's like an unconditional promise you know I guarantee it to be so right so this is a very important you know authoritative statement that or two or more are gathered in my name you know my father will grant that request remember you can't take a passage like that out of context you know when you read a text especially a text that's written by a Hebrew author right that's written or stated like Jesus by a Hebrew author you have to remember that there's this assumption that the teacher the rabbi in this case Jesus who we now know is the Lord of course you know but that is his teaching includes all kinds of other things so the idea of just picking a passage out of isolation without the other dimensions right in it that that passage right it is seriously incomplete so what what's the context what did Jesus say about the answering of prayers that we need to put into this passage along with his promise of two or three being gathered in together in his name first we have to have you know Jesus and his father will not answer any prayer that will do the following six things that will number one inhibit in any way the salvation of the person in question so the suffering person so this would be the sick person so they're always always always going to seek the optimal possibility for salvation of the suffering person in this case this the sick child and and so if that will never be jeopardized by the Lord number two though Lord will always see also if that suffering will in some way help us to advance or will advance the salvation of other people so if there's some possibility that what's happening is going to advance the salvation remember the Lord has one thing on his mind to get us to heaven as we heard in the readings yesterday as Paul says he's all yes to our hope there's no yes and no there's all yes so the idea of you know him having the salvation at the forefront of his mind is absolutely important and that's the second thing that truly in in the mix the third thing is the Lord will never answer prayers that are going to undermine the the the freedom of not of the the person in question or fourth will undermine the freedom of others around the sick person right so you say well what does that got to do with this case how is it possible that any freedom is being undermined that the answer to the question is simply this it God cannot perform miracles at all times he's going to have to be highly of course he could perform miracles at all times but if he did do that we would have no freedom we would never be able to anticipate what will happen to us tomorrow let alone you know a week from now well frankly what's going to happen to us ten minutes from now because if God is sitting there answering every single prayer to violate a natural law in order to you know and performing a miracle in order to grant our prayer request that of course there is going to be a miracle every five seconds if there's a miracle every five seconds in God's answer to prayers that you know and all natural laws will be completely abrogated if all natural laws are completely abrogated we have no idea what's going to happen to us from one minute to the next you know and moreover we become completely dependent upon the Lord instead of suffering well using our suffering to deepen love and faith right instant deep encourage and to deepen our resilience to deepen our trust in him to show compassion to others we stop using our suffering for any of those purposes and we sit there and we we kind of wait around say okay Lord miracle please you know you know miracle happens now I'm not I don't want to I'm not being light about this what I'm trying to say is he couldn't possibly act this way I mean and if he did first of all our lives would be chaotic number two we would have absolutely no clear knowledge of what will happen to us in the future meaning we couldn't possibly knowingly act on our freedom and number three we never benefit from our freedom because of course God would acquiesce immediately to our requests in prayer right and so forth now if you start looking at you know this whole context right of what's going on God does want us to benefit from our suffering he does want us to deepen our love he does want us to deepen our faith not maybe necessarily the sick person but maybe the people around the sick person are going to have to deepen their faith and deepen their trust and deepen their love and deepen their compassion and and of course and they're going to have to you know offer up their suffering and not just their offer it up for you know the people around but for the people they don't even know to join their sufferings to Jesus to the sufferings of Jesus so that when we do together with that self offering and the things that we've learned from our suffering when we do offer this up to the Lord then of course we're just catapulting toward salvation because now the Lord is using us as his instrument and we are willingly allowing him to do so and and as such right I mean you know it's like you know we've put ourselves in the best possible position for the Lord to just reach down and pull us even maybe through a lengthy purgation process but to pull us right into the kingdom of heaven so you know just remember this salvation always Trump's the alleviation of suffering remember this human freedom is going to always trump the alleviation of suffering remember this benefiting from suffering and Trust in faith in love and compassion and courage in resilience it is always going to trump the alleviation of suffering and sometimes we need to be witnesses to others about how God can bring good out of suffering right how he helped us to change our path and life through suffering about how he deepened our faith in love through suffering or called upon to be witnesses to other people so the one thing we don't want to do is kind of take that passage in isolation and go well what happened right I mean no miracle you know and and true enough God does perform miracles and you know and I have that whole article that free article that you can write for and I'll send you an email copy of it called contemporary scientifically validated miracles and we take a look of course at the Fatima miracle and the evidence for it we certainly take a look to that you know the many great miracles at Lourdes several of them from that you know that we're part of the causes of the Saints etc and the Eucharistic miracle as well so the main thing is yes God does perform miracles but sparingly right those are the aces and tens talk about that elsewhere in the book and explain that even though you ever there about that whole idea because again yeah if God's not a great the great slot machine in the sky that we pull the lever and get what we want and you know and if every time you ask for something it was a miracle it wouldn't be a miracle anymore it would be what's expected and you know so it kind of contrary exactly idea let me ask you this in still in Chapter one in the twinkling of an eye you talk about the idea and an overview and Christian interpretation of suffering in your book first Christian insight suffering is completely redeemed in the resurrection what do you mean it's Rudy but it doesn't seem like it goes away and that's what I think people sometimes get confused between the idea that it's been redeemed but I still got it what's going on yeah redeemed just has that double significance first the actual suffering is taken away both the physical suffering the psychological and emotional suffering is completely taken away in the resurrection but secondly it's that God is going to take all those lessons that we've learned from suffering what I was just talking about right offering up our suffering and self-sacrifice and being self sacrificial in our suffering of learning to trust in God in our suffering of learning to deepen our love and compassion and suffering of you know taking you know a change in course in our lives if that's what's being called for in our suffering he's going to take all those lessons and he's going to bring them into fruition in his resurrection and in his peace so there's a double angle that the suffering will be removed but the lessons of suffering will be brought into fulfillment into fruition to the perfection of love that we are going to experience and the perfection of love that we're actually going to be able to practice a completely transparency without any obscuring of ego in the kingdom of heaven and that's what that redemption refers to very good very good on that point we shall take a quick break here when it's the father Spitzer's you nurse will be with father Spitzer again momentarily stay with us much more ahead in the heart of the universe [Music] and thank you so much for staying with us right here on father Spitzer's universe I'm Doug Keck and we'll be with father Spitzer momentarily as we talk about the light shines on in the darkness we're going through this book week by week and we're actually haven't even gotten up to today's topic we're still going through some questions and some other questions I have from the earlier chapter and just before we go to our next question that someone sent us I wanted to ask you this in the conclusion of your chapter one twinkling of an eye you say the greater are suffering offered as loving self-sacrifice in imitation of Jesus the more positive the effects upon the mystical body of Christ what are those positive and positive effects and how do we know that that's true well well first of all you know it's it's certainly in Scripture and you know where st. Paul tells us in the letter to the Colossians that you know he's thankful for his own sufferings he rejoices in his own sufferings because in those sufferings he can make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ we've discussed this on the program before you know of course st. Paul doesn't believe that there's anything ontologically lacking in the sufferings of Christ what he does believe however you know is that Christ made some room right for us to make a contribution to the mystical body of Christ to make a contribution to the whole order of salvation right that we can play a part as well through the offering of our suffering so the idea of you know for st. Paul is to attach our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ Christ has left us room to play this really important and dignified part in the order of salvation in our lives and so when that occurs right and we do play that part you know and attach those sufferings it has all kinds of effects you know that that we don't you know yet know of now of course you know looking at the mystical body here you know not just from the vantage point of you know the the glorified communion of saints in the kingdom of heaven though that certain they are all certainly part of the mystical body of Christ but also included in the mystical body of Christ are you know us guys as they say you know the people who are still on earth you know and Paul is telling us that we're actually a woven into the mystical body of Christ that you know what people are doing in the mystical body is coursing through our veins because Jesus is uniting us all together through his Holy Spirit and what we're doing in the mystical body of Christ is coursing through everybody else's veins because we're all in this together alright you know Christ has unified us all through his body and so when that actually occurs says st. Paul if we're offering up you know in self-sacrifice remember self-sacrifice is an act of love an unconditional act of love it's love for the father love for the Lord who did it first right Jesus the Lord Jesus who did it first and love of course - for the whole communion of saints for all the people who are united to you know through his body indeed love for you know as st. Therese of Lisieux would say love for those you know who almost appear to be you know a criminal Trackman you know just into the darkness completely are not in any way part of of the mystical body by their own intention right and they - you know you can offer you know your yourself to them and and every you know first the mystical body will be built up says Paul he's rejoices in that but also this act of love can be for the redemption of people who are outside of the mystical body by their own choice and can actually call them to repentance as well and you know st. Therese of Lisieux as I think most people know st. Torres did turn this self offering to the let's act of love you know for the Lord this act of love for the mystical body this act of love for those who are even in the darkness she turned it into a whole life's ministry you know when chily that was you know after a while all she could give I mean she had nothing left you know but of course that all she could give was a lot because she had a lot of suffering that she was enduring and of course you know that the devil was tempting her in the midst of that suffering did just give up hope you know he just kind of grind away at her and grind away at her you know and just you know but she knew the light of Christ she knew what she had experienced she knew that the light of the Lord's love was going to prevail she was absolutely in love with the Lord in every self offering that she made to him right in every image she saw of him you know she just simply you know continued to offer up those sufferings to him even in the midst of the you know really diabolical attempts you know to bring her to desolation and and through it all right I mean the immensity of the self-sacrifice freely offered which is the immensity of the love that is freely given to the Lord along with the sufferings of Jesus is so immense you just know it's going to do huge amounts of good do we know whether or you know can we be sure you know well that it went to my mother and father or it went to my sick child who died or it went to you know this person who is a drug addict we don't know but the Lord you know I I specify you know first of all of course I do join my sufferings to the Lord's and and I do offer them up for the whole mystical body right as Paul encouraged us to encourages us to do but also I start making specific requests I say you know Lord do you know if the you know whatever suffering I'm going through with my eyes and things of that nature you know I would like to you know my parents to benefit if that's needed they're both deceased but you know I'm sure they're close to the Lord they're in purgatory I want them to get some benefit I you know I'm hoping they're in heaven I don't know that they're burger but just in case they are I would like them to benefit and of course I would also like you know certain people who I know are having a rough time to benefit certain people I know who are just tormented by physical suffering I want them to benefit but I want them to benefit in terms of their salvation and in terms of the deepening of their love and faith not just in terms of the alleviation of the suffering so I want them to get full benefits so it's like from my eyes right I want to get you know I don't want to get alleviated from the eye disease any earlier than is necessary for me to get full benefit namely detachment from vanity detachment from pride and detachment from you know well just all the the worldly things that I would want you know I need to get full benefit you know it's for me the I problem is like what I would call an active dark night of the of more well it is an active dark night of the senses but it's also an active dark night of the Spirit and it early you know I can use this for you know purification and detachment and I want it you know I don't want any earlier resolutions you know if I've still got benefits to come because the spiritual is much more important than the temporal you know and even though it's frustrating some days you know and especially when I whack a wall in an airport or something you know I you know or something goes wrong you know I I can get frustrated but I'll tell you it produces spiritual gifts beyond compare and it's been very very important in my life so as I say you know it's it does do these things but I don't know whether my specific requests you know whether God is fulfilling those or killing others I don't know why he wouldn't so I keep just doing it because I trust that he's going to be yes for all of their lives as well as a yes for my life so in my salvation so I'm I'm figuring he's he's he's up to his good works and also just the idea that in praying for someone else it's a benefit for us I mean it because it is that part of giving and that's the part that frees us from that kind of vanity or pride that is the thing that usually is pulling us down since that's the basically the original sin that we're all struggling with in the world today sometimes too many people think their original sin doesn't exist which is why they don't understand what the world is the way it is speaking of that here's a question that came to us I talked to God every day about everything this is an email but all I ever get in return is silence this is very discouraging I'll never turn my back on my faith but I'm it sure is hard to feel good about a relationship with God and what feels like nothing but silence coming from him please help and this is Lauren I always think of coming out of film school and things like that you think of the kind of the great Scandinavian films the great silence of God this whole idea that you know where is God when we need him which came very popular after World War two especially oh yeah absolutely you know and let me just go back probably remember was it Laura a few weeks ago that I was talking about Chris Christian mysticism and and in it I was talking about you know a kind of a dark night of the soul and you know Laura frequently enough if you it sounds like you have made some good progress in your spiritual life and and it sounds like you have a very deep and mature faith course I don't know you I haven't spoken with you but frequently enough when that happens the Lord actually privileges us with some what the Mystics would call silence the very word use and of course it feels like this silence feels like a dark night it feels like we're not getting a response from God and sometimes that silence can last a long time we know in the life of mother Teresa for example it did lasts a long time and it was a very prolonged dark night but the Lord has his reasons and the point of course is is the Mystics viewed it as a privilege to be called into the silence that you had reached a certain state of maturity so that you know you didn't have to rely on that kind of continuous consolation that you had when you were less mature when you were younger when the Lord was trying to kind of call you away from you know a sinfulness trying to as it were you know bring you into the desert right but you're you're probably not being called into the desert now you're probably in what the Saints all universally call the desert you're there and the desert is a really silent place however there are many benefits of of the desert and before I get into those I just want to say two quick things the first thing is God is still present as you already pointed out and you're correct about that the second thing to notice is that God is present also providentially all around you in the circumstances in your life and things that are happening to you in ways that you're being protected and the inspirations that you have you know sometimes we take these things for granted we think our true creativity and our subconscious was really smart and we came up with this ourselves I abandoned these thoughts a long time ago I know when something is beyond me and my subconscious is not that smart so the point I'm trying to get to is beware of the other side of God all around you in the voices of your friends in the turns of your life in the circumstances or opportunities that mean to deepen your faith and the opportunities to grow in compassion and love don't get too you know worried you know what I want you to do is put on the face of a saint if God is calling you and he does call you in the purgative way right you know into what's called the the passive dark night of the senses and it sounds like he may be doing that right now that means you know that there's going to be a periods of silence and when those periods of silence occur the main thing is you know as John of the Cross would counsel don't be praying for the silence to end all the time you know of course we want to do that at first because our heart is longing to be in contact again with the Lord to be in consolation from the Lord but what the you know the Lord wants from us is to learn something from the desert experience what is he asking us to learn from from the desert experience number one what he wants to do is increase our trust in him you know and of course he wants us to do that especially when he's not present you know when he we can't kind of feel the consolation around us he wants us to do that because of course that bond of trust where we're just relying on him confidently and firmly even though you know everything it might be sweeping around us that you know that just seems like silence we know were convinced and that's a purification of trust and of course this is going to strengthen every one of our virtues because we won't be doing things as Saint John of the Cross says right we're not going to be doing things now in order to get some consolation what we're doing things because they're pleasing to God whether he gives us consolation or not when we were little kids right I mean even John can give an example like this you know when your parents want you to do something and you did something well you get it you know maybe some reward ice cream whatever you know might be you know I don't how let the doctors will take you for ice cream later etc etc you get your rewards but you know then of course you know st. Paul st. John the cross tells us right you know God is going to take those things away because he doesn't want us you know to do loving things to do things that will be pleasing to him simply to get the consolation simply to get as it were you know you know that Patton had he wants us to do it because they're pleasing to him that's the true act of charity that's the true growth in faith it's tough being in the desert but when you come out of the desert your love is purified because you are doing it for all the right reasons you just want to please the Lord of love the Lord who is our Creator the Lord who has led us into this desert whom we trust the Lord who is going to bring us to salvation and when we get those gifts we're going to be able to help a thousand other people to understand the same journey and to bear with it with courage and faith very good let me ask you just I think you kind of alluded to it is sure sometimes also is it because we're looking for the signs or the consolation maybe we expect it to show up in a particular way and it may be showing up but we just are not looking in that place absolutely sometimes we think you know that you know if God we're listening he would answer us with consolation right he would answer us with some sort of interior movement of the soul and instead what God is doing is is answering us with a million you know different you know external events or things that people are telling us you know etc to their graces coming out all the time that are directing us and helping us it's like the guy who you know is is stuck in the flood you know and you know he's he's sitting atop his roof you know and God send a helicopter he says nah I don't need to help cop there uh you know I prayed and God will help me the guy goes okay you know he sends a rowboat quick get in don't worry I prayed to God don't need the rowboat thanks anyway you know so forth you know finally of course you know the guy drowns and he gets to heaven he goes well why didn't you answer my prayers he said well I sent a helicopter I sent a boat you know I I sent a rescue team but but but he didn't take them and so it's the idea of where we're looking for God in all the wrong places or sometimes we're looking for God's response in all the wrong places when it comes out in a perfectly good human voice or when it comes out in a text of a prayer or a text of a book you might be reading or it comes out in an EWTN program they might be watching right right you never know but I mean it's it's there and God is speaking and but because God didn't reveal it in the interior I don't want it I want the direct anterior approach I don't want the mundane stuff even though God of course uses the mundane in order to purify our love and to have us look right you know to love him and to love others for all the right reasons instead of for just the think of a character on a television show said it's a gift he said but it's not the gift I wanted and I think sometimes they end up yeah with that same idea and let's just get to this one quick just before we run out of time it seems that salvation can at times occur through prayers of others but what about those who may not be fortunate enough to have someone pray for him or her like you were talking about with your parents do they perish simply because of a lack of prayer thank you father Spitzer for the great work that you do god bless you always and this is Carl yeah actually you know it Carl you know just what we were talking about seconds ago for example and for Terez of Lisieux and so forth there are all kinds of people like saint torres that spend and offer all their sufferings all of them you know for people they do not know and do not see and who do they pray for especially the people who have no one else to pray for them so st. Torrez of course made an entire apostolate of this and by the way she's not the only one right there's like all these Carmelites throughout the entire world who are constantly praying for those who have no one else to pray for them right now if I have Carmelites praying for me I feel like I'm you know that's next to saintliness right so I'm happy you know that you know these Carmelite Sisters is discal sisters are praying you know it's almost like having Saints pray for you but it's not just the Carmelite sisters who are doing this is not just Saint Therese of Lisieux it's all these saints in heaven who literally you know are praying for all these people who have no one to pray for them just that's what st. Therese of Lisieux gets this from right that's where she learns it from the habits of the other Saints she learns it from Saint Paul who's you know offering up his suffering for the whole mystical body and of course for all those right to who just you know have no one to pray for them and of course Mother Teresa's prayer again for those who have no one to pray for them but Saint John Henry Newman is prayer the very same thing so oh they have many people praying for them and sometimes the most saintly of people praying for them both here on this earth and in heaven and so they are prayed for and of course everyone is seeking their good as well no one gets left out of the formula ever ever ever as Paul said yesterday or as st. Paul says the yesterday's reading you know he is pure yes never yes and no and he's pure yes to everyone okay very good we're just about wrapping up and we're going to have to hold ourselves over to chapter two and get into who God is and is not because we we we sort of had to finish up the first chapter let me ask you this is a part of a quartet of books and we can show those on the screen of the four of them let me just ask you a question is there any reason to somebody need to read the other three before they can read this one is there an order they have to be read in or they can all be dealt with individually they can all be dealt with individually and we wrote it that way although I would say this like for example in this book which is the the light shines on the darkness that's the fourth book in the quartet as you mentioned now I had to put a precis of a lot of the material in the second book the souls up or yearning and the third book God so loved the world I had to put a lot of that evidence for God the evidence for the soul the evidence for God's love the evidence for the resurrection all that you know pray sort of a summary right of all the the material on the Shroud of Turin the near-death experiences the historical arguments for the historicity of Jesus's resurrection I had to kind of put it in summary form in Chapter one because I didn't want people to just ignore it however if you went back and you really wanted that evidence right for the so let cetera that near-death experience I would read you know the souls of murdering and if you really wanted the full treatment of the Shroud of Turin or the arguments for the resurrection or the arguments for the historicity of the miracles of Jesus cetera I would go back to book three God so loved the world then when I get to chapter six for example I have to do a summary again the four levels of happiness now again a summer eats a summary right if you really want the full explanation you'd have to go back to book one but if you had a good way to dip in form and to see the parts that you might have some interesting getting the full father Spitzer's treatment week by week right here on EWTN and the book is the light shines on in the darkness we'll see you next week when we continue our discussion okay god bless and that's father Spitzer and of course don't forget the Mother Angelica we got mother Angelica's quick guide to the sacraments very popular book just out from EWTN publishing the magic center is all things father Spitzer magic center calm don't forget also a very important event and we thank our sisters and mother Delores for the Corpus Christi Sunday event coming up from Hanceville June 18th 8:00 a.m. our wonderful team here will be working on that mass in procession the Most Blessed Sacrament in of course Hanceville and don't forget we'll also be in Rome 1 p.m. Eastern mass in procession from Rome next time we'll continue here with father Spitzer's universe and we'll talk about who is God and who God is not see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 3,888

Keywords: FSU, FSU15059

Id: BaWWo8gszVo

Length: 57min 1sec (3421 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2017