Fr. Sean Kilcawley | SEEK22 | You Can Be Free From Addiction

all right let's pray in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen Heavenly Father we invite you into this space and ask you to send your Holy Spirit upon us to bind us to our Lord Jesus Christ that every thought word and work of ours may begin with you and through you be happily completed through Christ Our Lord amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen it is a great joy to be with you all today and uh as Steve said my name is Father Sean kokali I'm a priest of the Diocese of Lincoln Nebraska and um and and just really grateful to our Lord for everything that he has done to bring me to this place in this time and to bring all of us to this place and this time and and there's really like two things that I want to start with today and and the first is that I'm speaking as somebody who believes that Jesus is a real person right that Jesus is real and and that everything that he says is true right that everything that he says is true and when I say everything that Jesus says is true that means that it's true that we can be free right it's true that we can be free it's true that we can live the Abundant Life right Jesus says I came that you may have may have life and have it more abundantly right and have it more abundantly that you may have life to the full and and that's really what we're talking about today is that is that desire to have life to the full and and so when we talk about freedom right it's really freedom to love but but it's it begins with that desire right it begins with a desire to live and and I and I emphasize those two points because sometimes we live in a world where we don't believe that it's possible to live or we don't believe it's possible to be free you know sometimes I'll talk to a group of college students and I'll say Do you believe it's possible to be free uh yeah I'm not really sure right like I like I've been trying for a long time and and nothing I'm doing seems to work and and if that's the case right if that's the case then then there's one third underlying point that that I want you all to hold in your hearts today which which is something that I I call spiritual grit right spiritual grit you know like grit is that thing that that quality that allows us to hang in there when times get tough and and to endure in times of suffering and you know it's related to that virtue of long-suffering and it's it's sort of that quality that allows Jacob to wrestle with the angel to wrestle with God all night long and and at the end of the night in the morning the angel says to him let me go and he says I'm not going to let you go until you bless me all right I'm not going to let you go until you bless me and so spiritual grit means that that I'm gonna hang in here with our Lord because I believe that he's a real person and I believe everything that he teaches is true and so I'm going to hang in with him until I start to experience that Abundant Life that he's promised me right and so so that I can experience that Abundant Life that he's promised me now now of course everybody asks this question like like how do you be free right and and the work that I've done helping people and freedom from pornography like like oftentimes the question is okay what do I have to do right what do I have to do and and my answer is always pretty simple like like you don't have to do anything other than surrender your entire heart to our Lord that's it right that's all you have to do all you have to do is surrender your entire heart to our Lord okay what do I have to do to do that right what do I have to do to do that and so today I want to reflect on on the Rich Young Man and the rich young man and how he gives us a model right for for moving into Freedom right he the rich young man gives us a model and and it starts with a desire right it starts with a desire so the rich young man goes to our Lord and and he says what must I do right he's asking that same question that so many of us ask what must I do to gain eternal life and underneath that question there is a desire right there's a desire to live right there's a desire to live and so the first thing that we have to have is a desire to live and that might seem kind of obvious right it might seem obvious however for for many of us who have struggled with any kind of addictive behaviors in our life whether it's Netflix binging or food or television or pornography or masturbation whatever it is somewhere in that behavior there's there's the lack of a desire to live and and I was I was very blessed by somebody in my life and a couple of years ago and and this person was praying with me and and in the midst of praying with me what what came out was that that there was there was a lack of a desire to live and I didn't desire to die I just didn't desire to live right I didn't desire the Abundant Life maybe I started to settle for the good enough life right the good enough life or or the the life where you know I'm I'm kind of like in drudgery until like someday maybe I'll go to heaven and then things will be good then right it definitely wasn't a pursuit of life every single day and anytime we're moving into things that were enslaved to we're moving away from living our life and so the first thing is we have to have a desire to live and so what must I do to gain eternal life and then our Lord's answer is pretty simple you know our Lord says to him keep the Commandments you know in other words he says to him stop sinning right stop sinning and and so the first thing is okay I want to live and because I want to live I'm going to stop sinning and and again that seems kind of obvious it seems kind of obvious but but when we're talking about living in Freedom right the opposite of living in Freedom is living in slavery and when we're talking about living in slavery we're really talking about Sin and and so often we can fall into this this sort of lie or delusion that that it's okay for me to tolerate living in some kind of sin in my life and we attribute that to lots of different things we can attribute it to our woundedness and and surely like sin flows out of woundedness and there are certain things that reduce our culpability with regard to sin but at the end of the day it's still sin and and we have to have this desire to stop sinning and so keep the Commandments and then the third thing this third movement right and for the Rich Young Man is okay he says okay I've done that I've stopped sinning now what do I do right now what do I do okay you've stopped sinning so now go and sell everything that you have and follow me now surrender your entire heart to me now give me everything in your heart any any sort of goes away sad at that point because he recognizes that oh he just doesn't want the minimum he wants all of me right he wants all of me and so that third movement is that complete surrender right that completes surrender and so the rich young man gives us that sort of road map this road map of the desire to live I'm gonna cut sin out of my life and then I'm going to surrender my entire heart to our Lord right that I'm going to surrender my entire heart to our Lord you know and so what do we mean by like that desire to live and what is that fullness of life look like and and so mark laser has this book called The Seven desires of every human heart and and in that we find these seven desires that that point to okay this is really what my heart longs for right this is what my heart longs for and those seven desires are to be heard and understood to be heard and understood to be affirmed for somebody to say it's good that you're here it's good that you exist I appreciate you to be safe to be blessed to be included to be chosen and to be touched right these seven desires they reveal to us what it means to be a son right they've revealed to us what it means to be a daughter of God and and they also reveal to us those places in our life where there are the biggest sufferings because the biggest sufferings that we have are when those seven desires go unfulfilled when we feel misunderstood when we feel excluded or on the periphery or we feel like we're different than everybody else or we have special circumstances when when we feel insecure in our relationships and we feel like there's nobody that's here for me or there's nobody that I can talk to right now when we feel like we don't matter when we've had experiences in our life where there are people that we should have been able to trust and they've betrayed us or they haven't been there for us in the way that we needed them to be there for us and so those seven desires also they reveal to us the seven places where we can be most wounded and if that's true then they were also revealed to us the seven places where sin enters into our life the most and and slavery enters into our life the most and and so if we want to know what we're enslaved to we just have to ask ourselves okay what do I do when I feel misunderstood when I feel unincluded when I feel set apart when I feel like I don't belong what do I do when I'm feeling insecure what do I do when when I'm feeling unaffirmed what do I do when I put in a lot of work and a lot of effort and it goes unnoticed what do I do in those times and and whatever we do in those times that's what we entrust ourselves to and that's that really becomes what we worship you know when when we give our whole heart to where we seek refuge in things other than the Lord when we seek refuge in things other than the Lord and we see Comfort or we seek to feel loved in things other than the Lord and those can be many things you know the obvious ones are those things that are really grave sins things like pornography or masturbation or there's the less obvious sins like gluttony and like overeating do I reach for a tube of cookie dough do I do I go home and throw myself into a bag of Doritos do I order a whole pizza and eat the entire thing do I endlessly scroll on social media hoping to find something new am I so deep into watching Netflix shows that I'm watching shows that nobody else would watch and I can't even talk to people about what I watch because like nobody even watches this you know what what do we what do we do and and where do we find ourselves enslaved are we just picking up our phone and zoning out like playing games on our phone because that's what we're enslaved to right that's what we need to be free from and and whatever that is that goes in the okay these are the things I need to cut out of my life and and this is where I need to stop sinning right this is where I need to stop sinning and and I'm using really direct term there when I say this is where I need to stop sinning because because sometimes we can we can sort of give ourselves too much of a break and when I say too much of a break I mean that that there are things that we don't consider that bad but they're keeping us in slavery you know they're keep they're keeping us in slavery and and we just don't consider them that bad or we think well you know because I'm weak I I can I fall into this and and really this is a grave thing and it needs to be in the I can't do that category the I can't do that category is the category that every grave sin should be in in our life right every grave sin should be in this category and uh and and sometimes you know every grave sin is not in that category so so for instance there are certain things in our life that we just can't do and we know that we just can't do them right like somebody might come to me and say okay father every time I go home on break um I go I go stay with my parents and and my mom she just like nags me and and she's just like all into my business and she's asking me all these questions and and she she's so annoying and and it frustrates me and then you know I feel like escaping and and it might fall into some kind of behavior okay so so here's a solution like this is what I want you to do I want you to like go home and when your mom is getting on your nerves just wait for her to go to bed at night and get a pillow and then go into her room and smother her right now somebody's going to look at me and be like I can't do that what are you talking about I can't do that that's ridiculous like that's you would never do that right we would never do that it's in the I can do that category right and and so we have things in our life that are in the I can't do that category and we need to put those other things in that category right we need to put those other things in that category so anything that is grave matter it needs to be in that category right which means like viewing pornography needs to be in the I can't do that category masturbation needs to be in the I can't do that category eating a roll of cookie dough needs to be in the I can't do that category whatever it is that gets in the way has to be in the I can't do that category even when those things maybe aren't the worst sin right even when those things maybe aren't the worst sin they have to go in the I can't do that category because once they're there once we stop sinning what happens is that desire that we had that we were sort of trying to meet with those things those worldly things or those sinful things that desire gets exposed and as that desire is exposed then we can take it to our Lord and we can see that our Lord does meet it right we can see that our Lord does mean it that he is capable of meeting it that he desires to meet it right and that's where the magic happens right that's where the magic happens and and this is something very like profound that I I experienced like even just recently which started with that desire to live my life and I had this desire to live my life and I said a couple years ago I went to this friend and and he was praying over me and and kind of in the midst of praying over me he started talking about things like heart disease and and like chronic illnesses and and I'm just like what are you talking about you know and I kind of left there like what the heck right and and so then I realized like I haven't had a physical in like five to ten years right so so I go to the doctor and I find out I have high cholesterol and I have sleep apnea and I have some other things and and I was like so I went on cholesterol medication and and I realized like okay I have to desire to live my life and and so I was just sort of like praying into that desire to live my life for for about a year and and I woke up on my 47th birthday weighing about 240 pounds and and looking at myself in the mirror and being like oh this is like like I don't want to be I don't want to be heavy anymore you know my knees hurt when I climb the stairs like like all this kind of stuff and and in my head you know I'm like an Army Ranger and I used to be really like tough and but but I just let myself go and uh and so I decided okay I'm gonna I'm gonna lose weight I have a friend who lost like a hundred pounds in a year and on a certain food program and and so I went on this food program and it's super disciplined and you eat like six times a day and very controlled like what you eat so so now um what happened is like eating certain foods went into the I can't do that category right and and so now my desires are going to get more exposed even though like it wasn't like super sinful that I would you know snack but those desires were getting exposed and uh and I remember one day in particular I was I just started this this kind of food discipline and um and I got super frustrated with some circumstance in my life that I have zero control over right um because that's another you know area of Escape for me is like like I want to control things that I don't actually have control over um and uh you know I'd like waking up in the morning having manifestos about what I would do if I was the pope or something like that like I have no control over that and uh and so so I'm really super frustrated and and I'm staring at a bag of Dove chocolates on my dining room table and I had this realization that if I wasn't on this food program I would be eating like 20 of those right now like what in the world okay Jesus I need you to help me right now like I need you to to fix this problem for me because like that chocolate is not going to fix this problem for me and I just need you and you're the only one that's capable of meeting this desire right because because that that place where I was frustrated it was really a place where I wasn't feeling heard and understood or affirmed or appreciated or blessed and so Jesus I need you to bless me and I need I need you to be the only thing I need you to be the only thing and so putting Dove chocolates in the I can't do that category what did it do it opened up this space of vulnerability and and revealed the desire and put me in a place where it's only our Lord that can meet it right it's only our Lord that can meet it and and what happened then what happens is uh I realize like our Lord does much better job than chocolate at fixing my life he does a much better job than pornography or masturbation or Doritos or Netflix binging or playing games on my phone but we miss out on that when when we sort of compromise with sin and we miss out on that when when there's things that should be in the I can't do that category that we let be in the I can I can't do that unless I'm stressed category right like sometimes we have the I can never do that unless I'm really stressed out I got three hours of sleep last night I'm feeling vulnerable and I have all these wounds from my childhood category then I can do it right like that's not the place where we grow in Holiness you know all those things are things that need healing in our life and and and they can only be healed in our life when we recognize okay what I've been trying to do to heal them doesn't work those things belong in the I can't do that category I need to stop sinning and then I can bring all of my unmet desires to our Lord and He will be the Fulfillment right of every desire he'll be the Fulfillment of every desire because that's what that's what our Lord wants to do right that's what our Lord wants to do and so so when when it comes to like how do we be free to love it starts with that desire to live and and in that desire to live and to live up to live the Abundant Life it requires that we allow our Lord to love us that we allow our Lord to take care of every need that we have and every desire that we have first John 4 10 it's not that we have loved God but that he loved us and and it means okay so I'm gonna give up all of these other things and I'm just gonna let our Lord love me I'm just going to let our Lord love me you know and that's the model you know that that the progression that the rich young man goes through but it's also the progression that every single person in the gospel goes through everyone who's in need of conversion goes through that same progression you know the woman caught in adultery she's in this position where she's able to experience true repentance and honesty right she's caught in a very active committing adultery she's exposed like now the whole world knows everybody knows what's been going on in her life there's no hiding anymore there's no more double life there's there's just her exposed and the crowd says to Jesus this woman was caught in the very Act of committing adultery Moses says we should kill her what do you say and the woman doesn't protest she doesn't say no you shouldn't kill me because I have all these circumstances in my life I have all these things she just like she's accepting where she is and she just looks at the ground I mean I imagine she looks at the ground because Shane makes us look at the ground and then the Lord bends down and writes in the sand because he wants to meet her unmet desires and he wants her to notice that he notices her he wants her to see his Look of Love so that Mercy can land in that place and she can recognize that everything that she had been looking for in the sinfulness of her life can be met by this person who just lowered himself so that I wouldn't miss out on The Look of Love the Samaritan woman at the well she has a similar experience you know she's going to the well in the middle of the day why because probably because she doesn't want to see people and so she goes in the middle of the day and she encounters our Lord and the Lord says give me a drink and she's like I don't want to see people you're a Jew I'm a Samaritan you're not even supposed to talk to me go away if you knew who was asking you you would ask me and I would give you living water you don't even have a bucket go away and then Jesus says to her the water I will give you you'll never be thirsty again your unmet desires will always be met you'll never have unmet desires again okay give me that water always okay go get your husband ah I don't have a husband no you don't have one you've had five the one you're with now is not your husband I Know Who You Are I Know Who You Are and it's in that moment of of complete and utter honesty that she receives Mercy and so when we're talking about the how of okay I desire to live I'm gonna stop sinning I'm going to surrender my life you know in between like that stop sinning and surrendering my life there's this thing called repentance that's so important in Repentance means I know who I am I know what I deserve and I'm going to go to our Lord and I'm gonna just let his Mercy land in this place and there's no presumption and so the story of The Prodigal Son the prodigal son he finds himself in the pigsty after squandering his inheritance and and he experiences repentance which means he knows who he is and he knows what he deserves father I've sinned against heaven and against you I no longer deserve to be called your son treat me as one of your hired servants that's what I deserve he doesn't say father I've sinned against Heaven against you but but you're super merciful so I know you're going to let me back in your house he goes to him and says this is what I deserve and before he can get to this is what I deserve he says father I've sinned against Heaven against you I no longer deserve to be called your son and the father interrupts him any experiences Mercy he experiences the gift and the thing that he had desired to be filled by prostitutes by all the things they did run after was fulfilled that desire was met by our Lord in our because our Lord desires to meet our desires right he wants to be the Fulfillment of those desires that he's placed in our heart he he wants to love us and so when we're struggling and we desire Freedom whether no matter what it's from right that's the progression there are certain tools that help us along the way 12-step fellowships are things that it's it's sort of a format and a a methodology for going through that progression of saying this is exactly who I am this is what I deserve I need God to meet my desires right having good friendships and good fellowship and and just like reaching out to other people to connect and paying attention to like what are the desires of my heart and and where are the places that they truly can be fulfilled that's another methodology that we put in the way but but all of those things you know whether it's accountability software going on diets going on food plants right the point of all of that is is that I desire to have the Abundant Life that our Lord has promised me and so we constantly in our prayer we go back to I'm in need of conversion right if we're in need of Freedom that means we're in need of conversion I'm in need of conversion and that starts with listening to the words of Our Lord and Desiring to live then cutting out everything that gets in the way of receiving his love right everything that we entrust our life to instead of him and then surrendering our entire heart to him and so just to invite you dear brothers and sisters to to think about that and to think about like what are the things that we turn to when our desires are unmet and and to pray for the grace and the spiritual grit to cut those things out of our life and to sit in that tension right to sit in that tension and and to stay in that place until our Lord does give us everything that we desire right and everything that we need and that might be a short time and it might be a longer time right it might be a short time it might be a longer time the woman with the Hemorrhage she waited 12 years she had a hemorage for 12 years but there's a kind of perseverance that says I believe that everything that our Lord teaches is true and I believe it's possible and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna use every means necessary in order to have the freedom that our Lord has proclaimed as possible because when we experience that and we come to know that in that way it's then that we truly become a light that shines in the darkness of our culture it's then that our own Joy becomes contagious it's then that we give witness to the fact that Jesus is real and everything that he says is true in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen Lord Jesus we ask your blessing upon it just each of these your beloved Sons and Daughters we ask for the grace to to recognize the movements and the desires of our heart we ask you to cast out every Spirit of death every movement away from real living in our life help us to separate ourselves from all sin and from everything that gets in the way of receiving your love everything that takes your place and our life and in our heart help us to experience the transformation that you've proclaimed and to be a witness of your grace your love your mercy your light in the darkness of our own culture and may the blessing of almighty God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon each of you and remain with you forever amen [Music]

Channel: FOCUS Catholic

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Id: 5fzKmpgofZA

Length: 30min 22sec (1822 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2023