Fr. Timothy M. Gallagher on Catholic Discernment | The Augustine Institute Show with Dr. Tim Gray

[Music] how can we spiritually discern god's will when we talk about the discernment of spirits oftentimes we think about maybe i have to decide what my vocation is and so i know all of a sudden i want to discern and i get into a sense of discernment and then i stop once i've discerned my vocation or maybe it's a big decision that you're thinking about and you're you know trying to discern what does god want me to do what's the right decision what's the wrong decision what should i do but oftentimes we miss that discernment is a tool given in our catholic tradition through saint ignatius of loyola that is to guide our spiritual life every day of our life to give us tools to grow closer to god but how do i do that how do i exercise the discernment of spirits that's the question we're going to take up this evening we're going to talk about discernment of spirits how do we discern spiritually and i'm so happy to have as our guest this evening father timothy gallagher who is uh was ordained in 1979 as a priest you did your doctorate work at the gregorian is that correct and has written over eight books on spiritual discernment and spirituality and and and father you've spent your career leading you know countless retreats spiritual direction and now you have the chair of uh sin ignatius spiritual discernment formation at st john viennese seminary here in denver so thank you for uh coming on board tonight and talking with us about discernment thank you for having me and for inviting me to talk about something i talk about so willingly oh well it's a joy having you here i know a lot of our audience might well know that a lot of your talks on spiritual discernment on on the forum platform and i know that's been very popular it's been a great blessing to many people looking for resources for discernment so let's talk about discernment because i think a lot of people don't understand the the wealth of resources that we have in our catholic tradition especially and what you're so familiar with is the nation's spirituality that that ignatian spirituality and the discernment of spirits it's a it's a it's a topic it's a tool that's to be used for broader than just making big decisions or discerning one's vocation isn't it sure when we speak about discernment and especially if we want to do an indignation term ignatius doesn't really invent anything but he encapsulates the tradition and expresses it with such clarity and practicality that it tends to dominate and we speak of it as ignatian but what ignatius does is to highlight two different related but two different forms of discernment and you've alluded to both of those one is i'm facing a choice i love the lord i want to do his will i'm looking for help to help me know which choice god wants so that's discernment of god's will in choices that we face the other kind of discernment is that which you just highlighted and that is every day the spirits are working that is god is working there is a tempter who is working my own human spirit is involved and how can i sift that out know what's of god and not of god so therefore know what to follow and what to avoid if we can get there wow powerful things happen in the daily spiritual life which is where almost all of it's lived you know father one of the things i i just want people to learn and discover is the richness of our catholic tradition the rich resources and tools and you mentioned saint ignatius and how practical he was people don't think about spirituality or spiritual discernment as practical i think it's intimidating it sounds like i need to be a mystic i need to be a scholar i need to be well trained to be able to spiritually discern but ignatius wanted everybody to be able to exercise practical rules and principles that would help them in their daily life and uh so where do people start let's just how do people at home uh look at discernment that seems like a you know intimidating topic how can we make it simple and practical where do people start sure in terms of discernment in daily spiritual living start with the 14 rules that ignatius crafted essentially to help us understand these ups and downs that go on all the time you know i've been teaching these for close to 40 years now and i have never yet had one person who has ever said to me i don't know what you're talking about because what ignatius does is simply to give a vocabulary for what's going on all the time we all know that there are ups and downs in the daily spiritual life there are times when god feels close prayer is alive we have energy for things in the church and living our vocation more deeply and if we're honest we'll also recognize that there are times and we often don't even understand why when the bottom seems to drop out of that energy and then again if i can say it reverently it's hard to even want to pray maybe we don't pray or we're not happy with the quality of our prayer all that energy for growth and new steps seems to wane these ups and downs are going on all the time and what ignatius has done is to give us 14 short essential practical guidelines for understanding this experience and even more for knowing how to respond to it and above all what he's honing in on would be the more discouraging times because that's where we have more problems he calls that spiritual desolation so he gives us a series of tools to help us understand that and know how to not only be not harmed by it but actually to grow through it and you know i'd say in a way i could not have guessed when i first wrote books on this years ago that's becoming more and more important because there are a lot of reasons vulnerabilities to discouragement now so this teaching is getting more and more important and you know i'll let the doctors answer this the biology of this but when i share this with people sometimes i will literally see a light go on and oh you mean god doesn't want me to live with this discouragement and greatness there's a path through this and there is you know i love that you talk about these practical steps and i just want to highlight your book for people because i i hope our conversation sparks an interest for people to want to go deeper in this and uh you've published a wonderful book that's been around for i think almost a couple decades now the discernment of spirits and uh an ignatian guide for everyday living and i love that idea that it's an ignatian guy for everyday living and you mentioned father this idea that we all experience these ups and downs and we know our emotional life and our life of kind of as you use the analogy with energy sometimes we can be discouraged or just down or struggling sometimes we feel like we can conquer the world everything's going well i feel so close to god when people feel that struggle that that uh where they're in desolation now help people understand does desolation mean that i've done something wrong and i'm in sin or is desolation come with different because of different things no absolutely not desolation is simply a tactic of i'll use ignacio's own word of the enemy by which he means it's the classic triad the world the flesh and the devil it's simply a tactic like temptation it's the other basic tactic of the enemy there's nothing dramatic about it this is ordinary experience and precisely because it's ordinary and daily it's critically important to understand it and know how to respond to it so this is something that i i really want to say and i'm so glad you've given me an opportunity to say off the bat there is no shame in experiencing these downs there is no shame in experiencing desolation everyone does read the story of a soul of therese sometimes or ignatius spiritual diary every saint everyone does but what matters is to be aware of this to be able to understand this for the discouraging lie of the enemy that it is and then to know how to reject it can i add a story here please please just very briefly um one time i was teaching these rules in a retreat context and when we came to the final sharing one woman said you know one day i was looking out my window and i saw the gardener on the grounds go over to the tool shed he went in and got a number of tools and that he needed for whatever task he was doing and he went off to do what he needed to do and she said i feel like that's what ignatius has done for me in these roles he's given me the tools that i need to know how to understand these discouraging times and above all to know how to respond to them so that as i say not only do they not they not harm us but we actually grow i think that's so important and i think there's nothing more discouraging besides desolation and discouragement then not knowing spiritually how to respond to it you know and uh you know so if so if somebody at home is is you know feeling like gosh i prayer used to be energizing for me i used to be excited enthused to pray and you know and i had a a great lent and i had all these resolutions and easter was good but boy since you know it's been a long time since that lenten fervor is there something wrong with me or what do i do father when you know i don't feel like praying is that is that a fault am i am i am i in sin why am i not feeling energized to pray you know these are great observations because what we do is we begin to see why ignatius crafted 14 rules this is a rule 9 question that is when i find myself in a time of spiritual desolation ignatius asks this question why now it might be you know if the fact that i am not finding any real life or sense of god's closeness in my prayer is due to the fact that i'm not praying as much anymore or not preparing in a way that i know that helps me and so forth well then that sense of desolation is god's loving way of saying you know there are things that can help you do better so that you'll be less vulnerable to this but many times we may be in spiritual desolation when we are not at fault in any way or negligent in any way because many times almost some of the most powerful growth in our spiritual life comes through going through such times i think if we all look back over our lives we'll recognize the growth that came through the warmth and light of spiritual consolation when we had the energy to take new steps but we'll also recognize that sometimes it was the difficult dark times it almost compelled us to take the most valuable steps in our spiritual life so there's a reason why a god who loves us and when we are not at fault will permit us to go through spiritual desolation because if we respond well to it again be aware name it and then reject it using the tools then beautiful growth can come into our spiritual lives i love the idea that that these desolations and dryness and prayer can be an opportunity to grow and does that mean that god sometimes leads us you know like a child in our early spiritual stage or a time of renewal with consolations and so that we want to pray we feel um energized by it but then god on his love wants us to grow and mature and so sometimes he allows us to not feel anything even though he's still close to us and so sometimes i have to realize that this is part of god's pedagogy maybe his way of growing me yes that's a classic you know in all the saints francis de sales and so on down the line and ignatius would certainly agree with that what ignatius the presupposition of all of this is that in a normal well-lived spiritual life by a person yeah the just one falls seven times a day and all the rest of that but somebody who sincerely loves the lord and is trying to live you know faithfully with the lord jesus his presupposition is that there will be these ups and downs the nuances will be different for everyone and there's an individual level of self-understanding and growth that can happen for each of us but the fact that there are ups and downs actually ignatius would worry if there aren't you know because this is normal in living the spiritual life in a fallen yes but redeemed and loved world what i'll keep coming back to is what makes the difference is it's there are three steps in this be aware of this wait a second something's going on here oh you know this is of god or no this is of the enemy and then take the appropriate action and that's what ignatius really does in that in the rules is to give us the tools to take that action you know you use those three steps right there of asking these questions is this is this from you know this god is this from the devil is this is have i done something have i changed something that's led to this you know it's that's so practical and i think people get intimidated by spirituality and the idea of spiritual discernment and you know as i said earlier they think that this is you you've got to be a sane or a mystic and ignatius gives everyday tools to anybody to be pragmatic and to and to kind of help their spiritual discernment have these practical tools like the gardener right so let's take uh let's exemplify it here's um oh and make it a man who has been a faithful catholic in terms of sunday mass and occasional prayer and confession a few times a year and so on and then the parish announces a lonesome retreat he's interested speaks to his wife she supports it he goes has a wonderful experience and now is beginning to grow in new ways in his spiritual life this sunday morning he's at mass and the pastor invites the parishioners in his homily to spend ten minutes each morning with the daily readings and explains a little how to do that in this man's heart he loves what's happening in his new closeness with the lord and he feels god's closeness spiritual consolation as this is happening finds himself thinking you know if the changes i've made are already helping this much what would happen if i did what father's suggesting and you know my wife's been doing this for years tonight i'm going to talk with her when the kids are in bed and she'll be she'll love to get me started and tomorrow morning i'm going to start all right discouraging email from work in the course of the day uh tense conversation with his teenage son let's say at supper now the children are in bed he's in his study and he remembers it was going to speak to his wife but now the thoughts are very different you've never even read the bible what makes you think you're going to understand it you know yourself you get these enthusiasms but you know how long they last if you speak with your wife she's going to get excited and you're just both going to be embarrassed two weeks from now when it falls apart okay what i have illustrated is ignatius second rule the encouraging action of the good spirit which he experiences at the mass in the morning and the discouraging action of the enemy in the evening now can you see how much hangs on this if he gives into this and doesn't speak with his wife what's his prayer going to look like six months and a year down the line but what if with ignatius help and some courage and some grace he can say wait a minute that's the awareness you know what this isn't right that's the understanding this is of the enemy i'm going to speak with my wife and the way i knew was right this morning and now it's going to happen in this prayer a week later in six months and so forth so this is the level that we all experience on which ignatius wants to walk with us and clarify what's going on in this daily experience i love that and i want to come back to this encouragement discouragement and discerning spirits but i want to invite everybody to be able to join us uh by focusing on our our text line so if you have questions you can join our conversation at 720-650-0-100 and uh submit any questions you have on spiritual discernment and for father gallagher and we'd be happy to take it and we want you to be able to join our conversation here so father i love that that simple rule and what ignatius does on encouragement and discouragement he looked at that in his own life and kind of followed his own movements of his his emotional life and his and his spirit and he realized there was patterns that would develop with encouragement and discouragement so how do people how can we use that practical tool the best thing to do certainly i'll say this of myself because without ignatius help i would have no idea where to begin get to know these 14 rules and if it's helpful we can mention resources yeah yeah i'll just mention again you you go through and explain each one of ignatius's 14 roles here and so i think that's this is a great way and you can get this at catholic.market we have it on our website so we want to make father gallagher's books easily accessible to everyone so so people can do that so um and we also have the uh the audio version the podcast that are unformed yes and so that that's really important to mention the audio for this is the discernment of spirits unformed and so you can find the audios and listen to those i know that and it's so great being able to listen to audio so i listened to a lot of those episodes when i was uh just in the morning exercise or early in the morning so i can listen to those talks and and do some of my exercises so i i really physical and spiritual exercises at the same time father i was doing my ignition exercises with my peloton but uh but that's a great resource for people to get it's so helpful well you know all of this ministry i never planned it arose because what happened when i first started giving very simple little half hour talks on these rules in the context first of all in retreats the response more than the study that i've done which is fairly extensive on this it was people's response to this that really has driven all of this and even the book really is putting on paper the presentation i can promise anyone listening to us this anytime that you put into learning these 14 rules the day will come when you will bless the lord that you did it because it will give you an understanding of what's been going on all the time but because we don't have even a vocabulary to begin to get a hold of it we're sort of blown a little bit by it one woman said to me this it's a great summary she said before i knew the rules i was reacting now i'm responding and there's a world of differences wow that's a beautiful distinction yeah no we don't want to be in a reactive mode but to respond to the lord and you know roseanne asked a question father speak about responding how do she ask how do i tell the difference between recognizing god's voice my own ego and the devil so how do i how do i discern uh which voice is whose the short answer to that is to learn ignatius first two roles and i'll focus on the second rule because that's the in the first rule he looks at it was his own situation before his conversion the person who is far from god and living a life of serious sin how will the good spirit that is god his angels his work of grace how will the good spirit and how will the enemy work but our our person our questioner now certainly is not in that situation and will be in the rule 2 situation where ignatius looks at the person who loves the lord and with all of our weaknesses sincerely is seeking the lord i would invite anyone interested in the answer to this question to get to know ignatius's rule too because what he will do there is give you four qualities of how the enemy will act if we go back to our our man that evening you see a number of them there the enemy bites gnaws at the peace tries to bring a sadness into the spiritual life places obstacles it's too difficult you'll get you can't keep this up why even start tries to disquiet with false reasons you're just in competition with your wife this isn't really about god and so on get to know those four tactics so that you can be aware of them understand them and firmly set them aside and then the five tactics of the good spirit by which you can recognize the voice of the good spirit consolations inspirations you know what like in the morning at the master the warmth of god's closeness and the inspirations i should start this it could make a real difference and you know i can do it if i just speak with my wife and so forth easing and taking away the obstacles no it's not that hard many people do this you'll grow as you go along so i would say get to know those four and five tactics and then begin to look at your own experience and identify them and you'll be well on that road father do you think in your own experience you know as you discovered these rules and began to really have a deeper grasp of it that the ups and downs that we have in life as you mentioned oftentimes people's spiritual life goes up and down as their emotional and their feeling of closeness to god but can our spiritual life stay stable even though we have these down moments the down moments are not don't necessarily at all mean regression in fact if the enemy is attempting this tactic it's precisely because this is a person who loves the lord and is growing and if we respond well like the man that evening in his room if he rejects this and goes forward not only is he not regressing but he's actually progressing toward god through this so the fact that we experience spiritual desolation has nothing to say necessarily at all about any regression it's as i say it's a normal tactic of the enemy like temptation as they say these are the two basic garden variety tactics of the enemy garden variety doesn't mean that they're not potentially dangerous it just means that they're undramatic this is ordinary daily spiritual experience we're aware of temptation we're much less aware of spiritual desolation and that's where ignatius can make all the difference that's an important point i think people do recognize i feel like i'm being tempted but they don't oftentimes feel like they're being pushed towards desolation or or brought to that even more when a person with very good will but without this help from ignatius takes the voice of the the discouraging lies of the enemy as the voice of god so yeah you've never read the bible you're never going to go make much progress and the person and just think i've seen it more times than i can ever say the liberation that comes when we begin to sift out those voices it's so important i think of saint teresa of avalanche she talks about how the devil deceived her into not doing her mental prayer because she she was not worthy because he just he used uh he played on a false humility she wanted to be humble but he created this idea of false humility that you're not worthy teresa of really sitting down and really talking with god do your vocal prayers but don't waste don't try to be something that you're not you're not you're not holy enough to do that and and for a while that really slowed her down that really deceived her and so the devil can deceive us and is that one of the ways in which do you think a lot of people in the audience today get discouraged that with this idea of false humility i'm not good enough to read the bible i'm not smart enough to read the bible or i'm not smart enough to be committed to to prayer the spirituality is beyond me yeah and then they don't try to take it up and that's exactly what the devil's trap is i want to reverence that because good people with very good intentions may think along these lines but this is the wonderful liberation that comes when you realize no this is just the enemy and this is a rule two issue the enemy places obstacles ignatius says you can't do it it's too hard for you you won't persevere that defeated before i start kind of attitude is a very very clear sign of the enemy that's not god's voice and i want to pick up on you use this wonderful example of saint teresa what got her out of that was speaking with a good confessor about it that's ignatius rule 13 when you're burdened with these things don't be alone with them find a wise and competent spiritual person and speak about it i also want to make sure we mention rule five because that can make a huge difference eight words in time of desolation never make a change in time of desolation never make a change that'll get you through all kinds of darkness that's such good practical advice well i i love this question that geraldine has and she says i've never heard god's voice but occasionally i have random thoughts or at times hints about how to proceed at the moment could that be from the lord very much so and i'd invite geraldine to get to know these rules and what geraldine will realize like all of us is i actually god has been speaking to me and i can grow more and more attuned to this so that i can identify god's voice clearly and then that sets me free to follow it god is speaking to us all we just need to be well we need enough formation in our faith to be able to recognize his voice and that's what ignatius does now some people uh father could say well is it is it my conscience that's speaking to me and not god is it is it just what's true but that's not really god how how would you respond to them that god has many different ways of speaking to us you know scripture nature of actual grace which could be the kinds of things we're speaking of now that's what spiritual consolation is and his inspirations through the church and we got through other people god has many different ways of speaking to us yeah and that's part of the discernment isn't it god can't speak to us through the advice of a family member or friend who says something to us that god intends as a message to us or even our conscience is god's voice too it's just what paul says that all things work for good but those who love god god's providence is at work in everything in our lives and again all that's necessary really on our part is growth in being attuned to that voice to be able to identify it which is what daily discernment and the way we're talking about it is all about yeah speaking of daily discernment mary asked the question what does a person do in making a fast decision about whether to act or not act and it and there seems to be no direction from the holy spirit okay we can only answer that question adequately by knowing the individual situation so i'm going to create one here all right here's i'll call him anthony anthony is driving home from work he had promised to spend time with his young son that evening just before he left at work the boss said something urgent has come up i need to have this ready by tomorrow would you be willing to get this done this evening now he only has a few minutes you know 10 minutes he's going to be home and he just he loves the lord this is a call it a small daily decision he wants jesus to be lord in this decision this is what we would do in this case pray probably briefly ask the lord for help review the factors how important is this to my son is it a little league game is is it his birthday is it something that could easily be done a different day without causing him sorrow how important is what the boss is asking could i get it done in the morning do i need to do review the factors make your best decision doesn't mean it's going to be perfect god never asks more than our best make your best decision do it with peace and then if you want to be ignatian about it review that that's his daily examined prayer review that and learn from it and if we're doing this daily this is just another way of describing what saint thomas would call the the virtue of prudence you know if we live like this daily what happens is you get more and more attuned to god's voice and what god is asking so use such time as you have but if it's short use it in that way that's beautiful well there's uh such a wonderful road map that saint ignatius and these rules that he gives us for discernment and it's something that's not just something that we would do once a year on a retreat this is really these are practical tools for living well in christ every day of our life right every day of our lives sometimes i'll get up in the morning and you know that feeling that you have maybe there's something that lies ahead that you're not looking forward to or maybe you didn't sleep well or whatever and you wake up with that sense that this whole day is going to be kind of heavy that's a rule 8 situation you know just remember consolation is coming back a lot more quickly than desolation wants you to believe so it's that daily yeah absolutely i love how you can pull out that's real late that's rule two and uh i hope our audience can uh be inspired by this to go back to ignatius's rules and again i'm just gonna mention here at the end here that the discernment of spirits by father timothy gallagher a great little road map a great introduction to these powerful principles that saint ignatius gives us that can transform and empower your spiritual life every day and that's really what we're all about here at the august institute we want to help equip you the laity to know and understand your faith so you can live it and you can share it more effectively and so we've given you a tool to do that with father gallagher's book that you can find on catholic.market we've also provided those audios series on this of this book on the forum platform that you can get for free so avail yourselves of these resources and don't let the devil sell those doubts oh you don't have time to listen to that or pick up that book remember these rules and don't let discouragement be a barrier but really be encouraged that the that the lord wants to empower you and he wants to help you grow closer to him and uh that is good news indeed and i want to just thank all of you uh for in the mission circle who support our mission here and father special thanks to you for joining us and sharing your wisdom with us thank you all right well may the lord bless and keep you all take care you

Channel: Augustine Institute - Catholic Church Explained

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Keywords: augustine institute, ai show, tim gray, timothy gallagher

Id: iO1i8sClj-s

Length: 31min 1sec (1861 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021