Fulfillment of All Desire Advent Mission | Night 4: Basic Stability

let's begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son of the holy spirit amen dear lord we thank you for this chance to be together tonight we thank you most of all for your revelation how you revelation you've revealed who you are and you've given us an incredible fullness of that revelation and your son jesus and his words and his deeds which come to us in sacred scripture and to tradition and magisterium of the church and we thank you for the active and tremendous work of your holy spirit that makes your words come alive in us and helps us remember them we ask you to give us your wisdom tonight protect us from all harassing spirits that would harass our technology in any way or anybody's technology anyway and let your word go forth we ask this in the holy precious powerful name of jesus and the father and of the son of the holy spirit amen well this is week four of our advent series i'd like to begin today by excuse me answering some of the questions that have come in that we didn't have a chance to answer last week one question was tell people about how good the book unbound is well what the book unbound is it's a book written by neil lozano it's just simply called unbound and it helps people get free of unforgiveness harassment of evil spirits uh wounds from the past and it's really just helped a lot of people get free so it's called unbound you can get it at renewalministries.net in our store you can get it on amazon you can get it really anywhere where books are available also we got some good news this past week you know monsignor greg smith the chairman of renewal ministries in canada has been really telling us how can we get the books cheaper in canada and we actually found out that this is a distributor called sunrise uh and we'll put the information up on the screen we're preparing a slide on it right now which has uh here it is ordering in canada we recommend you purchase through www.sunrisemarian.com and the last time we checked uh fulfillment with all desire was really cheap there and uh they also have a church in crisis so uh that would be the best place but these these prices are dynamic they keep changing all the time and sometimes you can even get it cheaper through us you know sometimes you can get it cheaper through amazon last time we checked the cheapest way you could get the book fulfilling all desire is at sunrisemarian.com got another uh question about hey i ordered my book and it hasn't come yet i gave you my twenty dollars where's my book i just want to tell you that we get we get the books out within a couple days of getting the order but there's just tremendous delays right now in in all the shipping services ups fedex the united states postal system i don't know about the postal system in canada but uh we get the books out right away we're able to track them so uh give it give it a couple weeks you know and if it doesn't come in a couple weeks yes contact us and we'll track it and we'll we'll tell you where it is and if it somehow has gotten lost in the mail we'll certainly replace it so we're an honest operation and we want you to get your twenty dollars worth and we're going to get you the book one way or the other so be patient but if it's more than a couple weeks contact our office you'll find the telephone number or the email address on our website and patricia or somebody will get you the information i also want to tell you that uh the person who's like the heart of our book distribution operation just had an operation she had an operation and there was a cancerous growth on one of her kidneys they successfully removed it a couple days ago they don't think she's going to need chemo or radiation i would appreciate your prayers for laura gerga g-u-r-t-a but laura she's just been such a blessing to our ministry and she's done so much to help help things work smoothly in the meantime we got other people filling in we've got a couple of great high school students that are that are working for us and kathleen kittle who's in charge of our overseas missions is helping out with international mailings so people are pitching in but that's the situation so say a little prayer for laura um somebody asked how to get the talk i mentioned last week on a flee now from the wrath that is coming well just go to your uh search engine you know google or what a bing or whatever you use yahoo and put in renewal ministries youtube channel and you'll find it there it'll probably be right in their front row there their very first list of videos if not you can put in a ralph martin flee now and you'll get it it's i think it hit 200 000 views today it's just really uh really connecting with people in a significant way so that's where you can get any of the videos that we mentioned and even though this is our last week with our advent mission uh peter herbeck and myself most weeks will be publishing a new video each week trying to support you encourage you and strengthen you in continuing the path to holiness uh another question came in does the fulfilling old desire does that cover questions about mortal sin free will consent and culpability it does in chapter six but there's actually a chapter in my new book called the church in crisis chapter six that's titled culpability and uh janet smith who's one of the most well-known moral theologians had this say about it this book is a massive achievement ralph martin is one way but that's not relevant some of his chapters such as that on culpability shed fresh light on some of the most debilitating confusions of our age so it's i like the chapter it's a good chapter i think it sheds a lot of sight a lot of light on the traditional you know grave matter sufficient reflection and full consent to the will but with a lot of nuance and with all i think a lot of inside a lot of help so that would be that would be where i suggest you find that now another question came in what does true repentance look like well when john the baptist saw people coming for baptism you know i mentioned this last week he said you grew to vipers he was talking about the pharisees in this case the ordinary people he knew were sincere he was wondering about the sincerity of the religious leaders though he said you brutal vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath that's coming and he says if you're sincere about repentance make sure you actually live out repentance you know stop cheating stop lying stop extorting stop oppressing people so real repentance means turning away from the wrong things that we were doing and amending our life now depending on the depth of the addiction that we've gotten into or the depth of the habit of sin we've gotten into that could take a good while but true repentance means that we're taking serious measures to turn away from those things that offend god and hurt other people you know going through the ten commandments is a really good start as an examination of conscience another question what are different ways to make reparation for sin well what scripture says is that prayer fasting and alms giving cover a lot of sin it also says love covers a multitude of sins so charity towards our neighbor uh giving money to uh help the poor to help the mission of the church uh fasting uh making voluntary sacrifices accepting the sufferings that come to us and offering them in union with the sufferings of jesus for reparation for sin for the conversion of sinners like mary s the fatima here's another question how can the rich enter heaven by becoming like little children and holding their wealth lightly in a chapter 10 of the book uh saint francis de sales gives some really great wisdom about how to handle wealth how to handle increasing it how to handle uh dealing with it using it and some tests about whether we're too attached to it so we'll actually be getting into that when we hit len when we resume the series on the book again we'll be talking about some of those things in greater detail but it's very possible for rich people to enter the kingdom of god if they humble themselves become generous in their use of their money and hold it lightly but there's a lot more we can say about it we'll say about it when we uh resume this series and another question uh what translation of francis de sales book the introduction to the devout life would you recommend for a young adult well i don't know if there's any translation uh that hasn't been heavily edited and exported that i would recommend the uh translation i use is by john ryan and it's published by image books uh imprint of doubleday books and that's the book that has the whole text of francis desales and what i've noticed about some of the abbreviated versions some of the abridged versions is they leave out some really good stuff and they kind of leave out some of the stuff that uh is most important in my view some of the things that our modern culture doesn't like to hear about that seems to be an editing principle now across the board you know in catholic publications most of them unfortunately they even talked about bracketing out parts of the uh the scripture when we have readings at mass you know on sunday that you know we may have a short parable but the last sentence says you know talks about the consequences of not responding to jesus and uh and they they often leave that out they often leave out the uh the psychologically disturbing parts that talk about the weeping and gnashing of teeth which is really important for people to know i mean people really need to know that this consequences of not responding to the invitation to conversion repentance let's see is there anything else here that came in that i need to talk about i think that covers the questions that i found on the chat now i know you may find this hard to believe but i actually look through every single chat that comes in after the session's over i don't do it right away tonight but i do it some time before the next session and i try to pick out the questions that seem to me that would be most important to answer if i've skipped the question you know send it in and if we can answer it we will we can't answer detailed theological questions we can't give personal spiritual direction but if we can reasonably respond to it we we will i also believe it or not we're a small enough operation that i actually look over a printout of every order and every donation that comes in and i i sign a lot of the letters over a certain amount but uh why do i do that i want to keep pulse of what people are saying what they're thinking what they're interested in and i also want to be inspired and i am just inspired by i don't know there's people i don't want to say there's people in every city and village in the united states and many across canada that are connected to renewable energies but i i don't know there's just people in a lot of different small towns a lot of big cities and it's just very inspiring to me it's also very inspiring to me to see the generosity and donations you know the last couple weeks in in a couple of videos i mentioned that the way we're able to continue our work is by the donations that people make if people feel like they're being fed by what we're doing at renewal ministries that's how for 40 years the lord has supported us by inspiring people to say yes i'm getting something out of this i like it i think it's important it's a voice that should be heard i want to help it continue so uh over the last couple weeks we've been really overwhelmed with the generosity of your response and tonight i'm not going to ask for any more i mean if the holy spirit sends you tell you a sense that we're not going to send it back but i want to show you a little bit about what your support financial and prayer is really making possible and has been making possible for a long time so i'm going to start tonight not with the talk it's going to be a little longer this is our last time together so there's just some things i really want to share before we break for continuing this in atlanta although we'll continue other videos uh most weeks so i want to read you something that i got from layman in uganda who when he was 18 years old uh actually don't put these slides up here we'll put them up at the end because i want to explain some things first he was 18 years old he got a copy of new covenant magazine now he's 60 years old he has been following us he has been fed by us i used to be the editor of new covenant magazine uh and he has been just soaking in the teaching he's been receiving and i just want to tell you what's happened in that country he says i came to my first prayer meeting when i was 18 years old at that time there were only two prayer meetings in our diocese once i started reading new covenant it was impossible to put it down so true other books written by ralph and other team members not only did the material in there help us to grow spiritually but we also asked permission to translate some of them especially life in the spirit seminars into our local languages and teach prayer groups these seminars became world changers as we saw many people give their lives to jesus and start to live a radical transformed lifestyle according to the first christian communities this is really you're going to be really inspired when you hear the rest of what he says it's really encouraging i want you to be encouraged i want you to be inspired there's hope for whole countries being impacted by what this little band of disciples that we are i'm talking not just about us here in ann arbor but people over the world who are joining with us in prayer and support there was a great longing to see leaders like those in ann arbor it certainly seemed an impossible dream to achieve then one day a man named eric okior got an invitation to attend a television training seminar that bobby kavanagh a leader in the catholic charismatic renewal living in dallas texas a former of pilot in the air force was offering to third world people eric was visiting the post office which he had to walk to and drive his bicycle to and it took him a long time he got the invitation the invitation said you have a ticket on a plane leaving the next day so without being able to tell his wife and family where he was going he took off for dallas texas and while and eventually his wife and family knew and you know there's this like this extended family support in africa there's villages there's communities and things like that so his wife and family weren't abandoned but that that's what happened and then he took a bus to ann arbor michigan and tried to find me now ann arbor is a city of about 120 000 people and he just ran into somebody at the bus station saying do you know where ralph martin lives this person like a needle in a haystack happen to know where i live so one night eric knocks on our door i open the door i don't know who this person is and he told me i've come all the way from africa to meet you thank god i invited him and it's just just an amazing committed person and there's just so many of them now in uganda he says at the beginning this is the 18 year old boy who now is saying at the beginning we got a lot of persecution even from some respected parish priest all we were doing was helping people to experience the love of god in a deeper way and renew their baptismal covenant with jesus by personally inviting him daily to be lord and savior their lives we also are passionate about the work of the holy spirit something which was clearly evident in the acts of the apostles our cry at the time was where is the church of the acts of the apostles today where is deep love among catholics where is the place for holiness and chastity where is community of life where is community life where is the place of the holy spirit where are the charisms where is prophecy today where are the uganda martyrs of today men and women ready to lay down their lives for their faith in jesus christ you can kind of get a feel of his heart his passion and heart for jesus so what happened they began giving life in the spirit seminars and various kinds of christian training for laypeople uh in 1993 we organized he says the first life in the spirit center for priests which is very successful and then we made sure each year we held one for priests so for 27 years they've been offering conversion opportunities deepening your life in christ opportunities to priests and then they began to do a national retreat for priests at the shrine of the ugandan martyrs you know the ugandan martyrs were young men who resisted the homosexual harassment of the king at the time and who were killed because they resisted his homosexual advances they died for chastity they died for loyalty to christ and what a tremendous witness they are and that's really needed in africa like it is in many places and then they had big rallies for people for 10 000 people for 30 000 people and then we began to visit them and they met us for the first time these people so then they uh began to do more priest retreats and eventually six thousand priests and seminarians have experienced their training retreats their conversion retreats and six bishops have come from those priests i actually have a letter from a priest a bishop here uh lloyd and nancy greenhard one of our country coordinators and uh deacon larione one of our board members for renewal ministries and myself were there just a couple of years ago and did a priest retreat for about 350 priests from all over uganda and some from other countries and there was a priest there who now is a bishop so there's now sixth of those priests who came to the priests retreats who are bishops in uganda and four other priests who are bishops in kenya malawi zabawi and tanzania so here's the letter from the bishop from the sarodi catholic diocese from bishop joseph thank you so much for supporting the work of the church in uganda i want to thank you for the efforts you've invested in financially supporting the renewal of priestly ministry if a priest is strong in faith so will the whole parish be brought to jesus but if he is weak the consequences can be faithful i'm very happy to report that i am one of the happy beneficiaries of renewal ministry's generosity in sponsoring international priests retreats in the national major seminary i still have great memories of the last retreat in 2018 that's the one that i and the others i mentioned were there just before my appointment as bishop so enriching were the teachings and homilies that many of my brother priests yearn for the next one hopefully soon god willing may god bless the staff at renewal ministries and all your supporters so that the gospel will reach the ends of the earth yours in christ jesus reverend dr joseph esiro oliac bishop osrodi catholic diocese of uganda so i i find this extraordinary i find this super encouraging the faithfulness of an 18 year old guy who just persevered with friends over the years has impacted the renewal of the entire church in uganda it's just really inspiring and this bishop is thanking us he's thanking you for your support that made it possible okay let's see those few slides right now quickly before we move on with what we're doing here with week four the priest on the left is walking to mass through a stream the altar girls on the right or their catechumens or their something they have they have they have kind of dresses in costumes for various categories of people are there with bishop and some of the priests and that's that's one of their meeting places with the thatched roof i think we have another picture or two too bishop joseph uh with a lot of his priests on on the last priest retreat in his diocese i think that might be it yeah okay now advent talk number four i'll answer questions at the end of this talk so you know join the chat uh if you don't like to see the chat click the three little buttons on the right hand side of the screen or whatever side of the screen it is for you and the chat will kind of just disappear won't be distracting you those of you who like to give messages uh who who want to say something they want to comment want to let us know kind of where you're you're coming from it's really inspiring to know where you're coming from so uh feel free to to do that okay um i'm gonna do a really short review because we got to get to session four week one we talked about the really important basic truths and basic decisions principles of the journey incidentally uh as you know we post each talk sometimes the very evening later this evening or at least tomorrow morning on our youtube channel so if you go to renewal ministries youtube channel you'll you'll find tonight's talk there either later tonight or tomorrow morning i think something like 33 000 people have viewed the uh first week's advent talk so uh even though there's 5 600 people registered as you know fewer people actually show up on the night of the event because they found out that they don't need to stay up till one o'clock in the morning in in ireland and england and other places or uh in india uh and they can get it at a suitable convenient time for them there's still quite a few people who watch live tonight and watching live tonight gives you a chance to make live comments and also answer live questions stage two we talked about principles of the journey we talked particularly about the role of the grace of god week three we talked about our effort we talked about the effort of turning towards the lord in prayer and the effort of turning away from sin we talked about serious sin what it was we talked about less serious sin we talked about making a decision never to freely choose to offend the lord even in a small matter we talked about affection for sin and that's that's one of the things i find people most appreciate like saying gee i i didn't understand what that was but wow once i understood what affection for sin was i was able to reject it and keep rejecting it and it really kind of removes the big problem in my life and it goes right hand in hand with how to deal with temptation you need to reject temptation instantly you become aware of it so here we are with week four and the theme tonight is temptations trials and tribulations and it's actually good news about what these are and how to deal with them there's a passage in acts the apostles chapter 14 verse 22 where paul he kind of enters a particular city and he heals somebody and people think wow the gods are back you know and they they were bringing out oxen to slaughter to sacrifice for them they were declaring them uh as as roman gods you know and uh paul kind of said wait wait wait no we're just the human beings stop no no no we're not gods we're just human beings but then some of his fellow jews arrived and they stirred up the crowd against them and so they ended up stoning paul so one day they're offering sacrifice to him as guys that next day they're they're stoning him and they left him for dead but he wasn't dead and he got up and carried on and then this is what he said paul was strengthening the souls of the disciples exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of god so that's a principle through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of god so somebody asked a couple weeks ago are there any saints that didn't experience great suffering and you know i named a couple of saints you know but i said look everybody suffers suffering is part of the human condition you can't escape suffering catherine of siena said you know you can either accept the cross of christ which will transform you which will heal you which will bring you into the kingdom or you can take on the the cross of the devil which will deceive you lie to you and ultimately kill you and destroy you in hell and you're going to be at the mercy of demons for the rest of all alternative you know i don't think it's any choice but some people perversely choose the yoke of satan rather than the sweet yoke of jesus so let's talk about some of the things the saints say this is from chapter eight so i'm kind of almost everything i'm talking about tonight is from chapter eight well incidentally we're still offering the discount for the book fulfilling all desire go to our store uh on our web page uh put in the code f-a-d a-d-v-e-n-t and you'll get a 20 discount on on signing out so we're gonna run that i said till the end of december it turns out it's only until until christmas so whatever you know but anyway that's that's still there until at least christmas so what are some of the dangers that uh the saints talk about in the early stages of spiritual life that's what we're talking about these four weeks we're talking about the early stages of the spiritual life we're talking about the purgative way well one of the things that uh teresa of avila wants us about is immature zeal sometimes when we experience conversion or awakening in our life uh we can kind of overdo it we we can kind of like get get it get excited about i'm gonna pray two hours a day or i'm gonna fast two days a week or i'm gonna you know give all my money away or you know i'm going to quit my job and start preaching and one of the things the saints warn us about is immature zeal and one of the things the devil does is try to push us beyond where we're really at and get us to kind of take on too much or be too ambitious in our uh what we take on as our spiritual commitments so you know say be wise be prudent uh don't be cowardly don't don't don't be uh procrastinators but ask god for wisdom about what's the right measure right now for you in terms of fasting in terms of prayer in terms of almsgiving in terms of christian activities just ask god for wisdom you know as it says in the book of james it says you know if you lack wisdom ask god for it and he'll give it to you ask god for wisdom about what balance you should have in your life and don't overdo excitement about jesus or excitement about the spiritual journey then there's the opposite danger the saints tell us of kind of remaining too enmeshed in the things and concerns of the world in a way that doesn't allow us to pay sufficient attention to god saint francis de sales talks about it as misplaced priorities over-involvement and this worldly concerns even though not in mortal sin worldly concerns darken the soul even though we're not committing sin not paying sufficient attention to the lord and being too involved in the buzz you know what what what people are talking about what's in the news what what what breaking news wants us to kind of pay attention to you know breaking news used to be breaking news but now it's like everything's called breaking news because they want us to be excited they want us to get you know get worried they want us to be fearful they want us to be curious and and that all fills our soul and it kind of darkens our soul even though it's not really sinful lukewarmness somebody asked in the chat one day what's lukewarmness lukewarm this is an inappropriate kind of tupidity you know with tepid water it's lukewarm water it's not hot enough to really boil tea as the english like the boiled tea you know and i know i'm not saying i want to insult it how the english do tea maybe i didn't say it right but they like their water really really hot you know before they put the tea back in and uh just jesus says you know a lukewarm response makes me sick you know this is the son of god this is this is the lord himself bleeding for us being crucified for us being tortured for us come on uh if you can't get excited about that what could you get excited about god showing so much love to us and sacrificing so much for us and loving us so much and why is he doing it because he's inviting us into a love relationship he's showing us what love is like in its depth and its heights and he's saying i want you to have it i want you to experience it but i need to heal you i need to transform you and could you please say yes to me it's like jesus doesn't force anybody like it says in the book of revelations i stand at the door and knock the lord standing at the door and knocking but we have to open the door and say yes lord come into my life yes lord come into my life yes lord i confess these sins yes lord give me desire for you increase my desire for you yes lord take away my lukewarmness yes lord take away the darkness of my mind the decisions we make that we've talked about in previous week are just really important the decision to take time each day for personal prayer the decision to turn away from serious sin the the decision to never freely to choose to offend the lord even in a small matter the decision never to entertain uh temptation beyond the first moment when we first recognize it and the decision to reject the affection for sin something else that saint bernard tells us is important and this is something that is rare my my friend pete burak just did a podcast on this that i recommend to you about solitude you can again find that pete maybe you can give a link to your podcast on solitude but this is what bernard clairvous says about the importance of a certain solitude you must withdraw mentally rather than physically he's not saying go off and be a hermit he's talking about a certain solitude a certain quiet of soul a certain peace that pays attention to the lord even in the midst of the world therefore you must withdraw mentally rather than physically this is on page 307 in your intention in your devotion in your spirit although physical withdrawal can be of benefit when the opportunity offers especially in time of prayer apart from that the only solitude prescribed for you is that of the mind and spirit you enjoy this solitude if you refuse to share in the common gossip if you shun involvement in the problems of the hour and set no store by the fancies that attract the masses if you reject what everybody covets avoid disputes make light of losses and pay no heed to injuries otherwise you are not alone even when alone do not see that you can be alone when in company and in company when alone however great the crowds that surround you and uh i got to tell you this is challenging sometimes we're having a blessing right now i just came from my house and uh our dear daughter and her husband and their seven children arrived on saturday night i guess that was just yeah just last night and with their seven children from you know 12 or 13 to one the oldest one is a girl and the youngest one is one years old the six boys and then uh the one daughter and her husband who lives nearby all the others who spread around the country came for dinner tonight so we had 12 of our 19 grandchildren at dinner tonight and uh three couples and uh and it was wonderful but challenging i gotta tell you i am so impressed with young families that are raising young children and it's a sacrificial way of life there's no question about it makes me understand a little bit what saint paul says in one of the pastoral letters that women win their salvation through bearing children like it's sacrificial it's calling you to lay down your life for your children and uh so i just want to do a shout out to anybody raising young children you know with a partner it's so it's challenging even when you have a partner but for single mothers and single fathers i mean you know just a shout out to those who are raising young children including grandparents that are helping raise you know children and it's it's a sacrificial way of life you're growing in holiness you really really are you're growing in great holiness so you know just made me think about solitude yeah so bernie goes on to say if you refrain from curiosity about other people's conduct and shun rash judgment you can enjoy the benefits of solitude even if you should see your neighbor doing what's wrong refuse to pass judgment on him excuse him instead excuse his intention even if you cannot excuse the act which may be the fruit of ignorance or surprise or chance he says don't judge the state or the person's soul you can judge the right or wrongness of an action but don't you know don't get into this kind of judgmental critical spirit it's a problem that a lot of us have and the lord can help us get out of it so um bernie concludes by saying that solitude is essential for busy lay people you don't have to be a hermit but that means we have to detach we have to kind of disconnect from being wired in all the time we have to turn off the radio stop listening to podcasts just be quiet sometimes you know like the lord says be still and know that i am god i know it's hard in the midst of family life sometimes or in the midst of other situations but catherine siena was an active contemplative and what she says she carried around her cell and her heart she was out on the streets on the byways she was preaching she was casting out demons she was praying for healing she was prophesying to people including the pope and she was living an intense spiritual life and most of us aren't called to a purely contemplative life but we're called to a mixed life contemplative and active and everybody's supposed to be in some measure contemplative somebody who's living in the presence of the lord somebody that's paying attention to the lord something somebody that's that's resting in the lord somebody that's uh being with jesus being a friend to jesus and and out of that conducting the service appropriate to our vocations appropriate to our lives so solitude francis de sales says something really interesting since at the beginning stages of spiritual life things look difficult because we're looking at what's required from the outside and he says one of the things that satan's going to attempt us to do is say this is too hard this is going to be too painful you're not going to really enjoy it you're never going to be happy again uh you know just stay where you are that's that's fine so we're going to be tempted in that kind of way sometimes and so for instance when you're looking at the spiritual journey from the beginning from the outside it looks tough and the devil is going to tempt you to turn back but once you get in once you go through the initial purification once you reach a basic kind of stability uh you're going to discover the sweetness of it you're going to eventually taste and see that the lord really is good and it's even though there's suffering involved even though this purification involved you're going to say there's nothing better than this there's nothing better than the lord takes to see that the lord is good that very much relates to scripture in fact everything we're talking about you're going to find in scripture in some way or the other if i have time there's two scripture passages at the end i'd like to share with you that just kind of sums up all of this but right now romans chapter 8 verse 18. paul says i consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us like life is so short the sufferings of this life relatively speaking are like catherine says it's like a pinprick on an infinite line it's just like a pinprick on an infinite line the sufferings that are present are not worth comparing to the eternity of happiness that the lord is offering us so whatever suffering is involved in being faithful to jesus and denying ourself and following him and loving others and bearing the sufferings that come to us is worth it way way way beyond the cost of momentary suffering chapter four which we're not going to talk about talks about the biblical worldview it talks about all the saints were motivated by a biblical worldview they they knew the shortness of life they knew the one thing necessary they knew there's no comparison between the the pain of following jesus and they reward their weight us in heaven maybe during that we'll talk a little bit more about the biblical worldview another danger that teresa of avila talks about she says you know the lord is going to send consolations what what's a consolation it's something that makes us feel good about the lord it's like feeling his love experiencing his love seeing prayers answered seeing changes in our life uh being blessed by the blessings that the lord sent us from other people or material blessings or just different kinds of consolations uh love friendship uh children all these can be consolations children can also be challenges so teresa says accept what the lord sends you but don't cling to it and don't seek it seek to each day get up and deny yourself deny your selfish tendencies deny your lazy tendencies and put one foot in front of the other and and love people and love the lord just don't don't seek the feelings don't seek the experiences don't try to reproduce them say one day you have a really a really wonderful experience and adoration of the lord's closeness don't try to reproduce it just keep showing up keep paying attention to the lord the lord will give consolation the lord will take consolation away the lord will uh you know has a way of organizing and leading us in the spiritual life so he says don't seek consolation don't become attached to them a lot of people kind of run into problems when they do that um and sometimes i mean many times there's gonna be times with just dryness this could be times when we don't feel anything sometimes we don't even don't feel the lord at all don't see them at all don't sense them at all where it feels kind of empty where the heavens feel like brass like we don't feel like we're connecting in our prayer and and this this is a normal part of life sometimes it's like that there's different reasons why i like that and lent we'll talk about more specifically about the dark knights and what they are and uh what their cause are but right now i would like to talk about what teresa of avila says about worldly involvement even though it may not be in a bad state page 140 it is so involved in worldly things and so absorbed with his possessions honor or business affairs if a person is to enter the second dwelling places it is important that he strive to give up unnecessary things and business affairs each one should do this in conformity with his state in life if he does if he doesn't begin doing this i hope that it will be impossible for him to get there it'll be even impossible for him to stay where he is without danger many of the saints say if you don't move forward you're going to slide back you got to keep moving forward you got to keep moving forward and then well i've kind of talked about this i don't really need to quote it so when we are obedient to what we know by faith and we remember what faith is faith is a knowledge of what's real and true is given to us by a light that god gives us and faith is actually the assurance of things it's the evidence of things it's actually showing us reality and giving us reality it's not a blind faith it's not a leap in the dark it's something that we're led to by reason but that we move beyond reason because of something that god gives us a light that we respond to and they come through hearing the word of god your faith may increase as we talk about some of these things together treasury zoo says this when meditating upon words of jesus i understood how imperfect was my love for my sisters i saw i didn't love them as god loves them ah i understand now that charity consists in bearing with the faults of others and not being surprised at their weakness and being edified by the smallest acts of virtue we see them practice it is no longer a question of loving one's neighbor as oneself but of loving him as he jesus has loved him and will love him to the consummation of the ages one of the great things about when jesus tells us to pray for our persecutors and pray for our enemies we start praying for our enemies uh we start to love them we start to feel god's love for them so it's really you know all the same say you can't separate love of god love our neighbor and this is what tres is saying here and love neighbor is very nitty-gritty it's like regular human beings with their annoying habits with their imperfections uh with their faults with their insensitivities with their lack of gratitude uh that we all have to one degree or another it's loving in those relationships it's it's bearing each other's burdens it's being patient with one another it's being forbearing one another tres goes on to say oh lord i know you don't command the impossible you better you know better than i do my weakness and imperfection you know very well that never would i be able to love my sisters as you love them unless you oh my jesus love them in me yes i feel it when i am charitable it is jesus alone who is acting in me and the more united i am to him the more also do i love my sister then teresa of avila says the same thing it's an amusing thing that even though we still have a thousand impediments and imperfections and our virtues have hardly begun to grow and please god that may have begun we are not yet ashamed to seek spiritual delights in prayer or to complain about dryness may this never happen to you embrace the cross your spouse has carried understand that this must be your task so nitty-gritty loving people every day loving people every day okay um francis sales book is called the introduction to the devout life listen to what he gives us a definition of devoutness i hold the devotion does not consist in the sweetness the light consolation and sensible tenderness of heart that move us to tears and size and bring us a certain pleasant relishful satisfaction when we perform various spiritual exercises many souls experience these tender consoling feelings but still remain very vicious consequently they do not have true love of god much less true devotion a lot of people wonder about this i say you know i know somebody who goes to mass every day and says a rosary but they're really mean it's not supposed to be like that we really can't grow in true devotion to the lord unless we're growing and true humility true patience and true love unless we're growing in virtue it must be growing in those things that are that are spoken about by the saints in the illuminative way uh and then francis talks about this some more about how how profuse saul was in expressing affection to david and then how he wanted to kill him in spite of all this show of devotion such unfortunate people will not part with a single penny of their ill-gotten riches they will not give up one of their perverse affections they will not endure the least temporal inconvenience for the service of their savior over whose sufferings they have just been weeping the good feelings they experience are no better than spiritual mushrooms not only are not they are not true devotion but very often there are tricks played by the enemy he charms such souls with these trifling consolations to make them content and satisfied with such things and keep them from further search for true solid devotion so here's this definition of true devotion true devotion consists in a constant resolute prompt an active will to do whatever we know is pleasing to god continual steady resolute determined prompt we don't delay we don't procrastinate we act on the obedient thing to do in a particular situation an active will to do whatever we know is pleasing to god then tres the little flower says something similar she says i do not hold in contempt beautiful thoughts which nourish the soul and unite it with god but for a long time i have understood that we must not depend on them and even make perfection and consist in receiving many spiritual lights the most beautiful thoughts are nothing without good works so this is um this is what scripture says right faith without works is dead so we got to keep an eye on our life we got to keep a light an eye on our deeds we got we know that the friction and daily relationships is the stuff out of which saints are made this is how we grow and love this is how we grow in self-sacrifice this is how we grow it to the character of jesus now this is all in the bible so i am going to spend a few minutes on a few scripture passages hebrews chapter 12 we've talked about already but honestly the whole chapter is about the purgative way i would say the whole chapter is about what we're speaking about their forces we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely hey we talked about that haven't we turned away from sin and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us looking to jesus remember what teresa of allah said keep your eyes on jesus and you'll soon find yourself at your destination jesus is the way as well as the destination jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of god even jesus needed to look beyond the cross to help motivate him to accept the cross remember his agony in the garden father couldn't we do this some other way and he knew that this was the most perfect way of showing love to the father in the most perfect way of offering an adequate sacrifice for the salvation of every human being who wants to be reconciled to god no matter how much their sins are we need to keep the joy before us we need to remember what the end is we need to know what's on the other side of purification and we'll get to this inland consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood and have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons my son do not regard lightly the discipline of the lord nor lose courage when you are punished by him and chastises every son whom he receives it is for discipline that you have to endure god is treating you as sons god the father is a wonderful father you know some of us that have wonder really wonderful earthly fathers and we're so grateful for them we know that they're the source of our life but the real source of our life is the father who gave us those good earthly fathers and who work through those earthly fathers to father us and those of us who haven't had such good earthly fathers god the father is ready to father us directly and heal us directly and and train us up directly through the chastisement that comes to us and the sufferings of daily life and even the hostility of others if you are left without discipline in which all have participated then you are illegitimate children not sons besides this we have had earthly fathers to discipline us and we usually respected them shall we not much more be subject to the father of has anybody confirmed that we have sound back okay good okay hey thanks for your prayers they worked we got sound back you know like a lot of things with computers we rebooted and somehow that solved the problem so anyway i was saying about hebrews chapter 12. you know if you have time this week just just quietly and and slowly read hebrews chapter 12 it's it's so relevant to uh the purification process that we're talking about these first four advent now my last scripture passage i want to share tonight is from second corinthians chapter four verse seven we have this treasure in earth and vessels that's us to show that the transcendent power belongs to god not to us you know like everyone say paul was saying lord i got the sworn in the flesh we don't know what it was i mean physical ailment speech impediment i don't know some kind of weakness some kind of embarrassing situation paul says three times i asked the lord to take it away from me and he said paul my power shows forth more clearly when your weakness is evident so we don't have to be afraid to admit our weakness to the lord we have to turn away from sin of course but we can't do this on our own strength you know we're not we don't have strong enough wills or strong enough minds to will ourselves to holiness we have to live as dependent children of god we have to get up each day and look for our daily bread you know we pray the lord's prayer he gives us there daily bread you know it's daily bread each day we need to receive from the lord what we need for that day we need our daily bread it certainly refers to the eucharist but it also refers to food it refers to whatever we need each day to carry out the mission the responsibility for that day we are afflicted in every way but not crushed perplexed but not driven to despair persecuted but not forsaken struck down but not destroyed always carrying in the body the death of jesus so that the life of jesus may also be manifested in our bodies for while we live we are always being given up to death for jesus sake so that the life of jesus may be manifested our immortal flesh since we have the same spirit of faith as he who had wrote i believe and so i spoke we too believe and so will we speak knowing that he who raised the lord jesus will raise us also with jesus and bring us with you into his presence for us all for your sake so his grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of god so we do not lose heart though our outer man is wasting our way our inner man is being renewed every day every single one of us is wasting away i guess you start wasting away when you're like 18 or 20 years old they say or maybe 22 something like that some of us are in nursing homes some of us are in hospitals some of us are in prisons some of us are alone some of us are dying all of us are wasting away and the main thing is to have jesus christ living in us so that as our outer man wastes away our inner man can grow stronger and we will eventually rise with jesus and know the glory of risen bodies no more pain no more sorrow so brothers and sisters persevere on the spiritual journey put into the practice the things we've been talking about these last four weeks uh and and i look forward to continuing the journey with you in lent uh if we have your email address we'll be able to let you know the details about it uh as you know some people are being removed from social media the censorship going on somebody else who's just been a friend of ours was removed recently so go to our web go to our website and you can sign up for our newsletter we'll get your email address and we'll be able to uh contact you if we should need to change our outlet uh how we're communicating with you so you can kind of follow the videos no matter where we go but we need your email address in order to let you know where we are depending on what the circumstances are so uh until we meet again uh in in lent for this series i hope you'll kind of continue kind of joining us on our weekly youtube videos we'll take a break i think for the week after christmas and i hope you all have a a wonderful christmas whether it's with suffering or without suffering and know that life is short only one thing is necessary to get up each day and to obey the lord and love people amen let's pray father i thank you for all my brothers and sisters all over the world who are with us right now i thank you for those who have been journeying with us for these four weeks they should bless them they ask you to take care of them i ask you to give them everything they need to continue to follow you listen with a hail mary thinking about her incredible role in bringing the savior to the world and continuing to pray with us and for us in so many different ways hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now unto y'all of our death amen i'm going to ask pete now if any questions have come up that we could answer right now how do you what advice could you give in terms of concentration in prayer focus well just just like the question was what what advice can i give about concentration in prayer focus and prayer well try to remove distractions from the environment turn off your cell phone turn off your computer uh try to get into a quiet place as quiet as you can uh and then like like teresa of avila said her her mind was like wild horses and for 14 years she couldn't concentrate except with spiritual reading i i recommended several weeks ago that little daily prayer guide called magnificat go to magnificat.com and has the morning prayer it has the readings from each day scripture from mass and has other good things that help help help you focus help you concentrate uh sometimes going to a church can help somebody's going to an adoration chapel uh but uh just do the best you can and don't freak out about being distracted just try to bring your mind back when you when you when you're wandering off you say golly i just went off on a tangent thinking about what i'm going to cook for dinner tonight or well i just was thinking about well what am i supposed to do when i finish praying you know and uh it's just it's just the weakness of our human mind an attention span so don't freak out about it but just bring yourself back and and you know periodically you'll experience uh you know easier sometimes harder sometimes easier someday sometimes you'll come to prayer and uh you'll sense the lord's presence and it's a little easier to be quiet and just be aware of him and sit in his presence and then when you start to drift off pick up some spiritual reading so spiritual reading is a huge help in staying focused on the lord but don't let it substitute for putting the spiritual reading down at a certain point and just being with the lord just being quiet before him or hey if you're experiencing the joy of the lord shout out praise sing you know clap your hands that's what the psalm says clap your hands all you nations you know make a joyful noise to the lord so feel free to make a joyful noise to the lord you know so just all the different range of prayer that we find in the bible um could you talk a little bit about the current state of the church in regards to some of the themes of tonight a couple questions about the holy father the bishops and their understanding of the situation as you described it or lack thereof and just kind of how you would assess the themes tonight living in the heart of the church today yeah the question just i'll repeat is several questions apparently asking about how do we carry on the spiritual journey in the midst of some of the confusing currents that are going on the church today uh some things concerning bishops and even the pope and uh just the news we keep hearing about the scandal in that scandal and uh so you know that's i i i don't want to turn this into a book promotion but honestly this is why i wrote this book the church in christ these pathways forward and uh i felt like there's so much confusion right now and it is affecting people's lives there's so much disorientation in the church right now there's so much a sense of unease or unquiet or covets contributing to it uh declining numbers are contributing to it uh contradictory statements you know that are being made i don't know if i mentioned this or not but you know you know one one cardinal in washington says i'm going to give communion to joe biden and watchful shampoo polish saying saying that's shouldn't do that shouldn't do that so we have we have opened the vision now in the church and so that's why i wrote the book trying to try to understand what's going on but also trying to reaffirm us in the truths of the faith we need to be so sure of what the gospel message is so sure about what the church teaches that confusing statements contradiction division isn't going to shake us we need to chapter 2 of the book talks about is there a solid place to stand that's where i talk about recovering our confidence in sacred scripture so uh i wrote the book to try to help people who are wondering what the heck is going on in the church right now what's going on in the culture but i would just suggest that we need to remember look keep your eyes on jesus jesus christ is the same yesterday and forever there's nothing happening that isn't happening under the providence of god there's nothing happening that he's not in control of he's permitting wickedness to to be manifested he's permitting confusion to erupt so he can deal with it in some way and so that we know that we have to make a clear decision i i do sense this even on the local level that people who are still coming to church are coming with greater intentionality they know they need the lord more than ever they know they know they need to cling to him and i think this is part of why god's permitting it so people will make a clearer choice what a couple people have asked again what was the francis de sales works that you would recommend well there's a lot of modern editions that are abridged editions that um don't don't contain everything that francis actually wrote in his main book for laypeople called the introduction to the devout life so the version i would recommend contains the full text of what francis wrote including those parts that people in our culture aren't so keen to hear about but they're true so it's the double day image version and the translator is john ryan so just look for the book translated by john ryan look carefully to make sure it's not the abridged edition or the shortened edition uh you want the full text there is some flowery language there he does talk about bees you know hovering over you know making honey and things like that but uh the substance of it is just just super it's really you know you think it like it sort of like anticipated vatican ii in terms of the role of lay people theology of marriage and family life you know it's just really uh uh really good stuff all right last question we have predominantly lay people watching tonight but we also have some clergy can you speak to the relationship between laypeople and clergy in this moment how we can support each other how we can love each other and help each other go on this journey together yes you know i the question is how can lay people and priests like work together support each other on this journey and you know i teach at the seminary at a sacred heart center in detroit and each year i have all the transitional deacons those who have been ordained deacons but are going to be ordained priests in the next spring and one of the things that that we're all emphasizing is that we need we're all in the same boat together and that priest and lay people need to work together as teams that uh you know the whole focus on new evangelization in the church today you know there's a tendency for the priest to think that he's going to do it all because it's easy to do it himself rather than to train other people to do it and there's a tendency for lay people to like it like that like hey that's what we're paying you for you know i'm supposed to just pray pay and obey you know you're supposed to do everything and that's that's just not going to make for a healthy church so pope benedict talked about the co-responsibility of priests and lay people and i i encourage the the the transitional deacons they work with i encourage the priests i teach in the summer time to get into a discipleship group with men in their parish a small group and start sharing your life with them and teaching them the scripture and uh getting into a sense of you know traveling on the journey together and then you know building out from there so yes priests and lay people need to need to work together knowing that a priest by himself or lay people by themselves aren't aren't the package that the lord wants that we're supposed to be really working as a team that means growing in brotherhood and sisterhood together and uh all those kinds of things okay um i will look at the chats i i noticed that that a lot of you haven't gotten your books yeah uh we'll be we'll be checking on that and honestly this just tremendous dysfunction right now in the post office and uh let us know if you haven't gotten them and we'll do our best to uh track it and um if it somehow isn't going to get to you uh but we have limited control over the post but we will we're an honest operation and we will get you a book one way or the other thank you for your patience we just can't do that okay oh i guess we lost all the chat in the reboot okay so if you asked the question before we had to reboot the operation tonight we lost that so uh we're gonna leave this on for a while so if you wanted to say something and you said it and it got lost in the reboot uh we're just going to leave this on for a while so ask your question make your comments uh tell us about your book problems and we'll we'll do the best we can to answer them one way or the other so thanks for being with us these four weeks and i look forward to continuing with you in lent god bless you you

Channel: Renewal Ministries

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Keywords: Christianity, Jesus, Christ, Evangelism, Mission, Spirituality, Evangelization, Religion, Catholic, Church, God, Trinity

Id: hyMV7LZDSjM

Length: 69min 19sec (4159 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020