John Beaulieu - Rooted in Christ: Your Heart, Your Holiness, Your Hope (2021 PDS Retreat)

[Music] [Music] why don't we let me start with the prayer name of the father son holy spirit amen good and gracious god we thank you we praise you we bless your holy name oh god i thank you for the call that you've put on these young men's life to discern their vocation and i thank you for the way that you've been working since before the time to prepare them for their vocation you created them out of nothing out of your abundance of your love to be one with you to live in your love lord the particular call to serve you as a priest is a call to come and die i asked the lord that as they continue to discern that you would be there with your holy spirit every step of the way to confer with your peace your joy your love what the next step is how they can continue to progress not only in their discernment but in their pursuit of holiness and love just be with them o lord bless their families bless their studies bless their service and we ask this all in your name jesus amen father son holy spirit amen so i have a prepared talk but i wanted to just maybe stop before i jump into anything just say like you guys have been absorbing a lot right um you have any questions thoughts responses because it's like it's hard to it's like you know you're like making sausage and you got like a two pound sausage skin and we're trying to like stuff 20 pounds worth of stuff into it yeah like okay i have enough i just you know i mean i don't want anybody to be feel too overwhelmed any uh any thoughts uh yeah more of a question sure i keep hearing a lot of uh a lot of the same names come up with the charismatic movement are these individuals still involved or have they deceased uh most of the people that were at uh the duquesne weekend who are part of the original experience are still alive actually a few have passed but there's a lot of people that god is still using them they're still active it's the thing about the holy spirit it's like miracle grow and i don't know fountain of youth all wrapped into one well if i'm giving you an out before you have to listen to me so you can keep asking questions um i think one thing that's always encouraged for us you know uh understanding the call to priests is hearing the voice of christ you know continue so and i'm hearing a lot of like you know for conversion or with the way the holy spirit works is like it seems like it's and maybe correct me if i'm wrong is the holy spirit the one that's sort of leading us to that voice of christ or how would you how would how would the relationship of the holy spirit fit in with understanding the voice of christ that's that's a great question because we know that uh you know jesus has said the holy spirit will be an advocate like he's an advocate for us that means they're both by our sides to lead and guide the catechism repeatedly refers to the commission of the the son of the spirit and bringing about conversion and and revealing the will of the father and conforming us to that will so i think you know it they probably tagged him in a lot right like jesus like okay i'm tagging you in spirit go move his heart you know with a with an ardent desire for for my soul and you know uh you go to this the soul of jesus you're like jesus i'm here with you and he's like let me send you the holy spirit because he's going to be your strength and it just it's like the circular motion of grace so it's hard to discern you know like for me at least when is it when it's the son of the spirit because they are so one that it's hard to embrace the spirit without embracing the son matter of fact the spirit wouldn't want you to embrace him without embracing christ the spirit always wants to reveal jesus he always wants to be about speaking in the name of jesus that's why you know saint paul says you can't even say jesus is lord without the holy spirit he puts that on your lips as the first response to his presence in your life it's the lordship of christ and so while um you know and i think it's also one of the great challenges of the renewal is to almost and i don't want to say this as a criticism because i know people who love the holy spirit deeply also love the church but the primacy of christ you know we are you know we are christo-centric and so uh we don't ever want to take our eyes off that and the spirit wouldn't want us to and so we don't want to overemphasize just the spirit in our lives because the spirit ultimately would want to draw us into the lordship of christ in the full submission of our hearts and minds and souls to his perfect will for our lives so um yeah i think it's a circular thing where they cooperate and collaborate with our and work on us we're we're so broken that the two of them need to work overtime with the father's uh guidance right you know like i don't think we're ever without the the trinitarian presence and that's the beauty of being catholic right you're like this full expression of god and embracing god as a community of love that we've been invited to step into i love that so i hope that helps all right so what i want to talk about is something that uh you know i kind of ended my session this morning kind of dangling this a little bit and this is the need for us to have a strong interior life of prayer as much as i love spontaneous prayer praise and worship as long as the the way that the spirit can release this freedom this grace to praise and put your hands in the air and all these external exuberant expressions for me what i have found after walking with the spirit since i was 18 years old which is almost 40 years ago now is that ultimately what the spirit wants to draw us to is is the silence of our own heart that in that silence of the interior cave as uh so many like saint teresa of avalon saint john of the cross refer to the interior castle the inner cave of the heart where god wants to commune with us and i think this is the great challenge especially due to the fact that so many of us and i would put myself in this that were were rather malformed by the world we grew up in with the noise and the distraction and finding quiet within ourselves it's almost uncomfortable at times right to just sit and be with the lord and not be distracted and drift but i think it is definitely uh god's desire that each one of us are able to develop and live in this interior life of prayer so what i want to share about you know is just some of some of the ideas of what god has done uh you know for me you know i if you were you guys at the life in the spirit seminars each anyone you know i share about the holy spirit being this undiscovered treasure you know the ocean and diving in but i i think i would qualify that and just say the interior life of prayer is just as vital and it is so undiscovered by most catholics most catholics most people don't even know how to be quiet it's constant noise like the uh and i i think part of it is when we are quiet we start to hear our own still small voice within us crying out in pain we become more aware of our own poverty and that's scary to embrace because no one wants to to have to confront a problem unless there's they're sure there's a solution you know there's an answer like this ache of our heart like we're created for more can be a scary concept because then it it almost demands that i respond by looking for what that more is and if i you know if i'm if i'm satisfied with something in the world then that's good enough and that's where most people are i have a life that's good enough you know an old friend of mine uh you know we used to talk and you know he's once shared there's a reason why the dogs drink out of toilets it's because no one puts out fresh water for him and right now we have a lot of people drinking from the toilet of the world because no one's offered them the living water of christ and they don't know how fulfilling it can be to live in communion with the beautiful heart of jesus through prayer i want to start with saint paul's words from ephesians chapter 3 he says for this cause i bow my knees unto the father from every family in heaven on earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory that you may be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inward man so right away saint paul is saying like there's something inward it's not you know and and paul was like you know very clear and you know go and read you know first corinthians chapter 12 when he starts talking about the extraordinary more external gifts of the holy spirit that he says be desirous of these gifts but he always takes it back to but make love your aim because ultimately inwardly is the transformation that god wants us to experience and it doesn't matter if we're spiritually activating gifts if our hearts are far from god and and you're like you say well is that even possible well i think it is because if you listen to jesus's teaching at the end of matthew you know he says but jesus we cast out demons in your name and we perform miracles in your name and he says get away from me i don't know you like you know and when mary and martha are before the jesus jesus is like martha's chosen i mean mary's chosen the better portion martha to sit at my feet and just commune with me so we can be active in ministry but the actions that we have that we perform especially in the priestly life can almost become an idol if you don't have the interior prayer in place you know it is fool as saint teresa of avila said it's foolishness to try to serve christ without him you know only an idiot would do that you know she was very blunt you know she just never missed words she just told you straight up you try to serve jesus without jesus you're a fool but saint paul in this he says look he wants us to be strengthened through his spirit in the inward man that christ may dwell in your hearts through faith not through emotion not through a um an effective kind of you know sensory encounter but through faith well but it feels so good to feel the presence of christ when we pray right to know that he's with us to feel that you know his loving hand upon our shoulders whatever is like yes but we need to learn to let god dwell in our hearts through faith because there will be times when the lord will be testing us when he'll withdraw the any kind of consolation and let us walk in desolation to test us to try us to purify our faith because if we're only putting our faith in jesus and seeking him because we we get this reward this cookie of of comfort then we'll be more about looking for comfort than we are for the will of god because the will of god in our lives is often very uncomfortable so saint paul says like you need to seek him from a place of faith he's worth it he's worth it if he calls you to lay down your life as a martyr tomorrow and you don't get to live the rest of your life on earth you have fulfilled your mission and it's worth it you know laying down our lives and i i think in a lot of ways it would be a lot easier to be that kind of martyr right you die quick you're dead and you go to heaven right you're celebrated right pretty soon you're being canonized and it's all good most of us have to go through a lifelong work of martyrdom but day by day we're chipped away putting the old man to death that the new life in christ might come through this bloodless martyrdom that is the life of christ within us but why does he want us to approach in that christ we dwell in our hearts through faith he goes so that that being rooted and grounded in love you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of christ which which passes knowledge that you would be filled unto the fullness of god that there is a prayer of faith of going before the lord in faith in our inner self with the help of the spirit that then unlocks and enables us to be filled with the fullness of christ you know you can consider yourself in your vocation as a lantern right you're the lantern christ is the flame you want to be the light of the world christ has got to be alive in you you want christ to be alive in you you have to have an interior life of prayer all the graces of your ordination will not make you that because you're a child of god and while you have these special graces that allow you to forgive sins and you know that will give you the ability to say prayers and change bread and wine into the body and blood of jesus you're still called to this intimate relationship with christ and profound transformation you know and and that's the great call of life and prayer is that what gives us that ability so i want to talk a little bit about what i've learned that prayer is so that we can have the faith and the the motivation to to invest what we need to in uh in our prayer prayer uh first is a loving conversation between the father and the son that we're invited to join prayer you know any time this the the the trinity is talking within itself you know it's it's heavenly communication and when we talk to god in prayer that's heavenly communication that's not us talking to the ceiling you know people talk about the internet you know i can get online and i can facetime somebody in australia have instantaneous communication with somebody across the globe we forget that from the beginning of our creation we've had the internet we bow our heads make the sign of the cross and we're talking to heaven we're talking to the trinity the life of god we're activating grace that sacrament that smallest sacrament of the sign of the cross is like a key or a button that you push that starts the the the the grace flowing and it's not magic you gotta you your heart has to be joined to these these symbols and these gestures but it is given to us as a tangible way of of of entering in and assuming this posture of receptivity and communicating with god we know we're entering into a holy moment you know i mean god bless all the major league baseball players but giving yourself the sign of the cross when you step up to plate they're not thinking about heaven they're not trying to do they're not in that moment moving every part of their being into the presence of god they're not using it as a sacramento so that they can encounter more grace in that moment they're asking god if i give you this will you give me a home run i mean like it's a total misuse now we might say oh he's a he's a believer yeah you know but you know we have a tendency to think okay i'm going into a meeting boom boom boom i just gave myself the lucky sign and i'm now god's going to be on my side it's like no it's it is it is the beginning of our movement of our continual going and living out of our baptismal call and entering into that and that in prayer is that eternal dialogue between the father and the son is what we're invited into we know this because in luke chapter 11 right when when the disciples are seeing jesus they saw this pattern jesus goes all night and prays he comes down and he feeds 5 000 people jesus goes out and prays all night he comes down and he chooses his apostles like jesus does something big it's usually preceded by several hours of alone time with god so they're like whatever jesus is doing in prayer it's working i want what he has jesus teach us to pray and the next two words out of the lord the mouth of our savior our father right that just sets it right there you don't have to pray to my father because he's now our father my work is to bring you back into the family what was lost in sin through the old adam through the new adam i will be redeemed what eve's disobedience brought about the chaos and our our division from the father and the loss of being able to live in his likeness is going to be restored through the yes of the new eve the blessed mother through her yes salvation will come into the world through eve's the first eve's know chaos division and sin and death through mary's yes life and because of the work that i'm going to complete amongst you and what i'm doing here amongst you you're now going to be able to say our father so start getting used to saying those words it's happening our father and you know jesus lets us share in his divine sonship through adoption through the power of the holy spirit through baptism it says in first uh john chapter 1 verses uh uh 12 and 13 right but to all who received him who believed in his name he gave power to become children of god who were born not of blood but of god it's god's gratuitous grace his initiative to re reattach us to his family to make us one with him so when we say our prayers when we do when we go to prayer it's not a thing that we do it's not an obligation to fulfill it's a relationship it's a mystery that we are invited to participate in to be a part of with god and what does that mean that means that we need to do a good deal of listening in this conversation there's one person who says everything that is good and holy and beautiful and wants to speak it into your heart personally he wants to communicate divine life and love and light to your soul which means we need to be putting ourselves in a posture of listening when we pray for true intimacy we need to not just listen with our ears but to listen with our heart we must allow our heart to be permeated by god's divine word it is the primary way by which god communicates us this is why the liturgy of ours is so vital it is continual immersion into the voice of god speaking his truth into our hearts but then there's always spiritual reading to be done always you know people say to me oh i'm so busy i don't have time to pray i'm like if you're so busy you need to pray i think it was saint francis de sales who said to his his followers like you need to pray at least half an hour of day of mental prayer unless you're really busy then you need an hour you know but we're the exact opposite we we prioritize our life in such a way that the first thing to go sometimes is the thing that we need the most it was after my son's accident that i just finally stopped playing around with god i was so convinced the power of prayer and i'd had a i would say i had a pretty good prayer life but but it needed to change and so i made this commitment that every morning my alarm's going to go off at 4 30 and i'm going to pray and i'm now up to about an hour and 15 minutes of mental prayer every morning just being with god uh some days an hour some days an hour and a half and i can tell you over the course of three years you know the the the the literally over a thousand hours of prayer that i've spent and i say this in all humility because even the desire to pray is a gift of grace because it's not about me it's about god convincing me and convicting me to make this choice i have nothing you know my face sometimes feels like a mustard seed but i knew that god was calling me and so it was more like radical obedience just to this this undeniable call of christ to enter into deeper prayer and now i can't wake up without thinking my first thought is time to pray i need to go spend time with the father what does it look like for me well i just i just tell god i use the the kind of ignatian prayer which you know if you're not familiar with i'm going to kind of review it for you just briefly at the end but i also just walk i sometimes i walk while i pray and i just walk in silence and say speak lord you know and then there's and even if i get that timing i'm still looking for at least 15 minutes throughout the day when i can go into one of the chapels on our campus and just be before the blessed sacrament in silence just to listen i usually come with no agenda i say everything that i need to say during my mental prayer and then just give other times during the day where i can just listen to god so prayer is primary listening and we do this through two things that we that i think are hopefully part of your training in seminary as you get formed and that's meditating and contemplating yeah i don't know if you've been trained in practice how do i meditate what's christian meditation what is christian contemplation and seriously we could spend a whole retreat talking about those two things and just start to scratch the surface but just as a brief overview because i want to encourage you to learn to meditate to learn to do to contemplate meditation is an exercise it's a form of prayer where we seek to understand god's revelation of the truths of faith and the purpose of our christian life so we already have a whole body of wisdom handed to us by the church you know including in the primacy of sacred scripture we have all the teachings of the church we have the catechism and then we have a whole volumes of holy writing from the saints holy men and women who walked before us you know i always say like if you're a saint today you're standing on the shoulders of giants who showed us the way can you imagine being the first saint and trying to you'd have to totally like oh it's so good i can read from this satan and see how to do it where they were just relying on the spirit to teach them how to do it there was no one showing them no one had gone before them in faith they were blazing trails and they left clear markers on these trails for us to ascend the mountain of god thank goodness that we're not having to whack our way through the weeds every time we want there's paths already created for us but meditation is when we seek to understand these things and it's it's not a seeking like there's a there's a real trap in meditation because knowledge is such a beautiful thing that knowledge in and of itself can become an idol for us i want to know all there is to know right i just want to consume we become consumers of catholic truth rather than converts who are being converted by catholic truth meditation keeps us from just becoming consumers of theology and knowledgeable you know saint paul said look knowledge puffs up you know it can really be a a source of pride in our lives but when we approach scripture with the humility of saying i'm not here to consume this word i'm here to be consumed by this word to transform by these words into the image and likeness of christ and we're meditating in humility then the lord is working in power in our lives he's teaching us with his own voice how to take these truths and make them our own because even though the truth is what it is we are all so unique that the application of truth in our life can look very different the way you're called to love can look very different than the way somebody else is called to love it might both be selfless it might be giving but for some it'll be in a classroom for some people it'll be at a soup kitchen for some people will be next to somebody's bed as you're administering the last rites the anointing of the sick there's various forms and expressions of that love but we all need to meditate upon it and say okay god what are you asking me to do in love today we all know that we need to surrender our hearts to god but what you need to surrender before god is not what i need to surrender we're different we have different wounds we have different sins what's going to be your remedy surrender but there might also be something in particular that god is asking you to do a particular fast a particular discipline that you need to do your prayer life might look radically different than mine but we're both in going into communion with christ because you're wired a certain way and i'm wired a certain way and there's not a one aw one size fits all spirituality that's the beauty of being catholic you know there's so many religious orders there's so many different ways to pray we literally have a smorgasbord if you're a protestant they the the way they talk about prayer it's like okay you sit down you quiet yourself you read some scripture you say a few prayers you're done what i mean like we can meditate we've got like the lives of the saints we've got prayers um i don't know if anyone is familiar and i want to recommend a book and i think you might be able to buy it in our bookstore divine intimacy have you heard of this book if you have a chance to buy divine intimacy just buy it it has a daily reflection for every day and it's so applicable it's challenging and what i love it is each daily reflection reflection includes prayers by saints so they actually go into the prayer journals and prayer writings on prayer that these saints made and they they put them there you know they give you something to reflect on and they give you an example of how a saint prayed into this reflection you know and it challenges you and it teaches you new ways to pray new ways to express your heart you know i think one of the things you know like you heard a lot of and i'm not this is not an advocation of any kind of political thing because i think the church is too political and i think people are too quick to gravitate and try to associate being a good catholic with being a good republican there once was a time when i think you could have been a very good catholic and been a very very good democrat maybe not be the case anymore but when we hear somebody like donald trump speak and everybody's saying like i like what he says because he it speaks to me he's saying things that i've been thinking about but he says it in such a way that i can if that's what it's like when you read the prayers of the saints like they're able to express what's in your heart it unleashes you to be able to move your will with these words into a deeper sense of conversion a deeper place of transformation with the spirit so divine intimacy i can't i can't uh recommend it enough it is one of the great tools that i've had to aid aid myself in the the work of learning how to meditate second is contemplation right this is more of a wordless form of prayer and this is much challenging because it's really the joining of the mind and the heart the intellect and the affect where we focus on god's greatness in loving adoration we look upon jesus and the mysteries of his of his life with faith and love and just let the lord take us on a journey you know a lot of contemplation is uh can be a an important part of even getting deeper in lectio divina because you can actually let the spirit take you there there there's a one of the greatest things that i think we've lost a sense of is the christian mind the christian imagination letting the spirit lead us to where we are really in deep prayer contemplating these mysteries of god and seeing how our lives relate to them how how the spirit speaks into each one of us in these but that's a gift of grace contemplation seeks alone christ himself you're not trying to understand a teaching you're trying to encounter jesus and just contemplate his life jesus what are you saying to me as you speak to the woman at the well or to blind bartimaeus i'm contemplating this moment what are you trying what would you teach me today as you there's a reason why this story was was put in scripture believe me when we take this this this time to go deep and let the spirit lead us that's when christ really starts to speak he'll tell you what his purpose for this scripture is for you today because the beauty of it is you can come back to that scripture in six months and god will say something completely different because you're a different person he's got something else to teach you scripture is like a diamond and you move it this way or that way it's like the facets just glitter like oh i never noticed that facet before well accuse you never really looked at that angle before and all of a sudden you see something shiny and new and beautiful within that scripture and scripture never ceases to amaze when we take time to contemplate it it's a prayer of silence or silent love meditation is kind of a quest contemplation is more rest just resting with this word and letting god speak meditation is mental cognitive kind of a discourse that we have with god contemplation is more silent heart centered and beholding of the majesty of god and letting that encounter move us to a deeper affection and love for god a deeper transformation and as important as meditation is i would say contemplation is even more so important because once again it takes us to a place where we're letting the word of god change us change our hearts but prayer you know i mean i don't want to make it sound like it's a serious thing that every time you gotta parade there's gotta be a profound encounter with god in that way not every prayer you pray is going to be contemplation not every prayer and mental prayer that you exercise in is going to be heavy meditation sometimes prayer just needs to be communion and friendship with god because he wants to be your friend he says look i no longer call you servants i call you friends i want friendship with you and this you know he says as he's about to die like this friendship is not going to end with my death he wouldn't start laying out his idea wanting to be friends with the apostles right before he dies i mean like it's not it wasn't it was for this ongoing relationship it was to be built on friendship and saint teresa of jesus she looked at prayer in this perspective she said mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends it means take time frequently to be alone with them with him who we know loves us so we take time frequently this is what you know i mean like people say to pray always means oh if i'm scrubbing the floor i can offer it up as a prayer yes but if we don't pray at particular times we're not going to learn how to pray always you know and you know granted you might be able to get a good hour in the morning half hour in the morning whatever your schedule allows or whatever you're asked to do but there are so many little moments throughout the day where we can turn our hearts to god and jesus christ son of the living god have mercy on me a sinner i place my faith and my trust in you just we raise our hearts just for a half second say jesus i acknowledge you're still with me and even though i'm busy doing this work i love you and i'm glad you're still on my side you know like oh jesus you know like laughing with the lord you know when you know something happens uh you know that just it gives you delight it's like jesus thank you for that you know thank you for blessing me in that little way like little acts of faith hope and love done in faith i mean like people say well it just seems so rote to you know to say you know jesus son of living god have mercy on my neocenter those even aren't even my words is that really communicating with god absolutely because we're praying it in faith and those those acts of faith are what you remember paul wants us to be strengthened that christ would dwell in our hearts through faith and faith demands the continual turning of our hearts to god in big ways and little ways throughout our day at the center of our prayer to always remember it's always the mingling of two hearts the heart of jesus in our heart you know and if the spirit has a role in it it's because the spirit is light that enlightens us how to join it the spirit's the glue that joins our souls with christ makes us one with him so the the most important piece of advice i can tell you in your relationship with god is be authentic please don't go to god thinking you have to impress him you know prayer is not performance it's a real relationship where you can just tell god dear lord jesus i just want you to know i'm having a shitty day you can edit that out mary kay believe it thank you but i mean like god would rather hear you say that than say oh lord jesus christ that's the son of god if i loveth you with all my heart you know i mean like there are times when our formal prayer is very beautiful but there's times when we just need to be real with god to be raw and authentic and let him know that we trust him with our worst parts we don't have to hide it from him we're crying out loud if we're broken he's the only solution why are we trying to tap dance for the lord in order to please him when really the greatest way his glory is going to be revealed in us is if he heals us forgives us and transforms us no i said well the greatest glory we can give to god is to hide our sin and pretend it's not there and put on the brave face and you know no no a thousand times no the saints knew their brokenness they knew their weaknesses they knew their utter dependency beyond god and that's why my next point is that prayer is the ultimate expression and experience of humility there's nothing more prideful than you can say as a priest you know and or even as a any catholic but especially in your life as a priest if that's your final destination you're a priest and you say to god i'm too busy to pray that is the ultimate insult of pride because that's where i say like god i am so busy doing the great work of building your kingdom try to keep up with me you know i mean like how arrogant but they see we it slips we lose our discipline we lose our focus and then we lose our humility and then we're lost then we're lost i mean we'll look at the priests who've brought god and brought scandal to the church i can tell you the first thing that they brought was just an arrogance and a disregard to their prayer we hold this sacred treasure in clay jars we break we leak my goodness we need prayer more than we need the next breath you know there's just no way any of this is going to make sense or be effective for the renewal of the church without prayer at the center of it deep intimate communion with god peter who humiliated himself over and over again had the ultimate humiliation in denying christ three times he taught very quickly humble yourself therefore under god's mighty right hand that in due time he may exalt you like humble yourself don't wait to make a mistake don't learn from my mistakes humble yourself because if you don't god will humble you and when god humiliates us because there's no other way to lure to to learn uh humility than humiliation and humiliation can be a public very embarrassing thing or humiliation can be us renouncing ourselves and just admitting our nothingness before god and spending time before him in prayer because we know that we're going to get more out of five minutes from god and we're going to be more effective for the building of god in five minutes of prayer than five hours of our best work that's the ultimate expression of humility wisdom chapter 3 verse 1 says the souls of the righteous are in the hand of god when we pray we put our lives in the hands of god continually as our protection our guide and it goes on to say no no torment will ever touch them if we're not going to god and placing ourselves every part of us in prayer into the hands of god on a daily basis we're going to get snatched from the hand of god by satan this is wisdom and protection and love that christ gives us that we discover when we submit ourselves and give all ourselves to god in prayer even when we're in a time of dryness and we're experiencing this inability to pray even more so in those moments the humiliation of knowing that even prayer is beyond us we continue to say god be merciful to me lord i am not worthy to have you come under my roof but i'm going to stay here lord because you've called me to be with you i know that i cannot get there on my own help me jesus the best thing that i did uh in the last year when i was hitting hard spots in prayer was just i just kind of reoriented my prayer to say before i start going to god with what i think i want in my agenda i'm just going to stop and just say holy spirit i am here lead me to where i need to be in prayer right now jesus is out there and at one time i was praying this i had this really clear vision of of me standing at a door and behind the door was jesus and it was me trying to pray and i was like banging on the door and the door wasn't open i was kicking the door i was frustrated hanging with both hands kicking this door like god why can't i knock this door down i want to be with you and also there was a tap on my shoulder and it was the spirit he said come here i want to show you something he led me around the corner of this building there was like this small little door kind of hidden away and he opened it up he says enter in and it was just like the lord confirming that he's going to lead me to how i need to go and enter into god's presence to really communion with god the spirit will lead us there so just surrendering and because if we call the holy spirit the interior master of prayer then we've got to give him authority we have to be subject to his leading us in prayer we can't be running ahead of the spirit saying okay i'm going to go find jesus he's like i know exactly where he is do you want me to show you no i'll figure it out anyway because we'll always get frustrated with that attitude right i'll figure it out i can do this i me i got this you're like no we don't even have prayer it's the ultimate expression and experience of humility to pray well we will come to experience and pray prayer if we're doing it right at some point or another the truth of our own nothingness before god you put yourself before god long enough you're going to discover that you're nothing before him and in that you'll find complete freedom nothing depends on you it all is about god and what he wants to do in you and through you saint teresa of jesus taught the whole groundwork of prayer is based on humility the more a soul lowers itself in prayer the more god will raise it up what a beautiful thing to remember that we don't have to raise ourselves up and justify ourselves before god we just need to make ourselves small to make ourselves low and say god it is me i'm a sinner i want to be with you i need your love today i don't know how to pray spirit guide me i also call upon the blessed mother a lot mother mary you know and love jesus lead me to his heart through your immaculate heart help me to find the sacred heart and prayer because mary is is kind of like god's like swat team first responder goes in and finds those who are really hopeless and lost and helps them out she's been so evident in my prayer like you know people say like how do you know the holy spirit how do you pray in the spirit i'm like the most spirit-filled prayer prayers i have anymore are when i'm praying my rosary honestly because she's the spouse of the spirit and i always pray right before the the the the uh when i pray my rosie's like this is meditation on the life of christ holy spirit guide my praying of the rosary let me not just rattle off hail mary's in our fathers but take me into the mystery we pray this at the end of the rosary that meditated upon these mysteries the most holy rosary of the blessed virgin mary we might imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise that's the whole goal of praying the rosary not to check off the box pray the rosary today cha-ching it's to imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise so this prayer you know the the prayer of of the rosary can also be a great tool to aid in our meditation and even contemplation because once again i started my rosary and i started contemplating uh christ coming into the world as a baby i went down this rabbit hole of just imagining and praying and being awed by god i didn't even get through the first decade yeah well you mission accomplished you did what the rosary is supposed to do it took you into the mystery of jesus but i no it's not an accomplishment it's a pathway uh venerable phone sheen said it's the book of the blind the rosary it is kind of like reading braille because you're feeling the beads and praying and meditating and god is speaking and he's teaching it's very beautiful but finally prayer is love because god is love and then the focus and the encounter of our our prayer is god in first john chapter 4 says god is love prayer is love it's our ability to enter into the heart of jesus to experience the love of the father just to to experience the love of the spirit that proceeds from the father and the son who wants to in you know set us on fire with divine love you want to love god let this love of the holy spirit fill you because if it's just your human emotion leading you that's gonna fail i mean we i believe in human love people say oh there's no love apart from god no humans can love we can desire the good of another person we can seek to to be good people without the holy spirit but we're going to fall incredibly short i mean we might be able to do things that look good things that might be kind on some level but we will be pleasing unto god because we're doing it apart from him when we have our prayer in place and the spirit is moving in our lives everything that we do is not only for the glory of god it's joined with the glory of god it reflects the glory of god it's it's geared towards giving god glory why do we love our neighbor as ourself because it gives god glory when we obey the commands we give god glory well don't our neighbors have dignity and just deserve love because they're our neighbors absolutely but by adhering to that truth we give god glory and the reason why sin is so repugnant to us because it is it robs god of his glory saint irene said the glory of god is man fully alive man fully alive is a man pursuing holiness in the love of god not pursuing the world in selfish gain saint john of the cross says be joyful and gladdened in your interior recollection with him for you have him so close to you desire him there adore him there he's talking about in the in the self he goes do not go in pursuit of him outside yourself you will only become distracted and weary thereby and you shall not find him nor have him more intimately than by seeking him within you you know we we love to stand before a beautiful altar that's been restored to its former glory you know like sometimes you see these churches that got stripped of all their finery into the statues and the altar was torn down it's like oh this makes you want to throw up and then then you see one that's been restored and it just it just takes your breath away a beautifully restored church when there's stars on the ceiling everything they went full tilt and it just takes your breath away and as much as that inspires us to aw and wonder the place where we encounter jesus the deepest is not out there but in here when we quiet ourselves through interior prayer once again from saint teresa she says do you think it matters little for a soul with a wandering mind to understand this truth and see that there is no need to go to heaven in order to speak with one's heavenly father or find delight in him nor is there any need to shout however softly we speak he is near enough to hear us neither is there any need for wings to go find him all one need do is go into solitude and look at him within oneself this is why jesus was very clear like the kingdom of heaven is within you we want to build the external kingdom we want to restore the city of god we want to help restore christendom let that happen within first let god build the interior castle your prayer life make it tall and strong let your roots go very deep into jesus because if you're not rooted deeply in jesus when the winds of hatred and and rejection and sometimes loneliness and sometimes you're going to be tempted to despair and people are going to mock you and reject you and look at you as suspicion because you wear a collar you're automatically going to be branded a pedophile or a creep because you stood wearing your clerics in public and for many people that's become synonymous with being a bad person the church is the last bastion of truth that stands up for what is right and if we're and if your roots are not deep in christ you will get blown over it's the trees that have the deepest roots when you see a tree that has grown up to this beautiful thing and it's it's got shade in the and there's animals finding shade and comfort and it's producing fruit and the fruit is falling out of the ground people are eating of this fruit and people are life is being sustained by this tree what you don't see is is the greatest part of the tree stretching out for hundreds of feet in every direction under the soil going down deep into the soil our roots you kill the roots you kill the tree i have forsythia growing in the backyard does anyone ever have forsythia growing in their yard you can't kill that you can i chopped it all down like one whole bush like my wife's like let's get rid of the forsythia so i chopped it all down to like it was just nubs within three weeks it was three feet high again it just grows because i didn't dig up the roots i also had a silver maple i love silver maples because when in the summertime when the wind is blowing they they have green on one side and silver on the other and they shimmer and i love this tree and its roots started to die and i noticed you know the top branches went dead and then the lower branches went dead and finally the branches that were closest to the ground were still alive but everything above it was dead because the roots weren't able to absorb enough nutrients to keep the whole thing alive i eventually had to call the tree service and to cut it down because it was so close to my house that hadn't fallen it would have fallen into my house and i was so sad to see that silver maple go but if we have deep roots i can't kill you if you are dead you're not gonna let you're not gonna thrive you're not gonna make it which you know leads me to my next point that prayer needs to be looked at as the number one thing that you'll do battle for in your life and we want to fight for the unborn want to fight even for a just society and i mean like justice for everybody i mean there's a lot of lifestyles that we cannot condone as catholics but we would never condone anyone being robbed of their dignity no matter what their orientation or skin color is you know like all the isms that are out there i shared this life in the spirit the one ism that we need to be focused on to unite and heal the world is baptism it is the one ism that actually has hope for us is the grace of our baptism but more important than any social justice issue that you're going to do battle for or any human rights issue that you're going to do battle for even spiritual battle for the soul of another is your own battle for prayer because if you're not girded up if you're not wearing the breast plate of righteousness if you don't have to have the helmet of salvation on if you're not prepared and you're not fighting for your prayer you're not going to be any good to god why because god is a jealous god he does not let his glory be revealed in those who are not one with him he will not lead you know if you want to pursue holiness without jesus go ahead but you'll never find it holiness is jesus alive in us his spirit alive in us and we can try to pursue it and try to make ourselves holy or we can surrender to jesus and his power and he will make us holy and we will collaborate with the grace necessary but that happens through prayer the catechism says in article 27 25 it says prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part there's a there's a real danger and i even see it here on our campus it's quietism you know like oh i'll just i'll just wait for god to show up and do something you know and you've probably been taught this enough through your discernment process is that you don't sit back and god comes and gives you a little slip of paper this is my plan you take a step is the peace still there then take the next step is the peace still there is there confirmation that you're still on the path we have to in our own prayer have the determined response to the grace of jesus christ because it is a gift of grace to be able to pray even the desire to pray is a gift of grace but we need to respond to it it goes on to say it always presupposes effort there are no lazy saints you know saints worked hard to become saints it goes on to say the great figures of prayer in the old covenant before christ as well as the mother of god the saints and christ himself all teach us this prayer is a battle against whom against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer away from union with god wow because satan knows as soon as you're cut off separated from jesus you're like a branch that's been cut from the tree suitable for what to wither and die and be thrown into the fire jesus himself talked about this you know i'm the vine you are the branches abide in me abide in me abide in me abide in me abide me nine times he says those words in the 15th chapter of john's gospel abide in me like he was just telling you guys i can't say this enough if you're not abiding in me i can't work in you and through you and you will do nothing apart from me you can do nothing we have this thing like here's the things i know i can do apart from god i can put on my socks in the morning god doesn't care whether i wear blue or brown or black right i can have captain crunch or nestle's crunch whatever i like i do crunches in the morning you know that's how i exercise it's either captain crunch or nestle crunch but you know we can decide what we want to do and what we want to eat we have so much control over the little choices that don't matter but the big things that really do matter we have the same amount of freedom with but unless we submit that freedom and make that choice to habitually submit ourselves to god in prayer will be pulled away from them that passage 27 25 it says the spiritual battle of the christians new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer you will never have a time in your life when your prayer is not going to be a battle for you you'll either be battling your own laziness or you're battling satan who's trying to pull you from prayer or just battling all the distractions he throws in your way it'll be a battle until the day you die it is the one number one way that spiritual battle will be manifested in your life and if you surrender your prayer and you give up that prayer that you've lost everything i can't say this enough i i and i don't think i'm exaggerating in the least bit i had the the sadness of being a youth minister at a parish in north carolina where the priest left the priesthood to go live with his gay lover he stopped praying he stopped activating the grace of his baptism stopped cooperating with grace gave up on himself gave up on god and chose a lifestyle contrary to the gospel and at the last homily he ever delivered at our parish he actually announced it to everybody i want you to know i've discerned what's best for me i'm leaving the priesthood i have a a homosexual lover down in charlotte i was living in north carolina i'm gonna go live with him i might stay in the area so if you're hiring or you know somebody who's hiring i need a job next week he actually said this in his last homily i'm like i'm like are you serious right now i love the man he was good to me he was a good boss and i think he definitely loved the people that he served but he did not have the life of the spirit activated in him he was not rooted in christ he was rooted in self-love and despair and whatever wounds led him to that god have mercy on his soul but i had to pick up the pieces with the young people and try to explain to him why god was still sitting on the throne of their parish you know like it was going to be all right it was crazy but this is what happens when we lose our prayer we lose our theological and mental and spiritual sanity anything can happen under the umbrella of christ in prayer we are guarded against all attacks step out from underneath that umbrella you're going to get hit by every storm satan throws at you saint maximilian colby saint padre pio even i think saint thomas aquinas they all describe satan as a chain dog right you ever hear this he's a dog on a chain which means unless you go within his range within his circle of influence you're protected satan just cannot walk up to somebody jump into their soul overtake them and wrestle them to the ground and possess them that is not the ability that satan has for somebody who's in christ and even somebody who's not in christ it's like they really have to cooperate and collaborate for satan that really dominate and infest their life but when we don't pray right we're moving into satan's circle prayer you know he's on a leash our leash is this chain of hope that anchors us to jesus that keeps us out of satan's reach and he'll bark at you he will snarl at you he will try to tempt you and scare you and intimidate you but he is a chain dog and god willing you'll become as holy as padre pio someday so that satan can pick you up and throw you across the room as he spiritually attacks you and you'll wake up in the morning bruised and bloodied because satan attacked you all night but you'll still be as holy as everybody holier than anybody because you'll have survived and persevered actually i don't wish that on anybody but i think that'd be kind of a cool experience to be lifted out of your bed and thrown across the room by satan but in the end haven't watched him walk away like a like a wounded puppy because for all of his antics and all of his theatrics he knew he's a defeated chained dog with his tail hanging between his legs you know and and we need but we need to do this battle in our prayer you know the tools that satan will use to divide you from him is number one division right division i talked about this this morning this disruption when when satan when enemies go into battle the first thing you want to do is disrupt communications if you can confuse your enemy and disrupt communication with headquarters the people will scatter they won't be unified we won't be unified in ourselves we'll be in an emotional basket case or intellectually lost in a thought or spiritually feeling discouraged whatever if we're divided and disrupted in our prayer god can't take all the forces of our will our intellect and our emotions and line them up so that we can go into the battle strong with a united front to overcome satan through the power of the holy spirit so that prayer helps us to align all the assets that we have within ourselves and gear them towards doing the lord's holy will but he'll try to disrupt that he'll try to make you believe that there's something that's coming across your plate right now that's more important to prayer now the average american right now watches between six and eight hours of of television surfing the internet some sort of media think about that six to eight hours a day that's 25 of your life that means by the time you're 40 you have spent 10 years of your life watching television or surfing the internet if you're way below average and you're i only surf the internet maybe two hours i watch television two hours a day that's still ten percent of your life that means that ten years from now you'll have spent a whole year of uninterrupted time in your life watching television or surfing the internet but between video games so many young men so many young women they're spending a third to a fourth of their life tied to a device that promises them nothing but a distraction this ongoing distraction distraction that's what satan wants to do he wants us to focus on anything but god he'll use anything to distract us and usually we get so distracted even before we go to prayer right we consume so much media and so many news flashes and new sound bites and this that when we finally sit down to be quiet we're trying to process everything we just consumed for the last 24 hours and our hearts can't and our minds can't be still we need to stop the distractions of prayer before we go to prayer it's a radical thing to say i mean i have been working on this very diligently in my life i have an ipad that i use for work i have deleted all media apps off that device it is now simply a work device because it used to be so easy wherever i was and i could get on the internet and even if i wasn't near wi-fi i could you know use my phone as a hot spot and watch something on netflix i cancelled netflix uh you know i mean like i just okay i'm wasting my life i'm 56 years old and i'm estimating i have maybe 20 to 25 more years of of good ministry that god's going to call me to and i don't want to look back and say oh well and when i knew i had 25 years ago left i still chose to spend two or three of those watching tv you're not going to wake up on your death bed saying oh lord jesus can i can can you keep me alive for one more week then the next season of the office is dropping or you know name it or oh it's about to become baseball season just let me live through baseball season then take me lord that's not what's going to be on your mind as you go to meet your maker in fact i think a lot of us when we stand before the lord he rolls the tape and we see hour after hour after hour after day after week after month after year of us sitting on our butts looking at a screen we're going to have to have nothing but shame and misery saying lord i could have done so much more you guys ever see the movie schindler's list at the end when he's looking at this list of people he said he's like i couldn't this could have i could have sold this and you know one more what's that yeah all he had was i saved so many but i could have saved more and and we don't want to be that way with god i could have done so much more but i didn't so what do we do how do we overcome the division he'll try to make you feel like a discouraged person he'll say things to you like if you if you pray you don't feel anything you're a hypocrite you're not you don't have active faith because you're not feeling anything you're not in the right state of heart you know that mother say mother teresa lived the last 30 years of her life in desolation with no real sense of god's presence in her life when she prayed and you know that she still prayed two hours every day and she had all of her nuns pray for two hours a day because she said if i can't see jesus in the blessed sacrament i won't see jesus and the poor that was her spiritual food and even though she wasn't consoled by those minutes she was empowered by those minutes to do the lord's holy will in her life you know you might even begin to think i'm not worthy to feel god in my prayer i'm so broken and i'm so sinful i don't deserve to feel god and the lord does want to there are times when god wants to console you he does love you so much we hold back because we don't feel like we're worthy of having a deep prayer life you know we feel like saint peter lord go away i'm a sinful man and the lord's like yeah i know that's why i'm here i'm the only solution for that sin that you were you're so worried about i'm your only hope don't push me away now because once you realize you're a sinful man you're halfway there to say it i'm a forgiven man you know most people don't realize they need jesus if you realize you need jesus you're almost there so i'm at four o'clock um do you mind if i take five more minutes all right i'll be quick i promise it's only gonna be five because i just want to kind of touch over the dynamics of prayer first entering the prayer i already talked about but but trusting in the holy spirit listen to what it says in the catechism 26 72 it says the holy spirit whose anointing permeates our whole being is the interior master of christian prayer he is the artisan of the living tradition of prayer i love artisan things like artisan food hand-crafted quality ingredients good stuff i don't i don't want to to eat a at a fast food restaurant when i get to travel when i'm at a place and the priest says oh you know uh you know let's go out and get a burger tonight like where do you want to go i'm like anywhere but a chain you know don't take me to applebee's we have applebee's student voice it's one level above dog food in most cases right most things that apple bees are is microwaved or fried i said where did locals go to get the really good stuff you know who's got the best burger in town who crafts their burgers you know i went to this one place when i was in waynesville north carolina this small city up in the mountains and it was just like fantastic handcrafted artisan burger and that's how the holy spirit is he uses the best ingredients and handcrafts each one of us custom made not mass produced he's an artisan he's the artisan of the living tradition of prayer which means this living tradition this river of grace that flows through the church that's called prayer he invites us all into but he forms us in a particular way individually into a masterpiece of our own he goes on to say to be sure there are as many paths of prayer as there are persons who pray but it is the same spirit acting in all and with all it is the in the communion of the holy spirit that christian prayer is prayer in the church so when remember when we say our father we're not just admitting that you know our understanding when we say our father that oh that unites us to christ we share a common fatherhood with christ it also means that we are one that i'm not just praying for myself and praying for all of you like our father together one human body when i lift up my prayers to god i have to be lifting up everyone not just you know because like we can have personal intimacy with jesus but there's an expression our protestant brothers use do you have a personal relationship with jesus do you all have a personal relationship with jesus i would say no i have personal intimacy with jesus god speaks to me in a very personal way but as soon as i came into a relationship with jesus you became my brothers you became my sisters you know like we became a family so it's no longer just a personal thing it's just not me and jesus as long as i got me and jesus i'm okay i pray our father i make a vow to you to love you to serve you to honor you and to help bring you to heaven our father has words beyond oh god it's my father that's so cool it means like every human person becomes your you're related to them in a way that you you owe them love and dignity it calls us out of ourselves to pray that our father and that's when we have the holy spirit active that that prayer becomes prayer in the church uniting us all saint bonaventure said simply put the holy spirit comes when he where he's loved where he is invited and where he is expected and so we have to when we come to pray just pray holy spirit don't lead me to a feeling don't lead me to a motion lead me to the heart of jesus and let me abide there during this time and how do we do that acknowledge relate receive respond that same rhythm that we have in conversation with one another to acknowledge is to give an authentic giving of yourself as you are right now to jesus to say i'm having a bad day lord or lord today i woke up just feeling overwhelmed by this in my life or feeling troubled by this in my life i just want to tell you this is how where i'm at lord and they're related to god but god i know that this anxiety is not of you that you are my anchor in the storm and so i come to you jesus and say be my anchor you know you say you jesus you're the one this is where our meditation our knowledge of scripture helps you lord you said uh come unto me all you who are weary i feel weary today i'm coming unto you lord i want to find the rest for my soul you'll relate it back to him if you're feeling joy like god i'm just so excited that i've been called to the priest and i'm just i feel so blessed lord jesus you're the giver of all joy i'm fighting this joy because you're in this call you're the center of this call and i'm so grateful for that right now in this joy i turn it back to you god the source of all joy whatever you're dealing with just take it and relate it acknowledge where you're at and relate it to jesus however that is good bad ugly it's all good because it's real and then just receive the holy spirit will speak to us it might be it might take a while for you to you know find that place of peace and this is why the listening part of our prayer needs to be expanded the talking part needs to be cut back but you can be sure the spirit is speaking when you feel like you're not being rushed if you have like this voice in it you've got to get this done this is what i'm going to do do it now that's not how the holy spirit works he brings peace and clarity not panic and rush to rush to action i think so many people are you know like i'm all in for god and therefore when this you know i let myself be deceived that the first thing the spirit wants to tell me is go do something you know the the first the superior says he wants us to be something then we can go do something just like jesus said i want you to go make disciples of all nations but first i want you to wait until the holy spirit comes upon you just wait so that's what we need to do in prayer we need to wait for the holy spirit to guide us the holy spirit speaks in a soft inner voice he doesn't bark he doesn't coerce he wants our cooperation our collaboration most importantly the holy spirit wants us to do it out of love so he's going to woo us with love he's not going to use fear tactics he's not going to scare us into coercion so if you have an accusing voice of voice in your head reject it in the name of jesus because that's not the spirit speaking we know who the great accuser is it's satan who wants to take your eyes off of jesus and put them back on yourself you're not good enough you need to do this why aren't you doing this you're never going to be good enough all these things that sometimes fly into our head when we pray just and how do we do that we renounce them in the name of jesus i renounce you go away satan you have no power here i'm with jesus holy spirit so quiet my heart the holy spirit will inspire you he will not intimidate you he will invite you it is satan that puts the fear and forcing in our lives like oh i've got to do this or i'm just never going to please the lord that's not the holy spirit speaking the holy spirit invites you to give your heart once again to jesus the holy spirit invites you to listen and ponder like he did with the blessed mother not push you to an you know unthought of decision like you know like take the time to think things through there's wisdom that will be revealed nine times out of ten we rush our decisions because we feel compelled to make decisions to be men of action and decision and whether spirit is saying like i need men who are prayerful and receptive and being led but finally there is that part where we do need to respond so if you're taking your time and the lord says okay this is what i want you to do and he lays it all out you have to be willing to do it i think people say well god's not speaking to me like well how committed to are you to obedience what do you mean well if the lord asked you to go and forgive somebody would you go do it no i couldn't forgive that person that's why the lord's not speaking to you because you're not willing to do what he'll tell you to do you've got to come with a blank page and say jesus i'm not giving you like what do they call those little things uh where they give you like put in the name of a color the man walked in wearing a blank jacket and then you know like what are they called mad libs thank you we don't come to god with the mad libs with most of the story written just a guy ad god you just put a few words in that i need to know we come with a blank page we don't have the story already created and asked god to just fill in details we come with a blank page and say what is your will for me no within your state of light life right a lot of those decisions are made for you and that's good you know my morning prayer i don't have to decide today if i'm going to have morning prayer or i'm going to do communal prayer i know that those things are worked into my schedule because that's what i do like for me i don't know i don't have to wonder whether or not god wants me to talk to my kids you know they need me that's that's what the father does but i need to be able to respond when the lord says go in a particular direction you have to be willing to to obey to respond and if you're doing that on a regular basis with your concerns with your heart just giving it the lord will will help you to grow into into a prayer warrior you'll wake up hungry for god your first thought before your feet hit the floor it's jesus christ i make you the lord of my life take this day and make it unto you i give my life to you now i want to be with you now because i know at some point during the day i'm going to really want to be with you and i'm going to need you but if i neglect you now what if i can't find you when i really need you you know and the truth is we need god all the time but i'm saying like we need to really make that room to communion with god when we can because the ultimate end of our life is not ministry the ultimate end of our existence is communion with god in heaven with nothing to do but be with him to sing as praise for all of eternity no more problems to solve no more fires to put out no more important decisions to be made or not made just communion no more baptisms no more confessions to hear just eternal bliss and everything that we love about life will be a part of heaven the best parts of what we have here on earth without all the garbage if i told you you you know it would if i said to you i'll make a deal if you give every waking moment of your life from here on out to jesus christ and forsake everything else i promise you if you do that you'll go to heaven would you make that deal who wouldn't right our life on earth is like a drop in the bucket compared to like the ocean of eternity right we'll be swimming in that water forever and still not hit the bottom then i would say what would it take for you to give how about how about five percent of your day to god what's five percent of my day one hour give one hour to god in mental prayer that's five percent of your day and give another five percent of spiritual reading because if you invest that time you'll become a saint and you'll be on the path the same night and we we we they need to we need to keep things in perspective right nothing is more important than communion with christ and and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise so let's stop here let's pray because i went way over the five minutes that you gave me i'm a greedy little person and i apologize name of the father son holy spirit amen good and gracious god we thank you that you love us so much that you accept us where we are at as we are but we also praise you jesus that you love us so much that you refuse to let us remain as we are that you're constantly calling us to change to grow to become everything that you made us to be spirit be poured out on our lives in abundance let this fire of god transform us because just as fire transforms everything it touches may the fire of god's love the passion for the father the passion for prayer be awakened in our souls drawing us deeper into the mystery of christ and his love lord forgive us for the times that we have not made prayer a priority for the times that we've wasted our lives and lord you're more than more than able to forgive and mercifully you know cast our sin from us and with that we just want to recommit ourselves right now lord to our prayer to you as our lord and savior to you holy spirit as the interior master who will guide us inform prayer in our hearts we surrender all of this to you jesus knowing that you are more than capable of doing more than we could ever ask or imagine through trusting in your power and your love just be with us now lord continue to be with us through the rest of this retreat and we ask this all in your name jesus amen the father son holy spirit amen

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

Views: 27

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

Id: 7Pl9qUCiBnw

Length: 72min 44sec (4364 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021