Journey Home - 2017-05-15 - Katherine Daniels

you [Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program once again you and I joined together for an hour to sit and relax and listen to a story and our guest tonight is Catherine Daniels and she's a special guest I guess you would call this one of our international journey homes because Catherine has come all the way from England to for two reasons one to join us here on the journey home to tell her story but also she's going to join Doug Keck for a bookmark for the book the virgin eye towards a contemplative view of life she edited this and these are the writings of your former hospira late house late house about scuse me Robin Daniels and so and it's about the toward a contemplative view of life and so I don't want to talk too much about the book because I want you to be able to share it with Doug his wonderful program but let me begin by welcoming you to the journey home Thank You Marcus it's good to be here it's great to be it would have been nice for me to fly over there and meet you in your own backyard that's good to have you here and let me do it like I normally try and do as much as I can that's get out of the way and invite you to go back and give your former Anglican so I want to let the audience start way at the beginning and get a glimpse of your journey okay well I was baptized as a baby in the Anglican Church and my parents were you know loving family very much in love with one another and so I was brought up with Sunday school and but we were quite British you know faith was quite a private matter Allen but I would say got it was more God and centered than Jesus and in my teens I when I sort of found church boring I sort of gradually slipped away is that common amongst your peers yes yeah I mean I was at a boarding school and all and I can remember we would sort of all troop up for communion and I can remember thinking well if I didn't leaving it I would just not go and I thought I think I can rely on my conditions and I think probably at that point I showed God the door no the boarding schools were they associated with the Anglican Church know and we had Chapel and but it wasn't a sort of dynamic Christian formation I didn't have the kind of Bible camps or holidays nothing like foundation if that's like in the states we've we have colleges and schools and such that maybe at one time in the past hundred years is so we're related to some Christian tradition then over the years now they've become secularized yeah and I'm guessing that might have been true for the all the smoke people you know we think in the United States we hear but all the effort of eatin I've heard of these old schools that one time were very much a part of the tradition of the Anglican Church yeah but maybe lost some of their Verve yeah to Zia okay was God a part of your family growing up other than the Sunday morning for my mom yes and for my dad would be more agnostic amber very much loves nature I was certainly taught to pray as a child and and I definitely had a belief in heaven because I remember thinking if I died my parents would be awfully upset but it will be okay no I'm in heaven so right so there was I was taught to prayer sort of child child child like faith yeah all right but being British and being Anglican very much connected yeah would you say I mean your background yes all right but like so many game at the boot when you came a teenager yes yeah yeah got respected that and then we should think so yeah well he gave me that freedom are you give me that freedom and my life became very much about sort of um driven by grades I was desperate to get into Oxford my whole life was predicated on getting A's and I didn't get him I was a disaster um and I so I went to Sheffield and I studied and you know partied too much and gradually you know slipped away and I would say I became quite hard-hearted and and that although I got the things I wanted you know I got the first class I got into Oxford in the end after my undergrad degree it was quite hollow and and that was enough in me of of God would seeking us to think I want to be a better person you know I want um you know just getting what you want or you know experiencing things wasn't providing any sort of satisfaction so I I did pray I remembered in University ID I made one prayer looking at the window at the moon which was something along the lines of God I don't believe in you really but if you're real um could you give me faith and by the way could you make it quite obvious please you know so nothing happened from that but I do believe God heard that prayer and I do believe it's a it was important because I Rick Smith Inc faith as a gift and to go from zero or you know 10 percent and maybe a bit agnostic and to having that gift later I think he answered the prayer so we call that grace of course you know the work of God in our lives you were baptized even though maybe you didn't appreciate it when you were there at Oxford there's Grace's that were there and what about and this Assizes for American audience we have ideas of England we may not have all been over there but again Oxford was a religious school one time very much so and you tired to go anywhere in Oxford without seeing beautiful remnants of the great heritage in history there were you oblivious to that as you're going through that environment or was that helping was that feeding you giving you any ID about the place of God in life during that time ah not really I would say that to some extent the Athletics can can almost squeeze out God so that wonderful choral music and people can come sort of a bit taken up with the aesthetic musical experience and forget God and certainly when I was at Oxford I was just thinking about myself and in fact I there was a seeking streak in me but I started to seek in the direction of Buddhism ah okay so when I was at Oxford I was going along to Buddhist meditation classes and um yeah I mean it was a it was a seeking but it was a finding in sort of some shadows of when your point is really well taken I remember when I was doing journey home programs over in Stockholm and happened to have some free time so one of the producers and I went over to the museum and they happen to have a huge exhibit of old crucifixes and from you know thousand years ago it wasn't a religious exhibit at all it was all artifacts it was all antiques and I suppose that's a way you could be walking through Oxford this you're so surrounded by the abusive ambience mmm but it can just be history yeah antiques traditions and and almost make you numb to it but you had a desire for it so you're looking somewhere you were Buddhist gatherings yes and I mean it was a step it was providing something more meaningful than atheism was you know a sort of perspective on suffering a bit more self-awareness a bit more concentration and a bit more of a moral framework a community a sense that material things weren't the most important but it didn't lead to personal transformation and it didn't introduce me into a relationship with a loving God so I mean I think there are things in Buddhism where you know that if I pursued it further you know whether the ultimate thing would be the self as an illusion um where is um the Christian revelation would be that the self is deeply loved child of God so yeah yeah that idea from Agustin that our our heart yearns for the yearning it's there in us yes and it seems that it was there it just we also have another enemy that wants to fill that void with other things irritations a philosophy that seemed to give it and were you supported by your peers there um I I think I found that group out you know I yes so there you are you're not wearing orange robes or anything would you I know so yeah well I would say the next step would be that I asked while I was there I I asked my uncle had a birthday coming up and I asked my uncle for book by Hermann Hesse called Siddhartha my uncle's an Anglican vicar and he very wisely gave me the book by Hermann Hesse which he wouldn't have approved of but he also gave me a book by a Russian um peasant from the 19th century called the way of a pilgrim so I was like to think I'm I was kind of converted by a Russian peasant a century before me um and that book was a real eye-opener because him what I think I was looking for was a radical path of discipleship of transformation and some sort of peace and well-being and and here was a peasant who had it was a homeless wanderer he'd given up everything he had no possessions except his knapsack some dried bread and a Bible and he was looking for and had to pray constantly he'd been struck by that verse in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 and pray constantly and had said you know how how is that possible amidst all the preoccupations of life and and in a livelihood and he so he had gone in search and this holy man had said he'd said what does the what a st. Paul mean and the holy man had said ceaseless prayer constant prayer is a constant interior yearning of the soul towards God so you see Buddhism would be offering something like an awareness and attentiveness in the present moment which is good and then here was this contemplative tradition in Christianity and I didn't know Christianity had a container load of tradition and it was offering something fuller that was you know relational not just being attentive to myself but to a relational yearning towards a God who loves me but I mean I didn't get that far there and then but it started to sow some seeds and when I think about the two comparisons a year at that point being drawn to the Buddhists in this wonderful way of the pilgrim I'm thinking of a dripping faucet this water dripping out we're the contemplative life my Buddha standpoint would almost be turn that faucet off until there's nothing flowing you have nothing left and so you have the total emptiness of that whereas the cat the Christian view is turned that faucet on yeah you know the flowing of of the reality of God into our lives there's the fullness contempt of Prayer is this constant the flowing of the the living water Christ versus nothing turn it off empty pen see yeah ultimately annihilation versus you know continually remembering God yeah so so you're in the midst of that did you read both books or just about that yeah I can't remember sidarthur at all but the Russian peasant stayed with me um I when I went to China um to teach English and cuz you know I was into every experience so um and in China I had a neighbor who was an evangelical Christian and I am eternally grateful to my evangelical friends really for because the biggest step was the step towards Jesus really now I was going along to some Buddhist monk came me to talk and doing my Buddhist thing um and she she was really living the walk she was in China because she thought God wanted her to be there and she said we would have conversations and she said Catherine just keep looking for the truth now I didn't agree that she had it and I didn't I thought truth was a relative thing but I couldn't object to that and I think more than anything that she said the thing that made the biggest difference was what she did because she invited me and my atheist friends to her house at her flat for Christmas and she fought she fought went her own Christmas with her Christian friends in a nice kind of holy huddle and it was really sacrificial um and that more than anything she said made a real mark you know real impact I think our guest is Catherine Daniels she's the former Anglican and the editor of her department husband Robin Daniels writings and a book on the virgin I now this this invitation of your atheist buddies to this wonderful evangelical Christians did was there an aspect of that gathering for Christmas when she's telling you the story of Christmas oh she's conveying that was just her act of friendship was the act of sacrifice you know of going without Christmas with her friends Terry and I think she did go to church but right yeah and it was the sacrifice social I role sure yes yes thanks but um so Jesus the reality of Christ becomes real as her bid Li starts at that point no okay no it took I was a hard nut to crack but it was a of openness and I went back to England I went and trained in law school and I became aware that Buddhism for all its stated purpose of thought I would you know dying to self I realized that I was quite pleased about being a bit well I wasn't really a Buddhist I hadn't signed on the dotted line but I was quite pleased about it and it had a sort of bohemian cachet about it and I recognized that if that search was about anything it wasn't about puffing myself up and the Dalai Lama himself had said that Westerners did better when they saw within their own faith traditions and so I thought okay I better I better give my own faith tradition ago so I'll sort of fast forward a bit but it ended up being that I I wrote but to my uncle the same one who gave me the book and said where can I learn to pray because there was this yearning for prayer I mean that's what but it's search was about as well and you want to be in touch with the reality of a god if there's a god or some being I mean that's we were searching for was a details of a religion not details of a religion it was sort of peace and becoming a better person having transformed I guess it was holiness I would say now yes um but I I wasn't I probably wanted a technique as well so not whereas now woodsy prayer much more the relationship and the way of the pilgrim had also connected with that I mean that's what that's about how to this regular relationship with God yes constant over the way of the pilgrim I've forgot to say he finds this star eps and orthodox holy man who teaches him the Jesus Prayer Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy on me a sinner and he prays this prayer constantly so and that idea was very very attractive so that and I appreciate of them and they were founded by a Jesuit Laurel fob and as part of this great flowering of lay movements in France last century and they had a Ignatian spirituality but an ecumenical charism so you had Lutheran's Pentecostals Presbyterians Anglicans Catholics Orthodox all worshiping together studying I did you know money will work and and I signed up for an Ignatian six-day retreat now as I said your uncle's advice to go there yes okay Guerra in France and so that was quite a hairy thing to do because you had a bear in mind I was an agnostic I've read brother Lawrence by this point and so I'm open to God but Jesus is really an enlightened sage probably but but a probably good teacher so I'm willing to listen but I mean so really you don't both the lady was accompanying me she said Catherine you know it is a choice between life and death and I thought gosh that's a bit so putting in a bit strongly um but I mean that that's true yeah so I went on this retreat we were taught the Ignatian thing whereby you pray for a grace before you meditate with a gospel right and I am I was having some judgmental thoughts about the community set up so instead of doing the recommended grace I said God unblock me but and I prayed with a passage from Ezekiel Ezekiel 36 to 26 I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within you I prayed God unblocked me and I felt like and a plunger came in down into me I mean I the state of my soul was probably pretty much like a latrine and I and I felt God physically unblocked me and we heard testimonies we heard we met young people who had given their lives to Christ adopted for celibacy food for Jesus so and we were encouraged to make our Fronde offering and whereby we invited Jesus to take the driving seat and I did that so yeah well first of all you said you didn't pray for the grace you did I mean that's what Lord unblock me is all about right I mean I mean I realized at the time but that's just saying Lord hey you know and so you you invite Christ into your life what was there an experience of it there in the midst of that and there was after I went back and prayed in the chapel with a friend I'll separate with Filipino friends the rosary I was hungry for everything love that you love the office and we prayed with them verse from John I want you to dwell in me and I only remember in French but you know that and I in you as the grape dwells on them oh and John 15 yeah I did me and abided yeah so um prayed that and I did I did feel them overwhelmed with peace um and so I I can't really explain but I associated that experience with Jesus as it was in a chapel right and I I don't remember any Metanoia moment where I said gosh you are God but there certainly was an intellectual and faith shift where I thought who is he is he you know was he just a wise sage but was he or was it was he at deceiving people or just deceived himself or was he really who he said he was was he God and I just came to know he was yeah really and things changed you know in a way that they hadn't changed from my own efforts at personal improvement through Buddhist meditation and so it was it was that time that you were there were there instructions basic Christian instructions that were helping you kind of move forward and understandingly through the church taught about Christ or was a merely more experiential in that environment there was a great instructive environment I I think in hindsight it's a pity I didn't stay longer I was signed up for the law school I said so what happens now do I become a Catholic and they said no no you go back to your Anglican Church which in the hindsight I think you really sold me to I said um it was an ecumenical environment vehicle it was appropriate I can understand why they weren't inviting people in order to kind of pull everyone over to become Catholics right so um so so CS Lewis says he's either a liar a lunatic or Lord Yeah right so you'd gone the journey at least he's not a liar not a lunatic but you but Lord yet yeah Lord Lord yeah he became the total center really and my life changed and want to be drinking too much because I wanted to pray I called all my friendships into question it called my vocation my life path into question it it upset the whole apple cart and the most wonderful amazing like yeah in the danger of retreats is often then when the coal leaves the fire and goes back to real life sometimes it's hard to keep that cold going did you arrive back in England with support um well I came I went back initially to the Quaker meetinghouse I've been going to and then I realized because the only Gospels we were being encouraged to read where the Gospels of Thomas and Mary they're apocryphal right yeah so I I mean I can remember give I ended up giving some thing that I'd learned on the Ignatian I thought this is no good I can't be trying to lead others I need to be nurtured myself so I found a nice Anglican Church with a mixed and white and African community I don't think I I we had a net for God group from chemin neuf that was nurturing and supportive but I don't think this is why I said it might have been good to stay in France it might have been good to do a year there yeah and have that formation program because I probably didn't get brilliant catechesis um really until quite a lot later when I yeah well one of the problems I mean ecumenical groups are wonderful in that we're learning to love each other and understand what unites us hopefully with the long term journeys let's eventually be united in the church but the negative an ecumenical group is you have to be careful of your theology so it can be very very thin it can be about Jesus but there's no sacraments there's you know what do you do there's the and so even if you stayed in formation sometimes those groups can be limited held back and then the fullness of what they would give you but while we pause now Catherine let's take a break you're back in England you've gotten at least Jesus's Lord either with a capital L or at least a little L oh is it capital L ok the capital u you're definitely one of his disciples at this point but why the growth years let's come back in a break and let's find out at this point it sounds good get ready to start law school right ok let's come back and talk about that in the bedroom I guess is Catherine Daniels see it a bit more modern journey [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest is Catherine Daniels former Anglican and she's the editor of the book called the virgin eye towards a contemplative view of life which is a collector of her husband's stories Robin Daniels and we're going to jump back into your journey in fact we might hear a little bit about Robin coming up right okay so I'm back in England um I'm I'm starting to walk and I starting to develop a friendship with Jesus in a gentle gradual way and he's ringing a lot of changes and in my life and then and it's at this point that I am I met Robin so I went to this I went to a quiet day called the poets I similar to the title of the book the virgin I and and so so called because he wants it was encouraging us to see life the way the poet or artist sees um you know to see with Wonder and freshness and he opened the talk with the words all time is God's time so I mean that struck me because most men didn't didn't talk like that ever um and he was somebody who inhabited time in a different way he was he was very slow he was very centered he yeah he was very grateful um so anyway so I was I got to know him gradually I didn't fall in love with him straightaway um but I could tell he had really had something quite special about him and essentially yeah after getting to know him for about a year um I realized I had fallen in love with him the only catch was that he was about twice my age Thanks so I just want to say the sake of years that I won like he wasn't previously married and he hadn't taken a vow so I just want to say that because sometimes people think you know take take our relationship as an encouragement and it might not be a good idea but Robin was like had lived a really very pure life and was his whole life was seeking God and so I realize I'd pull in love with him and then had this choice you know you've been in love before so okay wasn't like ticking the boxes I had in my head of what it would be like when I met this mr. right he did have all the personal qualities but you know I had imagined um someone my own age um but he was I suppose you know I mentioned aware of the pilgrim and he found his little stirrups and I suppose it was Robin's wisdom really that that drew me and I suppose Robert so Robin was husband best friend but also in a way kind of stirrups you know he he M well he opened my eyes up to things like poetry and Betty Davis films and you know Chesterton and great English literature and the sort of cultural aesthetic life but he also opened me up to the inner life um you know he was a psychotherapist so um you know this whole sense that one can have quite an active in a life and that it it's good to be self-aware and to be in touch with feelings and that was a bit of a kind of eye-opener for me and he was a mature Christian so he was probably yeah he was probably the most profound influence on my learning what it meant to walk the Christian life now was he an evangelical Anglican he was an Anglican more of the sort of Book of Common Prayer type school okay but and as you see in the book and he'd been writing that for 20 years this was one of the things appealing about him he was a man with a mission and he would be faithful to his time at the desk every day and all the minds that had nourished and influenced him were pretty well Catholic Saints st. Francis DeSales he loved st. Teresa's and John of the Cross and sent Thomas Kemp but now he's not a st. Thomas look at him so and when I look at his library and the books that are underlined like I'll find something by Escriva and it's underlined not to be too curious about other people's business and I think Robin put that into practice so he he wasn't ever he didn't voraciously read just for knowledge he read slowly and he and he put it into practice so and so yes so to answer question he was an Anglican but very Catholic in his spiritual life okay okay so after a year or so did you or he pop the question he popped the question yeah and I didn't need to think about it I just knew so we married and we moved to the north of England so I think sometimes maybe when people move that can be a time when you sort of your expectations about your church Manship can be loosened up to some extent so we did a bit of church hopping looking for the right sort of place where we fitted and I ought to say that ever since that time in France it had been all things Catholic that appealed to me so I would cycle past the the Maltese sisters on the way to work and I would say the office with them I would go to the city for mass during the daytime in lunch when I was training when I was doing my articles and I'll go to retreats at Catholic retreat houses I had a Catholic spiritual director so it was all things Catholic that were drawing me but I hadn't made the leap I've met some Anglicans that just considered themselves Catholic and didn't really to see the distinction I'm not this brand of Catholic in line with the Pope but I'm this brand of Catholic are branch of catholicism real that ill I wasn't theologically informed about it but I would say yes and I didn't I sort of thought I was it was a bit of a proud thing but I sort of thought well I believe in this stuff and I believe in the real presence and kind of what were why should I yeah and I don't yeah so I think I didn't realize that what were the significant differences all right all right as a lifelong Brit were you familiar with the history of the division Anglican Catholic um I mean my teacher there's teaching art I had the teaching I had kind of from school was you know nasty Pope's selling indulgences um I think I suppose the Pope was a bit in my head was a bit of a kind of blend of King Kong Goering you know there was some conditioning probably from from my Englishness and this sense not wanting to be moved by her own bloody marrying all these nasty Catholics and what they did to us and so that was the best thing they were happening them was breaking free it's a sort of Liberty yeah but not to say that my parents were sort of vocal in that regard but I think there was a sort of just culturally use of imbibed a certain amount and Robin was on the same page no I mean no Robin also I would say didn't realize there was a big difference so like to give you an example we would go to the mass and when we were church hopping and say this is lovely don't they celebrate the mass with devotion you know and certainly Robin loved the Pope's you know when I go through his papers as like all things about Pope Paul the sixth and all these books I'm thinking why did you do it sooner but I think maybe he just didn't realize what some of the differences were but also also he's a good example of someone maybe like people in underhill would be another or brother Rahman a Franciscan Anglican Franciscan there are a lot of great Anglicans who really love the Catholic and Saints and nourished by that and Nora by that Bible time their prayer life and they're putting into practice yeah well and a part of this cultural thing Lisa's here in the States I'm assuming it's there is that what's important is your faith in Christ your faith in God living that out what church belonged is not really that crucial yeah I think that's true and so it would have been we would go to the Baptist one and the Methodist one and it was more about whether the preaching was good or whether we felt comfortable and also is this an environment well we will grow okay yeah yeah and you may you will that group over there how wonderful the music can be artwork and the ambience it's beautiful does that mean I have a mandate to go over and join them well not necessarily I mean that's that's we got here in the states too it's it's me and Jesus hmm what church so it's hard to get people to realize you know maybe there is a significance and so that might be true on your side of the pond too well it is but I have to say I mean nah I saw when Lee studied at Maryville so I have wrestled with some of those things like you know did Christ found a church and you know what what's the basis of authority but those things weren't the things that drew me yeah I had to become a Catholic because I had to receive the Eucharist that that thought it was a student was the issue okay I had to receive the Eucharist I wasn't allowed to unless I became a Catholic and it was so important I just knew I knew it was Jesus and it was kind of an ID on't know why didn't do it sooner when when did you start realizing the reality of Christ in the Eucharist and it's happened back at France and in France okay in France and then I mean to keep going every day Tomas and you know so I just think I yes I had a deep conviction but there was also a bit of a I believe Lord help thou my unbelief because I think an Anglican I don't know if it's just me or if it's a generic thing but one can be in a difficult conundrum because to come into the Catholic Church you you say so like I believe everything that the Catholic Church teaches to be true and that at the time that struck me as a very high bar especially since all the Catholic sign you didn't didn't believe a whole heap of things and when I did enter did I had I squared everything I don't know that I'd squared everything I think I had more just reached a position of some surrender whereby I was willing to say I trust you guys to work is that better than me and sort of where my belief is inadequate lord help that my unbelief so but what whether the paradox is and I think it's all the grace is to believe the things I found difficult only came through coming into full communion with the church and receiving the sacraments so now I believe everything the Church teaches yeah but from within so well that's the tradition from Augustine on faith seeking understanding the other way around yeah we often think it's the other way around once I understand it all that I'll believe well no it's faith see understand was your husband Robin on the same page in terms of the Catholic Church well we would have these them we would have these and walks and I was you know all up for this and and we the things that I found difficult were we would look we would be having a conversation and I would say well Robin what do you think about this you know if someone dies and they're not quite ready to go straight into heaven do you think it's heaven or hell or do you think there might be a purifying process you know if there's just and he was a definitely you know purgatory well so that would be other thing he was very attracted to the Marian dimension the wisdom and traditional family values and the solid authority and the devotional life you know that both of us were so drawn to the contemplative tradition and wisdom you know to have a church with figures like Saint John of the Cross centuries or Center else and France and there just a handful of them there are hundreds so I think from Robin it was two things I think it was realizing that one all the important issues he actually already held the Catholic position the real presence certainly and but secondly when Pope Benedict came to Britain that touched us both because you know we he was so palpably holy and one had this sense that Pope's were kind of laying down the law and tell me what to do and he was a very humble man with a certain confidence about who he wasn't yeah our guest is Catherine Daniels so was her sense of one of you was farther along on the journey than the other one was looked like CS Lewis kicking and screaming a little bit or no I mean Robin was what a way father I had spiritually than me he was really he really was a holy person he's grateful all the time no total control of his tongue he never said anything irritable or indiscreet so you know quite an exceptional person so he was definitely way ahead of me but in terms of initiating the Catholic um journey that would be more my initiative and he kind of surprised me but he said actually I'm coming in with you haha what was the final thing that finally convinced you and also Robin Hood that this you got to make the leap the mass so I mean I work with them I'm a play therapist although I quit the job to edit the book I'm a play therapist so I work with children with emotional difficulties and I did work with children who were bereaved and we would get under to make memory boxes and to remember their lost loved one and you know Jesus knows he's dying and he knows people his disciples his friends are going to miss him unbelievably but he doesn't just like leave you a sort of ritual a memento and a photo a symbol he he's he's he leaves us away he leaves us himself so you know to say I'm gonna descend to become bread and it'll actually be me um it's so simple only God could think of it um and so I think I mean her children say I love you so much I could eat you and it's almost like Jesus sort of knows that primitive way of loving that we have all around I said I haven't showed this I'm not sure on international television and I would say to Robyn feel you know I wish I could live in your tummy you know that that sort of an expression of how intimate one wants to be with a person one loves and so Jesus comes into that degree of intimacy by becoming by becoming bread and we can consume him and he can turn us into him so it was that that was that was not on offer elsewhere I'll depart from the Orthodox Church yeah there's a classic movie in America called It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart's about it's about wonderful story about Christmas what life would be like without you if you never lived and you realized God had used your life in so many different ways but in that story when he gets back with his children first thing is I could eat you up it's an expression of his absolute just he cannot express how much he wants his children and that's what you're talking about this is intimacy that we have with Christ and in Robin was the same ever yeah he was so grateful you know just to be Catholic it was just like it was like getting on a trampoline you know tons of our spiritual life then what do you send him her you call it candy store it was like going into a candy store you know tons of well there's yeah there's this long journey we hear then of a you desiring this intimacy God uses a variety of different things to touch you the way of the pill and and then that all to have this more of a contemplative view of life and you know talk about this book a little bit I know I want to you talk most about that with Doug when you do the bookmark but if you did this after your husband talked a bit about that if you would yeah well so he he had been writing it all along when I was when I knew him and we um but the thing is it was long and we had struggled to get a commercial publisher because at the length so he died quite suddenly in 2012 to bronchopneumonia and so it was a shock I mean he was a lot older than me but it was he was too young to die yeah and I was left with this treasure and knowing that I had an a unique privilege really in in being married to this exceptional man and that all he'd taught me and his philosophy which was very private he didn't share it with others he didn't speak about himself was in this book and it was it was too good to keep to myself and so I took after about two years I am I took the plunge I I quit my job because to immerse yourself in another person's thought you know you have to give it a lot of time and it's very much it's all his words it's the only sort of editorial input would have been thought of excising some repetitions or moving some things under sort of certain chapter headings and but yeah it's like and did you want me to say sorry of it well I want to we're tweaking the interest of our audience to make sure they go to your interview with doug keck when you do the the bookmark so I want to save a lot of that for that what I'm interested in for this book was it a continuation of your journey yeah I would say um you know the journey begins with a search for prayer doesn't it well yeah at a search for prayer certainly in some shadows and I kind of came to a cul-de-sac but then through the way of the pilgrim and what I would say is that this book and immersing myself in Robins thoughts on prayer was joining up a circle so you know the Buddhists would be talking about mindfulness and to be mindful it's very good but who are we mindful of so this book was like introducing me to recollection to you know to what ways of finding God in other people in prayer making little arrow prayers they're not all new things these are these are the riches and treasures of our Catholic tradition but finally a completely brand-new then they ought to be suspicious yeah yeah there's these connect with the wealth but as you said the great tradition that we take for granted too often yeah take the time to learn yeah so and and there are little helpful things you know like Robin was big on humility and keeping your things about your spiritual life very private and he's good on I you know really questioning your motivation so what I feel like is this a bit like the alabaster jar it's almost like the alabaster jar had to be broken in order for the fragrance of Robins life to be poured out both for me but also for like other people I'm seeing it touch other people's lives you came to know him more after yeah yeah some things I would say I do I knew more like he writes a lot about doing little things with love so I knew that from experience I knew the experience of coming back late at night and finding the outside light had been turned on I knew that you know when I was starting a new course of studies he would have gone out and bought some files or you know little things but to see his philosophy sort of summed up and why he did things and how it was the intention and the motivation that was important and I should keep those things hidden but those are all things that I learned in the book you'll learn more about maybe the whys behind what he you had experienced him doing for you all the time and the potential pitfalls in the journey and how to safeguard against as we talked about earlier there are many Anglicans that just think of themselves as Catholic why do I need to make the jump and I'm fine here all the different flavors of Anglicanism that those those high church folk over there just a higher view of Anglicanism but talk about really the distinction about being Catholic versus your Anglican past but what is what would you say there really makes the big difference for you and being Catholic as opposed to your Anglican past okay well I think this there are there are two possibly three things what one is is Christ really present in the Blessed Sacrament you know dinger does he mean what he said in John 6 you know my flesh is real food my blood is real drink unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man you cannot have life in you so does did he does he mean what he said you know when he said this is my body this is my blood did he mean it literally and so and the Catholic Church of course and the Orthodox say yes yes he did so that that's number one and and if he did mean it does it matter like is it so important an issue that we're not prepared to fudge it you know that will it's worth dying for and people have so that that's issue number one issue number two is did Christ found a church and it's not a comfortable question necessarily to ask I've had my baggage about Pope's and rules and as I've said but when I searched it out I felt quite uncomfortable about whether the Queen was head of the church now I love the Queen no it's great love our species she's a strong Christian and she's staying at every Christmas but still you know did was that the hierarchical arrangement Christ made and I didn't see that in the Bible so that's what's going back to basics you know it was that Matthew 16:18 you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church so then you are like okay what what did it mean so but having said that this wasn't I wasn't really looking searching all this out at the time but I think you know to know that that the one church that traces its roots right back to Jesus's time and that the popes have existed in total continuity to the present day and also from a common sense view I mean we're in America when your founding fathers created the institution of presidency that they created to ensure for one generation only no record seven so when crisis I give you the keys I give you governing authority Isaiah 22 22 gives governing authority to Ali Hakim gives him the keys symbolic of the office of Prime Minister um he hinged I think he intends that institution to continue because he knows what we like well yeah he knows what's go Bowlin she said the Eucharist in the church it was our third thing or with it the Eucharist the church the third would be sanctification you know that we have these great doctors of the church because they believe really transformation in Christ as possible and you know that we are called to ever greater degrees of holiness and they're just awesome I just filled with all this wisdom on prayer and growing in that juice and they all teach that it's a this mystical partnership between the graces we receive through the church in the sacraments but also our responding to those you know to both and you know they're growing and intimacy and contemplative life is a both hands on a magic thing that's it kind of happens too - both and this is partnership some Christian traditions want to say it's is it's just the stuff as well as they know it just all the intellect or but it's a both hand this is the beauty of that Katherine thank you for joining us on the journey thank you for coming all we all be here and sharing your journey and our prayers are with you and thank you for doing this work of bringing together your husband's writings the Virgin eye towards the contempo - view of life thank you for editing that and I do pray that that book touches a lot of people that's why we write books right to pass on the good stuff to change other people's lives thank you for doing that again I want to remind the audience that Katherine will be doing a interview with Doug Keck on this book in his bookmark programs I want to make sure you look for that when it appears that EWTN thank you I hope that Katherine's journey is an encouragement to you god bless you see you again next week [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 11,933

Rating: 4.9008265 out of 5

Keywords: JHT, JHT01570

Id: 7Qd89Bt4hps

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2017