Lenten Mission: The Fulfillment of All Desire | Session 2

[Music] hey welcome to week two of our lenten mission my name is ralph martin i'm president of renewal ministries uh i am director of the graduate theology programs of new evangelization at sacred heart major seminary in detroit and uh we just love doing these uh missions we did the advent mission four weeks and on the same book the fulfillment of all desire are we doing the london mission on the same book and uh we're just really grateful to god and for technology that we can actually be together tonight all over the world and actually talk about the most important things in the world how we can come into union with the lord how we can grow in union with the lord this week we have about 4 000 people registered right now another 700 signed up during the week so i'm going to repeat some orienting announcements i know some of you already heard these but we need to do it for the new people we also need to do it for the people who are going to watch it on youtube during the week during the week we had about 14 000 people uh watched last week's uh lonesome mission they weren't able to engage actively in the chat they weren't able to communicate with each other but uh another fourteen thousand people watched last week's talk so for all those people who are going to watch it for all those people who are joining us do what we're going to do is we're going to talk about this book the fulfillment of all desire a guidebook for the journey to god based on the wisdom of the saints and we're also going to offer a discount we've been offering a discount during the advent mission we're offering the same discount here for the lenten mission it's 20 off of an already discounted price including free shipping and uh we we send it out by media mail and ug media mail gets there in a week or so but because of the dysfunction in the post office uh it could take as much as three or four weeks so uh if you need to get it right away uh go to amazon that probably the best thing but if you can wait a little while uh there's a 20 discount here and it helps us when you order through us i also want to tell you about a new book i've written called a church in crisis pathways forward and uh this is a book again a silver lining from covert i didn't think i'd have time to do it and then all my travel got cancelled and i was able to do it and what this is trying to do is identify the biggest deceptions right now that are troubling people that are really crept even into the church and the pressure coming from outside the church and how to get clear how to know where we can stand in a solid way and deal with what's coming the persecution is coming the contradictions that are happening in the church right now the uh just confusing things that are happening so i'm trying to help people get clear so they can kind of reaffirm the truth and stand on a firm foundation and then the second part of the book is called pathways forward where we talk about how to how to move forward and the different positive things we can do to move forward so that book's also available at renewal renewalministries.net again we we mail it media mail it should get there within a week or so but sometimes it takes longer because of local situations in the post office if you need it right away amazon.com also i'd like to tell you these are like preliminary announcements that friends of ours uh have been cancelled have been deleted from youtube and we don't think that's going to happen to us we we hope it doesn't happen to us we're we're not being unnecessarily provocative but we do talk about some things that our current culture doesn't like at all so we'll have to see what happens but the best way of staying in touch with us in case we have to move to another outlet if you want to keep in contact with our videos that we're doing we're doing videos actually every week uh each each week peter herbeck and myself usually do a new video during lent the new videos are what i'm doing tonight they'll be posted tomorrow but if you could kind of give us your email address we'd be able to let you know where we've gone to if we have to go to some place so you can just go to our website renewalnersies.net what you do is you sign up for our newsletter and that way we have your email and we can keep in touch with you that way so uh last week we had a time for questions a lot of questions kind of came in right away but each week elizabeth who's in the room here with me who's helping out with the technical things she'll send me a whole list of all the chat comments there are over 400 last week and i went through every single one of them and out of those i picked out some questions that we weren't able to identify or get to quickly enough last week that i think are pretty important questions so the first part of our time tonight i'm going to take some time to go through the questions that came in last week that we couldn't answer that i think have relevance for a lot of people the first question was somebody said that you said that you're going to tell us what god the father told catherine of siena about heaven hell and purgatory and you told us about heaven and hell but you didn't tell us about purgatory and indeed that was the case that time was running out and i just did hell in heaven and skip purgatory so i'm gonna fill in the picture tonight with purgatory [Music] now those of you who have the book have asked me to tell you what page i'm on so we're on pages 59 to 61 but again you don't need to have the book to get a lot out of these sessions i'm trying to construct them in a way so you don't have to have the book you don't have to read things in advance you don't have to do any homework but you could just be there and with a heart open to god's word with the mind attentive to the word well i i know the lord has good things in store for you so here's what catherine oceana reports god telling her about purgatory how great well yeah well actually uh i want to put in something here about bernard clairvoya first in fact i need to introduce him i meant to introduce him last week but i'm going to introduce burn of clarebel because i'm going to start off actually with a quote from vernon clairvaux before i get to katherine santa virgo clarebo lived in the 11th century and he was a pretty amazing man uh when he was in his early 20s uh he arrived at the monastery door of sato which was a reformed branch of the benedictine order with 30 of his friends and relatives so he was a pretty dynamic person to get 30 people to join the monastery with him and a lot of people in his family were very holy people his mother is beatified and five of his siblings his father is venerable and by the time he died he had 63 at the age of 63 he had seven monasteries he had found it and he had another 94 that wanted to affiliate with him so pretty remarkable person uh his his main books are commentaries on the song of songs in four volumes so what i've done for you is to go through all four volumes and bring you some of the most relevant important things for the spiritual journey we're going to be getting more burn as we go into uh week four when we start talking about the fruits of the deeper purification where it brings us but tonight i'm going to quote something from him where he where he talks about this he says well actually actually i'm going to actually get the burner later sorry this is catherine and reporting what god the father showed her how great is the stupidity of those who make themselves weak in spite of my strengthening and put themselves into the devil's hands i want you to know then that at the moment of death because they have put themselves during life under the devil's rule not by force because they cannot be forced as i told you but they put themselves voluntarily into his hands and because they come to the point of death under this perverse rule they can expect no other judgment but that of their own conscience they come without hope to eternal damnation in hate they grasp at hell in the moment of their death and even before they possess it they take hell as their prize along with their lords the demons now as horrible as the final moments of those who have refused to repent and harden their heart against the mercy of christ is how wonderful are the deaths of those who are dying in friendship with the lord the just on the other hand have lived in charity and die in love if they have lived perfectly in virtue enlightened by faith seeing with faith and trusting completely in the blood of the lamb when they come to the point of death they see the good eye prepared for them they embrace it with the arms of love reaching out with the grasp of love to me the supreme and eternal good at the very edge of death and so they taste eternal life even before they have left their mortal bodies here comes purgatory there are those who have passed through life and arrive at the end point of death with only a commonplace love and we're never very perfect these embraced my mercy with the same light of faith and hope as those who were perfect but these have this light imperfectly and because they are imperfect they reach out for mercy considering my mercy greater than their own guilt so no one waits to be judged all receive their appointed place as they leave this life they taste it and possess it even before they leave their bodies at the moment of death the damned in hate and despair the perfect in love with the light of faith and trusting in the blood and the imperfect in mercy and with the same faith come to that place called purgatory so what we're doing here in this lenten mission what we did in the advent mission is trying to help us grow in love because what it means to grow in holiness it means to grow in love and that's what we're talking about but in order to grow in love we have to allow the lord to reorder things in our life so here comes a quote from saint bernard it's a prayer lord jesus whoever refuses to live for you is clearly worthy of death and is in fact dead already whoever whoever does not know you is a fool and whoever wants to become something without you without doubt that man is considered nothing and it's just that you have made all things for yourself oh god and whoever wants to live for himself and not for you and all that he does is nothing fear god and keep his commandments it has said for this is the whole duty of man ecclesiasticus chapter 12 verse 13. so um that's what catherine of siena says the godfather god the father showed her about purgatory so question number two um how to handle com complex theological theories that support universalism you know last week i i talked about how there really isn't heaven there really is a hell there really is a broad way that leads to destruction it really is a narrow way that leads to life and anybody tells you anything different is telling you a lie and i said that one of the biggest deceptions in the catholic church right now is what's called universalism the presumption that god is so merciful that nobody will ever be lost or maybe only hitler and if you're not an axe murderer you don't have anything to worry about it's just absolutely a complete lie it's just not what jesus says is that what the apostles say it's not what the tradition of the catholic church has understood this revelation in scripture to say and it's not what the catechist of the catholic church says but here's a question about how to handle complex theological theories that support universalism unfortunately there are some very famous highly regarded catholic theologians who in this particular area have really sown a lot of confusion they may be great theologians they've said really wonderful things in other areas but in this area but this area is really one of the most important areas it concerns the salvation of human beings so when my seminary asked me if i'd be willing to go to rome to get a doctrine in theology which meant moving there i said i'd be willing to do it if you let me work on the complex theological theories that are undermining evangelization and holiness in the church and are supporting universalism so out of that came this book and this is my answer to pedro who asked that question if you want to get more information on the complex theological theories that are undermining what god's word says in scripture and tradition in the catechism is a book called will many be saved what vatican ii actually teaches and its implication for the new evangelization is a very long chapter on carl rauner's theory of anonymous christianity it has an even longer chapter on hansor's on balthazar's uh hope that all may be saved and to what state to what extent that hope is solid to what extent it isn't and so if anybody wants to get into theological theories i'm not recommending that people get into them but if you want to there's a book here that deals with them and basically reaffirms the basic truth of the scripture so i would say keep it simple if you're confused by some theological theory try to remember what the word of god says and and if a country is the word of god it's probably not in the ballpark it's probably not going to do you any good or do anybody any good okay next question a woman married to an atheist and children who are atheists and how hard it is you know there are a lot of very painful relationships on this earth in this life there are a lot of painful marriage situations uh there are a lot of pain uh in in how children are drifting off into the world even though we've tried to raise them as best we could as catholics and all i can say is the lord is permitting this he's permitting this pain but we have a way of joining our pain to the pain of jesus you know jesus suffered a lot of pain because of the sin of human beings and remembering the agony garden he said father if this cup could pass let it pass but not by my will but your will be done and we can actually take our pain and join into the pain of jesus and offer it as reparation for sin our own sin but also the sin of those closest to us and for the conversion of sinners uh i have a youtube video on fatima that talks about the tremendous message of mary to saint jacinto san francisco and lucia and how she's inviting them to offer their sufferings in union with the suffering of jesus and it has real power so i just encourage you to trust that god has permitted these circumstances he has a plan to bring good out of it but he wants you to unite your pain to the pain of jesus and offer as a prayer and love there's a text in the new testament that says godly women can win their husbands to christ by the example of their love and holiness i know that there's complicating circumstances many times but love serve be humble don't put up with abuse but love serve and be humble and offer your suffering and union with the suffering of jesus for the salvation of your husband and your children this last one i i know a lot of people experience this it says i keep falling i'm trapped in sin but i want to be holy all i can say is that the lord wants to deliver you from the trap you're in many people become trapped in sin they become engulfed in sin saint augustine by the time he wanted to be a christian he said i'm a slave to sexual sin but i'm responsible for having gotten to that point because through a whole series of free decisions i made earlier in my life i know i shared this before but it's so relevant for this man and this question from last week's talk i'm responsible because i made a bunch of decisions early in my life that got me to the point where i am today how did saint augustine get free he struggled he agonized he went back and forth he was of two minds he prayed that famous prayer lord make me chase but not right now he was afraid to let go of his sin he didn't think he could be happy without his sin but eventually the lord freed him all i can say is follow the advice of jesus in matthew chapter 5. if your right hand course you just sin cut it off if your right eye causes you to sin pluck it out better to enter the kingdom missing an arm or missing an eye than to go down to hell with an intact body so this is not jesus literally saying cut off your hand or cut off your pluck out your eye but he's saying do whatever you have to do to get free from serious sin so dear brother the lord wants to free you from serious sin you are not hopelessly trapped in it the lord will free you he will deliver you but you got to do your part you got to make a maximal effort you got to get rid of those things that are leading you into sin you need to stop seeing people who are weakening your resolve to live a chaste life or or a holy life you got to go to confession you got to get into a 12-step group whatever it is that's holding you back you got to fight you got to do your part as you do your part the lord's grace will come to you and eventually you'll find freedom okay let's go on now to the topic of tonight what we're going to talk about tonight is chapter 5 of the fulfillment of all desire and the topic the title of that chapter is the transformation of thought desire and action as we open our hearts more and more to the lord in prayer as we take more and more on the biblical worldview that we talked about last week we're going to find the lord reordering our loves reordering our desires uh saint pereira clairvoya talks about putting our loves in order and what we're going to see here in this chapter is therese of lazu and i want to introduce you to her right now she lived in the latter part of the 19th century she died just before the turn of the 20th century she died at the age of 24. so the lord had to work in her life very quickly because she was going to die very soon what we see in her main work which is called story of a soul by threesomely zoo it's a it's an excellent book it's uh it's available widely uh the translation from the uh institute of carmelite studies is the best one translation by john father john clark uh but she's she's written some other things too and people have recorded other things she said here's last conversations really really beautiful death conversation she also has written poetry in place so but the main book uh the most important resource is story of a soul a lot of you are probably familiar with it some of you probably have developed kind of uh preliminary attitudes towards it some people feel like what can i learn from a young girl who's hypersensitive uh who loves chocolate and eclairs you know what can i what can i learn from a little girl who's kind of spoiled you know and all i want to say is give her a chance there's such depth to her there's such heroism to her and and you're not going to see it at first but you're going to see some remarkable transformation of her own emotions her own sensitivity her own hyper reaction to things you're going to see healing happen in her life and this is the same thing that could happen to us how are you going to see it happen is that she more and more adopts the biblical worldview she more and more sees things from the light of eternity so she was born into a very devout family in fact her mother and father were a few years ago canada is zaylie and leah zaylee and her husband and uh her some of her sisters may eventually be canonized and so she comes to a really holy family all of her sisters went into the carmelite monastery uh one one didn't stay there for a while came in and out but uh they all were pretty pretty devout uh she talks about there being three phases in her life she says from the age of one to four was the happiest time in her life her mother was alive when she was four and a half years old her mother died and she said then a real turmoil came into her life for so from the age of four and a half to the age of 12 she's uh she's going through turmoil she's going through emotional turmoil she thinks the devil's kind of harassing her and he probably was trying to block her from the vocation that the lord had for her but then something happened at the age of 12 or she calls it the christmas eve miracle and we'll be talking about it in a few minutes where the lord gave her the grace to be delivered from the turmoil she was in and then she speak she said then she really began to move in a really strong way in a spiritual life but then in the last year and a half in her life she went through a tremendous test of faith a tremendous i don't think it was a dark night we'll talk more about the distinction between a dark knight and intercessory repair reparative uh suffering uh i will explain that but there's a certain way in her diary in her story of her soul where she gives a hint that she's entered the united stage the spiritual marriage because the book that was on the on her bedside when she died was john of the cross and so she she was very aware of the teaching of john lacrosse and teresa of avila well she doesn't write in a technical way she writes in a narrative way she writes just telling what happens to her in non-technical language but the same depth that john lacrosse has technical language to describe is happening to her and that's another way of accessing it so let's let's begin how did the lord come to therese how did the lord bring grace into her life we're going to take a look on page 74. first i want to read a little excerpt from a letter that her mother uh wrote to her oldest daughter a paul to not our old disorder but one of her older daughters pauline baby therese is a little imp she'll kiss me and at the same time wish me to die oh how i wish you had died your little mother when i scold her she answers it's because i want you to go to heaven and you say we must die to get there she wishes the same for her father in her outburst of affection for him now probably a little shocking when one of our kids says this oh i wish you would die mom i love you so much but what it does it shows that she's grasped even at an early age that the one thing necessary is to get to heaven and be and and she already understands that the greatest love she could have for her mom and her father is to wish that they're in heaven now obviously she's going to become a little bit more nuanced as she grows up and she learns to relate about this with other people but this gives us a very early glimpse into she's got it and those of you who teach little children don't underestimate their capacity to get it to get a biblical worldview to get the ability to really look at things in the light of eternity so and then she talks about some other ways in which grace came into our life she talks about going fishing with her father sometimes i would try to fish with my little line i'm on page 74 now but i prefer to go alone and sit down on the grass be decked with flowers and then my thoughts became very profound indeed without knowing what it was to meditate my soul is absorbed in real prayer so you don't need to know the seven stages of spiritual growth all you need to do is yield yourself to the grace of god the inspiration he gives the thoughts he gives the images he gives the experiences he gives the insights he gives that that can very very often be contemplative insights without you knowing anything about the steps of meditation or the stages of spiritual growth she says i listen to distant sounds the murmuring of the wind at times the indistinct notes of some military music reached me where i was filling my heart with a sweet melon collie now i think we've all had the experience of feelings of melancholy of maybe seeing something beautiful but feeling sad maybe it being a holiday but feeling sad and part of the sadness is the sadness of things passing the sadness of not being in full communion with people she goes on to say earth then seemed to be a place of exile i could dream only of heaven sometimes it seems like we're not at home here and things aren't working right i don't belong sometimes we don't feel like we belong to any group of people we don't belong in a really full way to anybody and and the feelings of melancholy could come and then she said the beautiful bread and jam you had prepared had changed its appearance instead of the lively colors it had earlier i now saw only a light rosy tint and the bread had become old and crumbled earth again seemed a sad place and i underst i understood that in heaven alone joy will be without any clouds so i don't know if we've had this experience of seeing flowers fade seeing the beautiful beauties of summer trend into fall but then becoming the the dead grays of winter and just the sadness of things passing and not even to mention the sadness of people's lives passing that we love or the sadness of people moving away that we once we're friends with and we know it's not going to be the same again just the past the the passing the transitory things of life and how everything in life is passing and we're all moving towards death now it isn't something that we necessarily want to think about every day but it's something that is good to think about at least from time to time but everything is passing everything is going everything we want to hold on to we can't hold on to it it's going to go people are going to go the flowers are going to go the sunset's going to go it's all going to go and what's that telling us what it told therese is that the things of this earth are passing i've got to figure out what eternity is i've got to get to eternity i've got to get to a place where things don't die where things don't pass where things love can live forever where beauty can live forever when goodness and tenderness can live forever then she talks about again how the lord spoke to her through nature i was six or seven years old when papa brought me to truville never will i forget the impression the sea made upon me i couldn't take my eyes off it since its majesty the roaring of its waves everything spoke to my soul of god's grandeur and power and next to my sister pauline i made the resolution never to wander far away from the glance of jesus in order to travel peacefully toward the eternal i just remembered something i forgot to tell you at the end of our time today before i start answering questions i'm gonna play a song that we can actually sing along with we're going to have the words on the screen and the music that will help us respond to what we're talking about tonight i also brought my favorite icon and i'm going to show you that towards at the end of the program so i hope you stay for the song and the icon i'll do the final announcements before that then we'll have the song on the icon and then we'll answer any questions that come in tonight that i can answer but i'll look at all the chat uh when elizabeth sends me to sends it to me next to next week tomorrow then she says she took a a trip to rome she wanted to enter the carmelite monastery and uh she was too young so she asked if she'd go to rome and implore personally the pope to give her a dispensation so she could enter before she was 16 years old so she's going through the swiss alps and she's absolutely stunned by the beauty of the alps she's going from one side to the other side of the train she says there's beautiful things on both sides i want to see both sides of the train and it reminds me when somebody was offering her this thing or that thing she says i want them both i want them all i choose all so therese wanted all the beauty that the earth could offer she wanted all the goodness that the earth could offer and she know she couldn't have it she could only be on one side of the train at one time she says when i saw all these beauties very profound thoughts came to life in my soul i seem to understand already the grandeur of god and the marvels of heaven i understood how easy it is to become all wrapped up in self forgetting entirely the sublime goal of one's calling ah what poetry flooded my soul at the sight of all these things i was seeing for the first and last time in my life it was without regret i saw them disappear from my heart longed for other marvels it had contemplated earthly beauties long enough those of heaven were the object of his desires and to win them for souls i was willing to become a prisoner i just gotta notice listen with my batteries running low yeah yeah better better better get a charger to plug if we momentarily lose power elizabeth is getting a power cord to uh to reconnect me here just keep going i got you okay elizabeth's got it she's gonna take care of it now notice that she entered the convent not just for her own holiness she entered the convent for souls she wanted her sacrifice of giving up the swiss alps of giving up the beauty of this world of giving up her family uh for souls and this is really important we're growing in holy it's not just for ourselves but for the sake of everybody we have any connection with and for the sake of people we'll never have a connection with on this earth but our prayer our holiness our sacrifice our love our intercession our reparation really make a difference she also had a lot of grace coming to her just from her her parents and uh godly parents are such a blessing for children even if children turn away at some point the imprint of godly parents who are loving the lord and who are praying is really powerful she says she looked more frequently at papa than at the preacher at mass for his handsome face said so much to me his eyes at times were filled with tears which he tried in vain to stop he seemed no longer held by earth so much that his soul loved to lose itself in eternal truth his earthly course however was far from completed long years had to pass by before heaven opened his enraptured eyes and the lord would wipe the tears from the eyes of his good and faithful servant one of the greatest sufferings for therese was seeing her beloved father begin to lose his faculties in the last couple years of his life we don't know whether it was a stroke or dementia or you know it's just hard to tell what it was but he actually had to be put into an asylum you know it wasn't an insane asylum but it was an asylum for people who couldn't take care of themselves and weren't in their right mind some of the times is very very painful as sisters the sisters the five daughters when they were interceding for their father and and sharing his pain of of his deterioration this is what wrote page 79. we were no longer walking in the way of perfection we were flying all five of us far from separating us carmel's grills united our souls more strongly we have the same thoughts the same desires the same love for jesus and for souls so trey says something very important for us to understand as we grow in holiness we become more human not less human she says when the human heart page 80 when the human heart gives itself to god it loses nothing of its innate tenderness in fact this tenderness grows when it becomes more pure and more divine this is just like catherine santa said that we talked about last night that relationships that are godly relationships on this earth become even better in heaven when all the impediments and all the darkness is removed and there's just perfect love perfect communion no more misunderstandings perfect love perfect knowledge and we will will know and love just right now just like right now we're we're known in love right now we're known and loved perfectly by god and he's the only one right now who loves us perfectly and knows us perfectly and loves us perfectly but in heaven we're going to know and love as we are now known in love god and each other and as tres says as we grow in union with the lord as we grow in holiness we don't become less human or less tender but we become more okay i think we better get to um the christmas eve grace she says then i receive the grace which i have always looked upon as one of the greatest in my life because at that age i wasn't receiving the lights i'm now receiving when i'm flooded with them i consider that i was born for glory after seven years the religious life i still am weak and perfect i always feel however the same bold confidence becoming a great saint because i don't count on my merits since i have none but i trust in him who is virtue in holiness god alone content with my weak efforts will raise me to himself and make me a saint clothing me in his infinite merits we talked about this when we went through the four principles of spiritual growth in the advent mission and the advent mission is on our website you can catch up in fact it'd be great if you could do all the talks of the advent mission too you know i some of you may not be able to but we talked about therese's tremendous confidence in the grace of god and how that's the first principle of growth in the spiritual life just total confidence in the grace of god because we can't make ourselves holy so uh the christmas eve grace page 90. on that night of light began the third period of my life the most beautiful and the most filled with graces from heaven the work i had been unable to do in 10 years was done by jesus in one instant contenting himself with my good will which was never lacking he made me a fisher of souls i experienced a great desire to work so she's 14 years old this christmas eve she loves christmas eve she loves what her parents put out in the house on christmas eve she loves the customs the gifts so she's coming down the stairs to this really favorite thing of her all time when she overheard her father tell one of her sisters that he was glad that this was the last year they would have to do this she was devastated normally she'd go into an emotional turmoil and just be you know just be devastated but heroically therese overcame her devastation and walked bravely downstairs to continue the celebration her effort to overcome the hurt and woundedness was met by an infusion of god's grace a moment she considered a very significant turning point she received in this mercy of god the grace of complete conversion and the strength and courage to leave her childhood behind what blossomed then in torres was a great desire to work for the conversion of sinners this is what she says at that moment he made me a fisher of souls i experienced a great desire to work for the conversion of sinners a desire i hadn't felt so intensely before i felt charity enter into my soul and she the need to forget myself and to please others since then i've been happy the cry of jesus on the cross sounded continually in my heart i thirst and this is what saint mother teresa of calcutta has in all her convents the the saying of jesus on the cross i thirst and many spiritual writers have interpreted that saying of jesus was not just physical thirst but he thirsts for souls he thirsts for fallen human beings to come back to the father's house with him these words ignited with me an unknown and very living fire i wanted to give my beloved to drink and i felt myself consumed with the thirst for souls and yet it was not the souls of priests that attracted me you know part of the vocation of carmelite none is praying for priests so tres says it wasn't praying for priests that attracted her but those of great sinners i burn with the desire to snatch them from the eternal flames now how does this all relate to us maybe sometime i'll go through the whole process of conversion for saint augustine but he worked for years trying to get free of serious sin and then one day he heard a little child singing a scripture verse make no provision for the flesh and he just felt like that was the word spoken directly from god to him and he received the word and it cut the last little cord that was holding him saint john of the cross says sometimes there's only a slight little cord still holding us many other things have already been cut that hold us back from flying to god sometimes there's only one little thing holding us but if we keep making our effort if we keep disposing ourselves for god's grace if we keep praying if we keep reading the scripture if we keep being with other people who could support us in growing and holding us the day will come when that last little cord will be cut and we'll fly to god that's what happened for therese she couldn't get there by herself but because she made the effort god delivered her because augustine made the effort god delivered him and there couldn't be two two more opposite saints gustin was enslaved to serious sin therese writes in story of a soul that a priest told her after hearing her confession that he didn't think therese had ever committed a mortal sin in her entire life and tres was actually a little disappointed to hear that because she said i i read the story of mary magdalene and and the scripture says because she loved because she was forgiven much she loves much she says i want to love even more than mary magdalene so how can i do that i've never committed a mortal sin so there are some people honestly listening to us right now who have never committed a moral sin what a wonderful grace and gift god has given you but you can love god as much as the most repentant sorrowful sinners the way trees did she says if god didn't preserve me from committing a mortal sin i would have committed the most horrible mortal sins of all because i had a little taste of the world i had a little taste of the aristocracy i had a little taste of wealth and uh i could have i could have gone that way but god preserved me he gave me grace and and i want to love god more than mary magdalene now because he preserved me some so many great sins so whatever our past has been whatever sins we've committed or haven't committed uh the grace of god is there to cut any ties we have to sin and lead us on to great holiness now another thing that was really significant in teresa trez's life is spiritual reading i told you how she had john jonatha cross's writings on her bedside she also read the scripture of course she quotes them a lot but there's a book she says that was the most significant spiritual writing reading she ever wrote she ever read it was a book called the end of the present world and the mysteries of the future life by a french priest called father amen john it's been translated into english we actually actually have it available at renewal ministry store so if you go to renewableness.net and click on the store you'll find it it's by father ahmed john the end of the present world of the mysteries of future life it's about the final judgment it's about the return of the lord it's about the antichrist it's about a lot of the topics that we peter herbeck and i have been talking about on our youtube channel recently uh you can go to our youtube channel and get a lot of teaching on these these last things but that book about the last things she says made a tremendous impact on our life so spiritual reading can make a tremendous impact on our life honestly uh this book people tell me has made a spiritual a tremendous impact on their spiritual lives if you go to amazon and look at all the comments i think there's over 370 comments now in the book so many of them are saying that this is spiritual reading that's changed their life so it can change your life spiritual reading is important now what therese is talking about in a narrative way and how how the lord delivered her she was making her efforts but they warned him of how the lord delivered how the lord spoke to her through nature how the lord spoke to her through holy people the lord spoke to her through spiritual reading and all that was doing work in her soul and igniting in her soul desire to save souls john lacrosse analyzes that in a very analytic way so i'm going to now go to the end of chapter 5 which we've been working on and i'm going to do a little bit of what john of the cross does in an analytical way he's going to talk about the transformation of desire but he's going to analyze what actually happens he's going to talk about how fear has to be transformed how uh joy has to be transformed how uh our enjoyment of temporal goods has to be transformed so i'm just gonna take the the next five or ten minutes to get into john the cross's analysis of what therese has just kind of described to us in a narrative way luke chapter 12 verses 4 to 5. i tell you my friends and this is jesus speaking do not fear those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but i will warn you whom to fear fear him who after he is killed has power to cast into hell yes i tell you fear him that is debate among scripture scholars is just talking about the lord is just talking about the devil it's probably has reference to both we know the devil is the father who lies in a murder he wants to kill us he wants to destroy us but we also know that nothing can happen with the province of god and that even though god didn't create hell he permits people to go there who choose to go there and he's basically saying don't fear those who can kill the body but fear the death of the soul in hell so john of course is going to tell us a few things about fear now same with joy jesus says this is the biblical basis of john lacrosse's teaching luke chapter 10 verse 20. you know disciples come back excited they cast out demons they they healed the sick and they said jesus it worked we did it and this is what jesus says do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven so here's john of the cross people should not rejoice over riches neither when they possess them nor when their neighbor possesses them unless god is served through them so everything is seen in the light of this this contribute to loving god and loving my neighbor or does this put an obstacle into it this is helping me get to heaven it's just helping other people get to heaven or it's just taking me off on a side track the same holds true for other temporal goods titles and positions and so on it is vain for people to rejoice in these goods if they do not serve god by them and walk more securely on the road of eternal life this is helping me walk on the narrow way or is this leading me onto the broad way that leads to destruction as for children there is no reason to rejoice in them because they are many or rich or endowed with natural talents and gifts or because they are wealthy that's kind of shocking isn't it but a lot of people a lot of parents this is this is why they rejoice in their children once you rejoice in them if they are serving god now i i have to admit that's that's a little tough we should rejoice in the gift of children but we should be very very very concerned if they're not serving god dispel despite whatever wealth or talents or gifts that they have you know we should be very very concerned that they have wealth and gifts and talents and houses and jobs but our syrian lord will be extremely concerned and our ultimate rejoicing should be reserved for rejoicing for their salvation it would also be vanity for a husband and wife to rejoice in their marriage when they are uncertain whether god is being better served by it nothing but what belongs to the service of god should be the object of our joy any other joy would be vain and worthless for joy that is out of harmony with a god is of no value to the soul so [Music] john of the cross is the toughest of the doctors of the church because he's unrelenting in his what in his analysis of what it means to seek god now it's all based on scripture you know jesus says unless you hate mother or father more than me you're not worthy to be a disciple now this is jewish hyperbole again but what he's saying is if you love your mother or father or your sons or daughters more than me you are not worthy of being my disciple but you need to understand who i am i'm the treasurer buried in the field i'm the pearl of great price i'm the one whom the father has sent to heal you to save you to bring you home to the father's house and if you put anything else before that you're not going to get there or like jesus says in luke chapter 12. unbelievers are always worried about what they're going to eat what they're going to wear what the future is going to bring but i say to you seek first the kingdom of god and his holiness and these other things will be added as well so there's primary values in the secondary values it doesn't mean the secondary values aren't values doesn't mean the secondary goods aren't goods but it means that they're secondary they need to take their place properly aligned with god another way that that one of the great doctors the church says is that i've said this already bernardo clairvous says we need to put our loves in order so john the cross is here talking about putting our loves in order he's talking about in a particularly stark way but it's food for thought so let's end tonight with uh a prayer and then i'm gonna do a couple actually i'll do announcements right now and then uh we'll do a prayer we'll have our final song it's a first isn't it having our song i think i did it once before anyway uh we're gonna have our song so here's the final announcements uh the uh discount is still on for fulfillment all desire 20 discount if you go to our website uh renewal nurses dot net click and put in the uh product code f-a-d-l-e-n-t and this is good till the day after our last london talk and then uh just another word about a new book a church in crisis pathways forward uh again it's available at our website uh if you want it right away uh it's it's kind of amazon if you can wait a little while uh you can get it from us then i also like to tell you that you know elizabeth is here right now with me even though it's late at night and uh pete burak and chris baker were here a little while ago helping us all get set up we have a whole team of people here at renewal ministries doing a whole lot of things to further the kingdom of god and uh we don't charge for for for this for almost we don't charge for almost anything that we do and uh the only way we can keep doing it is if you help us so i'd like to just ask you if you can to help us continue doing what we're doing keep doing our youtube videos keep doing our mission work in 30 or 40 different countries keep doing our outreach to young adults keep doing our outreach to high school students keep doing our tv and radio programs we're trying to proclaim jesus christ and him crucified and invite the whole world to turn to him believe and repent so your generosity does keep the mission alive and i'm not going to talk about this every week i'll probably only do it one more time but if you're able to help us financially that would be really really wonderful it will help us keep doing what we're doing and then like i told you at the beginning of the program you know we we might not be able to continue on this particular vehicle you know and uh you know we're gonna put this on youtube tomorrow and we're getting tremendous response on youtube but it's possible that we may have to go to other places you know and we we need to be able to let you know where we are so visit our website to join our email list renewalministries.net forward slash sign up and we'll be able to let you know if we have to move we hope we don't we're not expecting it but it could happen as things are being shut down people are being cancelled christians are being uh cancelled they are okay now i wanna say a prayer i'm gonna i should actually do the song first song first i'm gonna show you my favorite icon and and pray pray this song with me uh uh you know we got we got a lot of people here right now you know more than a thousand and thousands are going to watch it tomorrow uh kind of feel free to make comments uh you know and just uh relate with each other uh you know uh anyway so anyway you know talk to each other make comments ask questions and after the song and after i show you my favorite icon we'll have a few minutes where we can answer questions tonight so elizabeth let's have the song [Music] i want to follow jesus god set our stars jesus [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] and show me the way [Music] is [Music] is shine in my heart lord jesus i want to be with jesus [Music] we shall know the joy of [Music] him jesus is no [Music] darkness [Music] is [Music] okay and here's the icon this is my favorite icon right now because it just reminds me of how personal jesus is and how personally he loves us and how personally he's actually inviting us to come follow him i just want you to look at jesus just here for a minute he really loves you he really wants to speak to you personally he is and in these latin missions and in other ways during your day just like with saint therese it could happen at any moment through people through nature he's speaking to you he's inviting you into a loving union with him he's inviting you to join him on a mission in this on this earth in this life and he's inviting you to return with him to the father's house so let's let go of those things that are hindering us and just take jesus's hand and say lord i'm going with you next week we're going to actually talk about chapter 10. somebody asked what chapter we're going to be doing we're going to be talking about growing in freedom chapter 10. again you don't need to have the book but that's what we'll be talking about next week okay elizabeth are there any questions for tonight there are all right we've got about eight different questions um one person asked if you could tell us a little bit about how intercessory prayer works and in particular how it might be connected to the conversion of others he's heard that god invites us to become causes of conversion in others so if we could elaborate on how intercessory prayer yeah well in the scripture it says the prayer of a righteous person is powerful in its effect so jesus tells us many many different times that uh prayer is important you know ask and you'll receive not gonna be open to you seek and you'll find or wherever two of you agree on anything i will grant it so you know the lord has told us many many times that he wants us to pray for others he wants us to pray for all kinds of things you know uh so uh interested in prayer works because jesus says that it works you know and uh you know and it has it has a role in the conversion of other people mary said the same thing prayer and said she said so many people are going to hell because so few people are willing to pray and offer sacrifice for them so many many times heaven has communicated to us that our prayer and our sacrifice makes a difference in the salvation of souls you'll see well when you read if you do read the story of the soul you see there's just praying praying for a conversion of particular people and she'll she'll see them happen she was praying for a convicted killer who refused to repent and at the last moment uh he kissed the cross and that gave her tremendous encouragement from the lord to continue interceding so yes that's what intercession is it's important sometimes we see the results sometimes we don't but we keep doing it jesus says never give up keep on praying can you give us advice or point to a practical resource that will help us to evangelize address issues related to chastity but also speak the truth and love as saint paul says well i think there's just a lot of wonderful resources on chastity these days uh jason everett and his wife have all kinds of resources i think if you go on you know go on google or some places say catholic resources and charity or chastity or catholic books on chastity there's programs there's all kinds of things i don't know elizabeth if you have something you would suggest uh not off the top of my head but jason evert is a great resource for sure and anything related to theology of the body yeah yeah yeah yeah there's lots of really good resources on on chess today and how to communicate with others you know videos everything in the chats um katherine henry is recommending the chastity project and good job chef uh catherine i am familiar with them they're great too it's called the chastity project yeah okay okay what is the best way to pray for a child that has left the church well just like you pray for for any child really you know uh everybody i i think is praying for some somebody close to them who's left the church to just ask the lord to bring them back ask the lord to have mercy on them ask the lord to deliver them from evil influences ask the lord to bring people into their life that could make a difference in a positive way ask the lord to keep them safe and protected while they're away i mean there's just so many ways to pray for a child that's lost left the church but i would also add fasting honestly i really would yeah jesus said mark chapter 9 verse 29 some of these things don't go without without prayer and fasting so i would put a little skin into the game you know put a little urgency into your prayer by under under girding it with fasting now not everybody can fast from food but you can you know you can fast from dessert so you can fast from alcohol you can fast from sugar you know you can you can fast on bread and water you can fast for a whole day or two days you know you can do all kinds of things or you could fast from television or you could fast from social media you could fast from checking your cell phone every five minutes you know there's so many things you can sacrifice to underline and make urgent your prayer so i would definitely say for a child that's left the left the church is in danger and anybody who's left the church is in danger uh prayer and sacrifice what would a confession of a saint sound like what would a confession of a saint sound like they would like um more to have an idea of what they should be striving for in terms of their profession well i would say as we go on in the session like next week we're going to talk about something called attachments that aren't sins but uh i mean they're they're imperfections that we could be attached to good things but they're taking too big a role in our life and so i'm sure saints would kind of talk about that or they would maybe talk about vanity or pride or because as you grow in holiness one of the dangers is being proud of being holy you know one of the dangers is vainglory one of the dangers is uh you know this anyway so if you want things to confess uh start with what you know really or ask somebody who knows you what you should confess if you have the courage but uh i honestly i mean you know if you're reading the book fulfillment desire you'll just find tons of stuff to uh to meditate on to uh consider as possibilities for confession for repentance and we'll be talking more of those about those next week so a lot of catholics are against abortion except in cases of race does the catholic church ask anyone who does not agree with all the teachings of the catholic church to actually leave no the catholic church asks anybody who doesn't agree with all his teachings to try to understand his teachings to not just passively say i don't agree or that doesn't make sense to me but actually to look into the reasons why the church teaches what it teaches that the catholic church is inviting everybody to come to it uh but we we have to kind of do our part we we have to uh we have to try to understand why the church teaches what it teaches and you know the catechism the catholic church says is that we have an obligation to seek out what the truth is not just to passively kind of accept our own opinions our own prejudice our own preconceived ideas so if there's something that the church teaches that you don't understand by no means leave the catholic church but try to understand it you've got to go to the catechism of the catholic church talk to somebody who's more knowledgeable than you uh talk to a an educated knowledgeable holy catholic about the thing that you're having trouble with and see if you can get some help and understanding but you need to be sincerely wanting to get understanding sometimes it's a little bit like like saint augustine lord make me chase but not tonight uh and you know sometimes you kind of you could have something going on in your soul where you don't want to understand because you don't want to go through the pain of the change that you have to go through in your life if you understood so make sure that there's nothing like that going on but that is sincere ignorance and sincere not understanding when i'm in the presence of jesus i'm assuming in the blessed sacrament does it mean i am also in the presence of the saints and the communion of saints yes we're surrounded by a cloud of witnesses it says in the book of hebrews we're surrounded by a cloud of witnesses the whole communion of saints is somehow mysteriously present we don't know how it's mysteriously present just like we don't understand how exactly this jesus is mysteriously present in our souls in the eucharist but there's a way in which heaven we're already there you know there's a place that scripture says you know we're already hidden with god hidden with christ in god we're already there with jesus at the right hand of the father we're already in the communion of saints but we are in the communion of saints we don't all the times perceive it but we're in the in the presence of the communion of saints of the whole heavenly court of the whole trinity but this from time to time is where the lord kind of you know emphasizes or underlines or helps us more aware of a particular person of the trinity or a particular saint or a particular group of saints how about just one more okay what are some ways one can live constantly in the presence of god while doing so many other distracting things such as daily work well the catechism of the catholic church says uh we're called to pray always but it's very difficult to pray always if we don't pray sometimes so i would say what you really need to do is establish a prayer time a particular period of time where you allow yourself to be kind of taken over by the lord more or uh you know john saint john paul ii uses the word possessed by the holy spirit like where you're kind of like giving your full attention to the lord as much as you can which will root in your soul a presence of the lord or attentiveness of the lord that will help you remember him during the day but then francis the sale also gives lots of advices about pray before you start a new project of the or the next meeting you have or the next chore you have uh do some evening prayer build prayer into particular times during the day uh do some spiritual reading uh you know uh turn off you know saint francis doesn't say this but i would say turn off the radio in your car you know and just have some silence uh say the rosary while you're driving rather than always listening to something and news uh be sparing in in in how much secular news you take in because it's only going to cause anxiety in you whether it's coming from the right or the left or the center it's only going to cause anxiety in you and so you really need to uh be moderate about your what you put into your mind and heart and don't give your space in your mind and heart to things that are not the lord except when useful or necessary to our vocation or our place of life and this will grow over time it isn't like a one-time thing we pray always but it kind of grows over time as we grow in union with the lord okay we're going to stop for tonight and next week we're going to talk about growing in freedom from chapter 10 again you don't need to read the chapter it should make sense all by itself when we talk about it next week oh i got to ask you to pray for something uh in three hours i am giving a talk to 168 priests in india they they are ten and a half hours ahead of us and so uh i i pre-recorded a bunch of talks that they listened to but then this is like a live question and answer period with priest in the archdiocese of bangalore india so i got to go home now i'm on eastern standard time it's nine o'clock our time 909 and uh try to stay awake until midnight where i i talked to priest in india so ask the lord to prayers holy spirit priest in india and help me stay awake thank you see you next week [Music] you

Channel: Renewal Ministries

Views: 10,879

Rating: 4.928854 out of 5

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

Id: X9jJhSyGnWc

Length: 69min 32sec (4172 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021