Lenten Mission: The Fulfillment of All Desire | Session 4

[Music] hey welcome to our fourth and final week of our lenten mission as you know we're working through different parts of this book called the fulfillment of all desire i i know some of you are probably tired of hearing this but there's new people that join us every week and it's a book i've written with the best wisdom the catholic church has about how to grow in the spiritual life we've been offering a discount on it for the past four weeks tomorrow is the last day the discount works so if you go to our our website renewalministries.net and click on the store and buy the book when you're checking out put in the coupon code which will get you 20 off it's actually already discounted so it's an additional 20 off so that the discount code is fad you know fulfillment of all desire l-e-n-t so f-a-d-l-e-n-t when you're checking out and that will get you the 20 discount uh also um if you're watching this on youtube which i know a number of you do we uh transmit it live right now on on sunday evening but then we post it on youtube tomorrow and uh if you're watching on youtube we encourage you to subscribe to our youtube channel we just went over 43 000 subscribers this week and we'd love to have you get a notice every time we post a new video even after the mission is over peter herbeck and i will be doing almost every week a new video that we hope will encourage you and strengthen you in following the lord in these challenging difficult times also if for some reason we need to move from youtube and there's a lot of christian ministries are concerned about the increasing censorship and friends we know have been thrown off the only way we'll be able to let you know that where we are and how you can find us god willing is if we have your email address so if you go to our website renewalministries.net right there in the home page is an opportunity to sign up for our newsletter which will give us your email address and also you'll get our newsletter if you don't want to get our newsletter you can easily say unsubscribe or whatever but uh we need to have your email address in order to be able to let you know where we go if we have to go somewhere so we hope we don't also it's really interesting as you know over 4 000 people have registered for the live session and this is a session number four and probably about 1600 kind of show up live each week i don't know what it's going to be this week a lot of people seem to find the convenience of watching it the following day or the following week on youtube are very helpful so the first talk we did on our latin mission already has 20 000 views so it's pretty amazing our advent mission that we did you know back in november december has a cumulative total of over a hundred thousand views uh the second week of our lent mission has about eight thousand views and last week's uh talk number three has about five thousand views so we're just really excited about how excited people are about growing in the spiritual life and how much they're getting out of it we really appreciate hearing from you and those of you who are live with us right now you know there's the chat there you just click on chat you can kind of make comments you can ask questions you can say hello to people that you know i actually like to say hello to somebody that i know that i didn't i'm not able to watch the chat while i'm talking to you but elizabeth sends me the whole chat log and i watch it in the next couple days and i see a lot of people i do know one person i want to particularly give a shout out tonight is fernando puertos he and his family his daughter laura his wife maria they're the ones fernando is the one who has translated the fulfilling all desire in spanish and so we're just really excited that he's joined us here with the uh with the live chat so uh fernando thank you so much for doing the uh spanish translation it's helped a lot of people we really appreciate it the discount is also good on the spanish translation it's also good on the audio book it's also good on the video so there's just lots of ways of getting the teaching from fulfillment of all desire at renewalministries.net now last week a lot of questions came in right towards the end and elizabeth didn't have a chance to get them to me but i picked them up when i was going through the chat so i'm going to answer some of the questions that came in from last week before we begin this week's session one question that came in is hell filled with fire well i don't know i hope never to find out personally but that is an image that's often used to describe hell jesus uses it to describe hell when mary gave a vision of hell to the children of fatima they saw fire lots of people have seen fire when they've seen hell and whether it's literal fire as we know it on earth or not it's probably probably something different spiritual fire maybe it's an image of maybe it's a way of describing the uh the the agony of being separated from god by our own choice the agony of having fellowship with the demons as catherine and siena said in week number one of our lenten mission so we don't know we don't want to find out basically it's an image that's used by very authoritative people including jesus to talk about what hell is like so we just we just don't want to be there another question how do we resist the media well don't watch the media you know if it's really affecting you badly limit your access to the media uh use it in moderation be wise about what you listen to because what we take into our mind and heart affects us and we shouldn't be giving very much room at all in our mind and heart to what the world is wanting us to be concerned about so uh there's no magic rule there's no formula but ask the lord to give you wisdom and discernment about what's helpful and what isn't helpful in terms of your access to media uh yes the holy spirit will make you sensitive to it when you watch too much media or the wrong kind of media you'll know there'll be a certain deadness in your spirit you need to learn from that you need to make some decisions from that and not drift into a kind of mindless entertainment or passivity or it's going to kill the the hunger for god in us if we do that so we really need to be alert to the impact and effect that media is having on us and limit it accordingly and choose it accordingly another question what does it mean to reorder my attachment to my spouse to christ well that isn't really how i would put it we don't we're not reordering our attachment to our spouse to christ but we're trying to integrate our attachment to our spouse in the lord so it isn't like a possessive clinging looking to our spouse or something that only god himself can give us the lord loves holy marriage he loves marriage he loves all the good things of the world when we were talking last week about needing to be detached we need to be detached from an inordinate or unbalanced desire for these things or looking to these things for something that only the lord can give us we need to accept our spouse as a gift we need to expect accept our finances as a gift we need to accept the food we have as a gift and not cling to it possessively but receive it from the hands of the lord as saint paul says what do you have that you haven't received so living in gratitude holding the things of the world loosely not clinging to people as a source of ultimate happiness that only can come from god but husband and wife looking to the lord together following the lord together loving and serving one another in the holy spirit okay how do we grow in discernment well i pretty much just things i've said here you know relate to it but we need to pray you know we we need to have a daily prayer time that that shouldn't be the only time that we pray but as the catechism of the catholic church says if we don't pray sometimes we'll never be able to pray always like paul encourages us to pray always so we really need to have a prayer time we need to really be very reverently and very attentively loving the word of god reading the scripture meditating on the readings that that come up in mass every day if we can't go to mass uh doing getting into a bible study that's a good bible study there's lots of them we talked about some of the good ones uh in a previous session so loving the word of god praying uh being being united to jesus in the holy sacrament holy eucharist all those things increase our discernment testing our ideas with other people who are more mature and more more advanced in the spiritual life so all those things going to help us grow in discernment jesus says my own know my voice and i know my own so we need to learn how to recognize the voice of the lord from prayer and from scripture spiritual reading too do the doctors of the church say anything about discerning the most helpful private devotions for oneself i would say the general principles of the sermon kind of apply there if there's a particular devotion that's helping us grow in love of god and love of neighbor that would be a good reason for you know getting into it or accepting it or making it part of our prayer one of the things that john lacrosse wants us against is not to get attached to particular devotions in a way that actually block a process of growth i was just talking to a priest recently and uh it was in a spiritual direction context and he said ralph you know if sometime when you're praying the rosary you know you become aware of the presence of the lord and you just feel like you should be there resting in the presence of the lord don't feel like you have to finish the rosary now that's hard for me because i have made a commitment to say the rosary every day and i've been able to do that for for many years now i'm really grateful for that i know mary's requested it but i think this priest was right you know if the lord shows up you know in one of our devotions don't feel like you have to finish it don't feel like you have to get it in but kind of uh give the benefit of the doubt to the lord's presence the lord's desire perhaps to have a quiet time of union with us well we can talk more about that some other time several people have mentioned about why their favorite saint wasn't included in the book you know somebody asked you know you know john of the cross is so strict you know if you included a franciscan wouldn't that be better balance well let me tell you what the organizing principle of the book was i figured look life is short where is the best wisdom the catholic church has about growing in union with the lord and i knew i needed to look at those 35 or so doctors of the church and and see which ones really focus on the spiritual journey so that's the principle of selection from the doctors of the church which ones are the ones that focus best on the growth in the spiritual life and that's why i picked the ones i did now say ignatius is a tremendous saint and so many people are helped through the spiritual exercises including myself but he's not a doctor in the church he doesn't really provide you know a comprehensive view of the spiritual journey in the way that these doctors of the church do saint francis saint francis is maybe the greatest saint that ever lived you know a lot of people think that but he's not a doctor of the church he basically said live the gospel now uh saint bonaventure who ended up being head of the franciscan order not too long after francis's death is a doctor of the church but i've taken a look at saint bonaventure's writings in fact i've read quite a bit of them and i find them a little bit more abstract or theoretical than the doctors of the church that i picked i didn't find him as pastorally or practically useful as the doctrines of the church i actually picked but no offense to saint bonaventure no offense to saint francis now the question about saint francis was saying you know maybe it would be a little bit more gentle or a little bit uh more positive or something than some of these doctrines of the church like john the cross well let me read to you what saint francis de sales who was named after saint francis of assisi actually says about what saint francis went through the glory this is on page 366 the glorious father of whom we speak was himself once assailed and disturbed by such deep spiritual melancholy that he could not help showing it in his conduct if he wanted to talk with his religious he could not do so if we if he withdrew from their company it was worse john the cross says something almost identical he says when you're going through a dark night of purification being with other people is doesn't work it just doesn't satisfy but being alone doesn't work and doesn't satisfy so you're it's like you're suspended in the air and this is exactly how francis desales describing the purification that saint francis went through abstinence and bodily mortification weighed him down and prayer gave him no relief he went on in this way for two years so that he seemed completely abandoned by god finally after he had humbly endured this violent storm lasted two years the savior in a single instant restored him to a happy calm that's almost an identical description as what john the cross describes in the process of going through a dark night now i also want to tell you that my friend peter herbeck is a little kind of concerned that so many people have sentimentalized saint francis and don't really know the real saint francis it's a little bit like with jesus a lot of people have sentimentalized the real jesus and don't really know the real jesus which is why we need to pay attention to his word so my friend peter has written a booklet called saint francis used words and you should see some of the words he used he is not softer than john of the cross he is not softer than any of these doctrines of the church he is a gospel saint all these saints are gospel saints and the gospel is challenging it asks a lot but it offers a lot so at the end of the program tonight i'll tell you how you can get this week this booklet for free okay i think that handles the questions so let's start on this week's session what we're going to do is chapter 14 deeper purification we we can't even do all of chapter 14. and now some people have told me gee i hope we can continue with the fulfillment of all desire because there's so much more that you're not getting to and probably will be able to do that but actually we're going to do a new kind of mission as our next one which i'll tell you about at the end of the program tonight but maybe next advent we'll dip into the fulfillment of all desire again because there is so much more that we didn't get to so before we talk about the deeper purification let's just review the stages of spiritual growth there's the purgative way where we go through the initial purification where we uh deal with you know maybe gross sin in our life or gross carelessness or worldliness or uh just not living a very spiritual life and kind of basically going through some kind of conversion but we've talked about different kinds of conversions different saints have had like saint augustine we talked last week about the the agony he went through and breaking from a pattern of very serious uh sexual sin and how long it took and uh the the amazing way the lord eventually freed him and i don't think we've talked about uh centuries of avalon but century survival went through a different kind of conversion you know she answered the convent about 20 21 years old she said her motivation was she wanted to save her soul she thought that was the safest way of saving her soul she was very popular she was very vivacious i think she felt some danger about what could happen to her if she didn't have the structure of religious life but then she says that after the first year or two where she began to really experience real graces of deeper prayer she began to fall into a lukewarmness and and she's pretty hard on herself and you know well the convert she entered the conduit of the incarnation right there in avila was a very relaxed convent the wealthy nuns would have servants with them and pets with them and they had multi-room sweets and things like that the poor nuns didn't have that it was people were coming and going the cloister wasn't really kept very well people would go out and visit people visitors would come in and teresa said she she got involved in that and she ended up kind of really enjoying visiting with people in the parlor encouraging them to pray but she herself was really drifting away from prayer and then just short of her 40th birthday she's walking down a corridor in in the convent it's a little bust of the head and shoulders of jesus in his agony with the crown of thorns with the flagellation of the scourging at the pillar uh with the blood and and all of a sudden the god god gave her the grace to say oh my god what am i doing with my life look at what jesus has done for me what am i doing for him and she had like a in a second conversion she had an adult conversion to being fervent in the spiritual life so there's different kinds of conversions but we all need to be converted we all need to continue to be converted we all need to continue to grow in the spiritual life so after the purgative stage there's also the illuminative stage the illuminati stage is where the gross things in our life have been taken care of we've reached a certain stability in living a catholic life we're praying we're going to mass we're trying to love the people in our life we're trying to do good deeds we're trying to be generous with our finances just living a good catholic life then teresa says there's no reason why somebody gets to a certain stability in their life can't go all the way to the united way which is the third and final stage she says the reason why people don't often make progress in the spiritual life is because they have a lack of desire or a lack of knowledge and she says look if you don't have a very great desire to to be one with the lord you're not going to make much progress she says unless you have a very great determination you're not going to make much progress but then she says if you don't have a great desire for god if you don't have a great determination to grow in the spiritual life ask god to give him give it to you and he will so this is really encouraging so wherever you are in the spiritual journey whatever obstacles you're running into whatever weakness you've kind of encountered in yourself whatever failure you've encountered in yourself ask god to give you what you need to keep moving to keep going forward and he will in the epistle of james james says if any of you lacks wisdom ask out god for it and he'll give it to you sometimes we forget that that when we run into our own poverty that actually qualifies us for divine welfare and we forget to ask saying lord i can't do this by myself i need your grace i need your help i need your mercy you will receive it ask and you will receive knock and the door will be open seek and you will find there's a a phrase in the prophet jeremiah which says the lord told them when you seek me with all your heart then i will let myself be found by you so we need to continue the spiritual journey the luma do limited ways can go on for many many years where we're growing in union with the lord then the unitive is where we've gone through the purifications we need to go through and we've kind of come into a very profound union with the lord even on this earth even in this life which has tremendously good results and that's the next chapter after chapter 15 the fruits of union and we're going to just give a slight little hint of that tonight but maybe maybe an advent or some other time we'll get more into the tremendously good fruit that comes from picking up our cross every day and following jesus okay at a certain point though in the illuminative way which most people live in for a good while and most people get into that stage uh the soul knows though perhaps in an intuitive way that deeper levels of purification are needed and that not everything that needs to be dealt with has been so let's take a look at how john of the cross describes this kind of an intuition that even though there's a stability in our life even though things are going reasonably well even though we're a lot better than we used to be there's still some stuff there that hasn't quite begotten that too so this is on page 349 and john says the real purgation of the senses begins with the spirit hence the night of the senses as previously explained should be called a certain reformation and bridling of the appetite rather than appregation so john describes the stages of spiritual life he talks about the active and passive night of the senses where our appetites our passions are coming under control then he talks about the active and passive nights of the spirit or of the soul where god himself is going into a deeper level and this is he says the reason is that all the imperfections and disorders of the sensory part are rooted in the spirit and from it receive their strength all good and evil habits reside in the spirit and until these habits are purged the senses cannot be completely purified of their rebellions and vices this is this is what i wrote here nevertheless the soul may go on for years in this relatively stable peaceful state enjoying a measure of contemplative prayer a measure of stable virtue and engagement and service experiencing intervals of purification but nothing sustained and enduring those who are in this illuminative way or intermediate stage are called by john proficients the soul knows though perhaps in an intuitive way the deeper levels of purification are needed and that not everything that needs to be dealt with has been so let's see how he says it in his own words if his majesty intends to lead the soul on he does not he does not put it in his dark night of spirit immediately after it's going out from the aridities and trials of the first purgation in night of sense instead after having emerged from the state of beginners the solar usually spends many years exercising itself in the state of proficience in this new state as one liberated from a cramped prison cell it goes about the things of god with much more freedom and satisfaction of spirit and with more abundant interior delight than it did in the beginning before entering the night of sense you know one of the things the devil does and this is really terrible when you're starting the spiritual journey he makes a spiritual journey looks so tough and so forbidding and so unattractive that you think you'll never be happy if you're really engaged in it it's just a complete diabolical lie yes there's some pain in the initial purification yes there's some pain in giving up serious sin yes there's some pain about getting accustomed to prayer yes there's some pain in in denying ourselves and learning how to love more other people but once you get through it to a certain point it's just so much better than being a slave to our disordered desires so john talks about uh things are better its imagination and faculties are no longer bound to discursive meditation and spiritual solicitude as was their custom we're more sensitive to the presence of the lord or more able to just be in his presence without saying uh memorized prayers although theresa vavilis says that some nuns in our convent who have reached the highest stage of spiritual union just by devoutly reciting the lord's prayer so god can work in any way but just devoutly saying the lord's prayer can enable the lord to bring you into a state of deep union nevertheless the purification or purgation of the soul is not complete the purgation of the principle part that of the spirit is lacking as a result certain needs aridities that's got really dryness and feeling not connected with the lord darknesses and conflicts are felt these are sometimes far more intense than those of the past and are like omens or messengers of the coming night of the spirit but they are not lasting as they will be in the night that is to come i remember one time saint therese said she went through a horrible dark night that lasted three days well believe me that's not horrible but they're not lasting as they will be in the night that is to come for after enduring a short period or periods of time or even days in this night in tempest the soul immediately returns to its customary serenity now here john gives a couple images that helps us understand what he's talking about the habit the habitual imperfections are the imperfect affections and habits still remaining like roots in the spirit for the sensory purgation could not reach the spirit the difference between the two progressions is like the difference between pulling up roots or cutting off a branch or rubbing out a fresh stain or an old deeply embedded one so basically saying is that the initial purification of the purgative way is like cutting off the weeds in the garden at the level of the soil the garden looks pretty good but the roots are still there and the roots are going to cause problems very tall he did he describes the purification a little bit like you know when something just kind of falls on your garment stains it getting out right away is is easier but if it's an old stain it takes a lot more elbow grease to get the stain out so he's saying that that's where we are at a certain point in the illuminative way the lord thinks we're ready to start getting at some of the roots which are obstacles to the fullest union possible here on earth he also gives us a hint of some of the good results that are going to come from it these profession proficients or intermediates also have the natural dullness everyone contracts through sin and a distracted and inattentive spirit the spirit must be illumined clarified and recollected by means of the hardships and conflicts of this night in order to experience the perfect state of the union of love he also talks that sometimes in the illuminative way people come a little careless and a little arrogant in their relationship with the lord and there's a deeper purification needed to instill the profound sense of reverence and awe of god that uh is appropriate you know teresa of avila sometimes refers to jesus as her spouse but sometimes she refers to him as her his majesty so you need to never lose that reverence for the transcendent holiness for of god and what it means that he's god or we're not catherine and sienna when she would begin to pray she'd say lord you are the one who is and i am the one who is not so it's easy for pride to come in it's usually it's it's easy for inappropriate familiarity to come in that doesn't sufficiently take into account the profound holiness of god and the difference between the creator and the creature john says sometimes we become audacious with god and lose holy fear falling into vanity presumption and pride and then we need to remember that everything that these saints are talking about is really in the scripture they have their own technical language they have their own personalities they have their own ways of describing it but take a look at acts chapter 14 verse 22. paul says through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of god there's no entering the kingdom of god without many tribulations life on this earth is going to have problems if we approach them in the right way if we approach the sufferings in the right way they can be a tremendous instrument of purification and great good can come out of it for us and for others and then here's a giant's description of the trials that happen in this dark night this purification this deeper purification of page 351 the trials that those who are to reach this state transforming union suffer are threefold trials discomforts fears and temptations from the world and these in many ways temptations aridities and afflictions in the senses and tribulations darknesses distress abandonment temptations and other trials in the spirit now admittedly when you get to chapter 14 when you start talking about the deeper purifications that are needed it's tempting to say well you know i i think i've gone far enough i you know i think you know i'm okay with where i am and i'm not sure i'm up for deeper purifications but we really need to remember a very important truth these purifications are not optional there's no way we can be one with god unless we're profoundly purified so the only thing that's left in our will is union with his will love for him and love for our neighbor and that all the deep imperfections and selfishness and deeply rooted habits that are obstacles to love need to be removed so this purification is not an option that's why way back in in the first session we talked about that text from hebrews chapter 12 strive for that holiness without which nobody will see the lord it's it's absolutely essential essential now there's another truth we need to recognize the sooner this purification happens the better waiting for purgatory would be a sadness because the deeper the purification goes the deeper the freedom that comes out from the other side the deeper the love the deeper the joy the deeper the fruitfulness never again we looked at john chapter 15 this is all biblical that the branches that are connected to the vine and the vine is jesus those those branches that bear fruit are going to be pruned by god the father so they bear more fruit now pruning is painful isn't it i mean you know you know cutting branches you know like trimming branches is is painful but jesus says unless you're willing to be pruned and and bear more fruit there's a danger of drying up and withering and being disconnected from the vine and being thrown into the fire there's that image of fire again from the first question we had tonight [Music] now here's what he certainly describes it he says since unpurified souls must undergo the sufferings of fire in the next life to attain union with god and glory so in this life they must undergo the fire of these sufferings to reach the union of perfection this fire acts on some more vigorously than others and on some for a longer time than others according to the degree of union to which god wishes to raise them and according to what they must be purified up this is customized love this is personal love this is god the father knowing perfectly well who we are and loving us knowing completely what our imperfections are and loving us so much so that he wants to really remove these things that separate us from him and separate us from the love that he wants us to have for others so it's customized it's it's interval training he puts us into a dark night long enough to do some good and then he takes us out again sometimes he keeps us in longer sometimes shorter sometimes for people that he feels like can handle it he'll put them in for the two years that saint francis was in or maybe even longer some of the saints have been in but don't be afraid god knows exactly what we can handle and exactly what's for our best john lacrosse besides using the image of the weeds in the garden above the soil and the roots below the soil that have to be gotten at he uses an image of a burning log which gives us a good feel about what's happening this is on page 352. for the sake of further clarity in this matter we want to note that this purgative and loving knowledge or divine light we are speaking of has the same effect on a soul that fire has on a log of wood the soul is purged and prepared for union with the divine light just as the wood is prepared for transformation into the fire fire when applied to wood first dehumidifies it dispelling all moisture and making it give off any water it contains then it gradually turns the wood black makes it dark and ugly it even causes it to emit a bad odor by drying out the wood the fire brings to light and expels all those ugly and dark accidents that are contrary to fire finally by heating and kindling it from without the fire transforms the wood into itself it makes it as beautiful as it is itself then he says this is what the fire of god's love does in our soul it brings to the surface the impurities the imperfections and eventually it unites us so closely to himself that we begin to burn with the same love with which god burns so the image of fire in scripture is really interesting you know at the very last thought verse in chapter 12 of hebrews it says our god is a consuming fire it's the fire of love it's the fire of purity it's the fire of holiness that when it comes into contact with his creatures transforms them into holiness but when the creature rejects the fire of god's love and experiences the fire of his judgment in the fire of hell so this is all about being with the lord forever this is all about yielding to the fire of love which also has a profoundly purifying dimension okay um let's talk about some of the things that are rooted in our spirit that need to be dealt with you know we know that you know we talk about the capital sins we're going to go to page 338 now [Music] you know pride covetousness lust anger envy you know all these kinds of things and uh we think about them in their kind of maybe gross forms you know but there's there's roots in our spirit uh that are even deeper than the gross manifestations of these capital sins for example pride pride has a just evil way of creeping into almost anything we could be doing and the lord really needs to get at the root of pride and a lot of times the only way to get at the root of pride is is by humiliation now i've said this previously just because we're humiliated doesn't mean that we become humble we have to accept the humiliation and let it bear fruit in our soul so here's what john says about some of the ways in which pride can hide itself even as we pursue the spiritual life sometimes people growing in the lord minimize their faults and at other times they become discouraged by them since they felt they were already saints and they become impatient and angry with themselves which is yet another fault they are often extremely anxious that god removed their faults and imperfections but their motive is personal peace rather than god they fail to realize that we're god to remove their faults they might very well become more proud and presumptuous john also points out that this hidden pride can also manifest itself by trying to impress our confessor even going to a different confessor to confess our serious sins vying to outdo our spiritual rivals speaking of spiritual things so as to be praised or by condemning others in our heart who don't appear to have the same devotion as us so um it can just creep into things bernard clairvous says if my fasting reflects my own self-will it will not be acceptable to him he'll find no fragrance in my fasting since its odor is not that of the lily of obedience but the weed of self-will the same thing i feel must be true not only of fasting but of silence vigils prayer spiritual reading manual labor indeed of every detail of amongst life when self-will is found in it instead of obedience self-will is a great evil and through it your good deeds become not good for you now it's easy when you hear the precision with which these doctrines of the church diagnose our spiritual ills to say oh my goodness what hope is there for me oh there's tremendous hope for us if we don't diagnose the illness it's very hard to get the cure avarice greed cometh to this when we think of average or agree we think of desiring to have things that don't belong to us or having more of what we already have to a disordered degree sad to say it's entirely possible for us human beings to focus our greed encompasses this on spiritual things as well john piercingly points out that many never have enough of pursuing spiritual input through hearing talks seeking advice or reading books and becoming irritable and discontent if they don't find the consolation these things that they're seeking attempting to possess or amass spiritual things john points out is ironically just the opposite of that poverty of spirit that is necessary to enter the kingdom true worship and spirit and truth is sometimes short-circuited by a religiosity that is truly blind to the meaning of the spiritual journey that self-emptying obedience and love to god and neighbor furthermore john says they weigh themselves down with over-decorated images and rosaries they prefer one cross to another because of its elaborateness decked out and relics and list the saints names this attachment possessiveness of heart is contrary to poverty of spirit which is intent only on the substance of the devotion benefits by no more than what procures this sufficiently and tires of all other multiplicity and elaborate ornamentation since true devotion comes from the heart and looks only to the truth and substance represented by spiritual objects and since everything else is imperfect attachment and possessiveness any appetite for these things must be uprooted if some degree of perfection is to be reached so i'm not going to go on it goes on for page after page it talks about anger it talks about spiritual gluttony wanting to have experiences and and seeking experiences rather than the lord himself uh envy being envious of others who are more advanced in the spiritual life than us and all these things that are deeply rooted in our spirit so what happens the lord brings us into purifying dark nights what is a dark knight it's usually always characterized by some significant degree of dryness emptiness aridity you know talking about an arid desert with no water sometimes we feel like we've been cut off from relationship with god we don't feel him we don't sense him sometimes we experience a recurrence of temptations temptations against faith sensual temptations we feel plagued we feel attacked one time catherine siena who was in a very high state of union with god was very surprised by sensual temptations and was just fighting them off and fighting them off and fighting them off and finally she was delivered for them but she complained and she said lord why did this happen where were you and the lord said catherine i was with you in the midst of them but you needed to fight i was protecting you but you needed to fight so the lord is with us in these dark nights even though we may not sense them we may not experience him we may even be tempted to think that he's abandoned us now catherine oceana has a good description of the dark knight and i hope i can find it here yes page 363 364. [Music] so here's catherine's description of dark knight she doesn't use the terminology of john the cross she doesn't call them dark knights she just describes how awful they feel why do i and this is god the father explaining to catherine why the lord brings people through these dark nights why do i keep the soul surrounded by so many enemies in such pain and distress the dark knight even though it's always characterized by this this deep sense of dryness and aridity also sometimes is accompanied by external things that are very hard and very painful could be illness could be embarrassment could be betrayal uh could be financial setbacks uh could be uh you know any kind of thing that happens that's very painful along with the the the emptiness inside the sense of being cut off from god's presence so the father tells catherine why do i keep this soul surrounded by so many enemies in such pain and distress not for her to be captured and lose the wealth of grace but to show her my providence so she will not trust she will trust not in herself but in me again the breaking of pride that terrible root of pride then she will rise up from her carelessness and her concern will make her run for protection to me her defender her kind father to provide it of her salvation i want her to be humble to see that of herself she has nothing to recognize that her existence and every gift beyond that comes from me that i am her life she will recognize this life in my providence when she is liberated through these struggles for i do not let these things last forever they come and go as i see necessary for her sometimes she will think she's in hell and then through no effort of our own shall be relieved and will have a taste of eternal life the soul is left serene when she sees seems to cry out what she sees seems to cry out that god is all a flame with loving fire as she now contemplates my providence for she sees that she's come safely out of this great flood not by any effort of her own the light came unforeseen it was not her effort but my immeasurable charity which wanted to provide for her in time of need when she can scarcely take any more [Music] catherine says that uh well you know they all say the same thing the process of purification is under the loving wise powerful providence of god god never tempt us allows us to be tested beyond our strength he always has a plan to bring us out of it and he has a plan to bring great good out of it now not everything that we experience in this way is actually the purifying dark night sometimes we can experience this emptiness and dryness uh be going through rough times and it's not the purifying dark night john on the cross says there's three reasons why we may be experiencing this darkness this pain the serenity but only one is is the actual dark night that's purifying hand of god so what what are the reasons why we could be experiences this darkness or emptiness first of all john says our own carelessness our own infidelity can lead us into a state of spiritual lukewarmness where we lose our taste for god and prayer becomes almost impossible but it's not a purifying dark night it's something we bring on ourselves through our lukewarmness our carelessness no longer rejecting temptation in the first moment we become aware of it no longer keeping up our prayer time no longer associating with other people who can help call us on our spiritual journey drifting away from the sacraments too much media in our life too much of the world in our life filling our soul with things which deading our desire for god so what's the solution when the dryness and the darkness is something we brought upon ourselves theresa avalos says there's only one solution repentance we need to ask god to forgive us for drifting away from those spiritual practices that seeking of him that attended this to him that's the only way that we can grow in the lord so she says there's no shortcut you just have to repent and you have to get back to those spiritual practices now those of us who are used to working out sometimes we can't for a long period of time for whatever reason and we get back to walking or running or whatever we do calisthenics aerobics i don't know whatever it's harder it's harder to get back into physical shape and it's harder to get back into spiritual shape so don't get out of spiritual shape don't drift away into lukewarmness don't abandon your spiritual practices don't abandon that vigilance over your mind and heart and soul that's required for keeping attentiveness to god the second reason john of the cross says we maybe experience this darkness or emptiness or aridity is because of physical or emotional illness what he says is try to get better saint francis de sales is really good in this he says go to the doctor do what the doctor tells you to do in the meantime don't waste your suffering teresa of avo says adjust your schedule if you have to if praying in the morning no longer works because of something going on in your life find some other time uh if you can't get the mass every day like you used to get that little magnificat book and then do the readings of the mass even though you can't get there uh adjust in a way that your illness or your difficulties uh require it when my mom would kids would say i'm bored you know i feel just bored my mom would say do something good for somebody else get out of yourself but that's what teresa of avila says too she sounds like my mom she says do something do a work of charity do something good for somebody else so the third reason why somebody may experience this dryness heredity is this purifying dark night that we've been talking about now the thing about the purifying dark knight is that you can't hurry love it makes me think about the motown song you can't hurry love you just have to wait and john of the cross says even if your spiritual director tells you that what you're going through is a dark night it's not going to help you it's still going to feel painful it's still gonna feel difficult uh and and the only the only time it's gonna go away when the lord just decides that it should go away and that you've come through a purification you're a different place in your spiritual life and he'll give you a time of of refreshing uh but the whole thing is under the control of god so what do you do in a dark night you keep on believing you keep on hoping you keep on loving because the dark knight is intended to deepen faith to deepen hope and deepen love what's faith faith is believing without seeing now sometimes we see so many signs of god's favor that it's easy to believe but the lord wants to bring us to a deeper place of faith where we believe without saying where we don't see those positive signs that we see we don't see the answered prayer that we used to see we don't see the fruit that we used to see we don't see the appreciation we used to see we don't see the rewards that we used to see it becomes an opportunity to believe without seeing to go deeper in faith same with hope when we see so many signs of god's favor it's easy to hope but when things aren't looking good when we don't see the positive signs or we don't know how good is ever going to come out of a difficult situation that's a time where hope can be purified we can hope against hope we can hope purely on the basis of god's word and not on anything we're seeing or feeling same with love it's so much easier to love god when we experience his love for us it's so much easier to love other people when they love us back but jesus says you know even the pagans do that so the lord wants to bring us into a deeper love a supernatural love we're able to love not only the people that love us but people who don't love us who don't appreciate what we're doing for them that that even our enemies that that even betray us even persecute us so the lord wants to bring us to that deeper place of love where we can pray for those who persecute us and love our enemies and he does that through these dark nights so what do you do in a dark night you just keep on keeping on you just keep faithful to your spiritual practices your spiritual reading you just keep on keeping on and the day is going to come when the lord brings you out of it and the fruit on the other side is really amazing we don't have time to do chapter 15 chapter 16 chapter 17 but uh peek in those chapters and see what comes from the purification desire that god purify you to the max so you could be maximally united with him and maximally fruitful in your in your time on earth i'm sorry that we kind of run out of time here there's more i wanted to say but um hey this was chapter 14 this is deeper purification we need to have a picture of the kind of whole journey uh the the purgative way the limited way the the illuminative way in the united way and towards the end of the limiting way comes this deeper purification so uh thank god that he he wants to make us whole that he wants to make us holy and then only he can do it he will if we cooperate okay um do we give some final announcements and then uh uh elizabeth could give us any questions that have come in so again uh please go to our website and sign up for our newsletter so we can keep in touch with you and uh let you know where we're gonna be if we're not able to be on youtube anymore uh tomorrow morning we're gonna post this uh last of our lenten talks on our youtube channel go to our youtube channel renewalministries.net on youtube i don't know it's there you'll find it and subscribe to our youtube channel and every time we peter or i or anybody else does a new video you'll get a little notice of it um and then i want to tell you about how you can get st francis used words you can go to our website and store and this is the code to get the free booklet you put an s when you're checking out normally it's two dollars but when you're checking out if you put in the discount code s t f lent s t f l e n t uh you'll get this for free and this will kind of give you a little taste of franciscan spirituality which is just as challenging but just as wonderful just as good as the doctors of the church but francis is not a doctor of the church i'd also like to remind you of this book a church in crisis pathways forward we've been talking about the interior struggle and the interior journey these lenten talks and advent talks this book talks about what's going on out there in the church in the world which is very much related to the spiritual journey so i would recommend this as a compliment to fulfillment of all desire then i'd like to tell you that our advent discount ends tomorrow so it's one more day to get the 20 off on our book fulfillment of all desire i do want to let you know that we ship it media mail that's how we do free shipping uh lately media mail has been getting there quicker but we have known it sometimes to take two or three weeks to get to people we hope that will not be the case if you need it tomorrow or the next day the only place i know that could do that is amazon now i want to tell you about our next mission it's going to be a pentecost mission it's going to start on pentecost sunday may 23rd and run for four sundays in a row i'm going to give the first talk pete borac who works with us here at renewal ministries in our young adult ministry is going to give a second talk peter herbeck is going to give the third talk and dr mary healey my colleague at sacred heart major seminary is going to give the fourth talk and we're going to celebrate the coming of the holy spirit the title of the pentecost mission is receive the holy spirit and we want every week to welcome the holy spirit into our lives and the lives of all those who are joining with us so we'll send you an email letting you know how you can register it'll be free again and uh we're looking forward to uh seeing you at the pentecost mission beginning on pentecost sunday may 23rd but in the meantime almost every week now peter and i are doing new videos for our youtube channel and we'll see you there elizabeth are there any immediate questions there are a few questions all right here's a good one will there be different levels of union with god in heaven uh i don't really know but i suspect so most most people who think about these things like thomas aquinas and other people think that it's all very individualized you know each of us are made differently we're made for reflecting different aspects of god's own being we're made for different levels of union i suppose you know like when when the uh james and john wanted to sit at the right and left hand of jesus jesus said uh can you drink the cup and they said oh yeah we could drink the cup you know you're sure well they ran away at the crucifixion but later on in their life after pentecost they had a chance to drink their cup but obviously there's some places in heaven that god the father has reserved for certain people but the great thing about heaven is there will be no envy there'll be no jealousy we'll be so grateful for the place we have will be so grateful for our mansion that we won't envy anybody's other's mansion even though it's bigger and better we would be so purified that we absolutely will delight in the variety and diversity in heaven and will also feel so good and so right about god's goodness to us and giving us our place and our union with him how does one know the difference between a dark night and depression that takes discernment how does someone know a difference between a dark knight in depression that takes some discernment uh there's various signs that john gives about when it's a spiritual dark night uh and i i they're in the book i can't get into it right now but he basically says if your hunger for god is still very strong if the agony of not feeling his presence is very strong if you still desire more than anything to be one with them even though you're experiencing this darkness and pain it's a spiritual dark night this is where a why spiritual director can can help discern what's a spiritual action of god in your soul and what may be something that counseling or medication could help and it isn't like the lord cannot use natural depression i mean that can be part of the pain and suffering that can draw us into deeper union with the lord if we integrate it in the right way and respond to it in the right way but we should definitely seek if we have some question about that we should definitely seek a wise counselor as a spiritual director how do we resolve jesus wanting to enter into a personal friendship with us while at the same time worshiping the lord all due reverence holiness and fear of the lord it just works the question is how do we how do we correlate jesus wanting to be in a personal intimate spiritual friendship with us and maintaining a reverence and awe for his holiness and the fact that he's god uh all i can say is it just works you know like like like true like i said about teresa of avila sometimes she referred to him as her spouse where the emphasis was on the intimacy and the friendship sometimes she referred to his majesty where the emphasis was on reverence and awe and they they're they're both really important dimensions of our relationship with the lord they're not contradictory to each other they should live in both in us in this both should live us both should be present in us being fallen and weak creatures that we are why does a loving god keep sending us a sheep among wolves exposing us to the principalities that are set on killing our souls why can't it be a little easier for us the question was why is the lord sending us like sheep amongst wolves with principalities and powers you know who are behind a lot of the difficulties right now in the church in the world why does the lord make it a little easy for us because he thinks this is the best way i mean you know it's it's a very high honor to be invited to participate in jesus own struggle with the powers and principalities jesus's own struggle with betrayal and difficulty and pain and suffering and uh he doesn't want us to be dummies he doesn't want us to be robots he wants us to participate with him in the spiritual battle because he wants to raise us to a very very high dignity and you know this is a mystery too but oftentimes it says in scripture those who are worthy to be his disciple and he says unless you renounce all that you have you're not worthy to be my disciple so heaven isn't cheap the gift of heaven is so great jesus paid such a great price so that we can go there but he says the the servant is not above his master we need to partake to participate ourself in that grain falling into the ground and dying so it may bear fruit and that death to the disordered things in our life and uh and the amazing thing though is that jesus not only has done it himself but he's going to do it with us he's going to lead us through it he's going to be present with us he's not going to abandon us he's going to help us in our weakness all we have to do is say lord help he's going to help us he knows we're sheep amongst wolves and he thinks that that's how it has to be in a fallen world he's calling people out of the world that's why he said in the last supper he says you're no longer belong to the world you're in the world but you're not of the world jesus is calling us out of the the disordered world uh into a permanent union with him and a communion of saints in the church and it's just how things have to be because of original sin it's just how things have to be because of the reality of sin and the devil they have to be conquered and he wants us to participate in their conquering he wants to give us that incredible dignity i think we might end with that okay well i will look at the chats and well we'll see maybe uh if there's some things that need to be dealt with i'll deal with them in the weekly videos i do but thank you for being with us these last four weeks and i hope you continue the journey with us in our weekly youtube videos with our newsletter with the choices we face with our catholic radio programs by peter herbeck and sister and shields and all the other things that we do our young adult ministry so uh god loves you and so do we [Music] you

Channel: Renewal Ministries

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

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Length: 66min 34sec (3994 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021