SEEK24 x What God Is Not - Divine Love Seeks to Embrace Your Pain and Offer You Healing

[Music] welcome to the seek 24 podcast my name is John Michael Lucio and this podcast will feature some of our favorite podcasters recorded live at the spoke Street Media Booth during seek 24 in St Louis we hope these give you a glimpse of the energy and passion from the conference and help you in your faith Journey enjoy hello seek thank you guys there we go there we go thank you guys for coming out that's not how we normally start it's not glory to Jesus Christ glory to him forever thank you guys for coming out we really appreciate it mother is so nervous and I just wanted to point that out she's she's like shaking and this is video to so people can see it oh good I didn't that beautiful big smile um so uh we also have of course with us here father bonfice Hicks who has been on the podcast before with mother with both of us one time I think with you as well one time and uh it came out today he came on today like the episode that came out today oh the episode that came out today okay there we go mother tracks these things I don't um so thank you Father bonfice I I really do think it's also appropriate that we're sitting on either side of mother um we we really are like hopefully two angels but one much dirtier than the other sitting on either side of her shoulder that that that guides her in her life father bonfice um mother Natalya flees to many times um to to have a a tenderhearted more tender than me even tender-hearted um softening of her soul so thank you Father bonifus for loving someone I love so much for taking care of her when I can't or don't or for whatever reason I'm are unable to um so yes this is Mother's first seek since she was showing her hair that's true yeah she came here as a college student I came last year any of you that were here I podcasted since she couldn't come I podcast with Cameron frad um and then I came here I think six seven years ago when I was in Indianapolis for those of you that are older and podcasted with the Catholic stuff you should know guys and leoo and some other guys it was it was a lot of fun um so I want to share a really funny story to kick this off and it just happened right out there um so to lead up to the story we had a when I was and I probably shared the story before but in our Byzantine Catholic church we we bless the nearest body of water on January 6th so on the Feast of the baptism of Christ we go to the nearest body of water and bless it because if every single Church does this then all the bodies of the water of the entire world are blessed by priests so when I was in Denver we would walk a mile down to a Wash Park and we would bless there and one day it was snow on the ground it was Colorado and here we are walking with crosses and candles and processing and singing and we get to there and these two men are jogging in the freezing cold and so they're breathing heavily and one of the guys says to the other one when he sees our big procession coming down he goes something really good or really bad just happened and it was like this is the impression of A procession of people vested something really good or really bad just happened I was walking in just now and as I'm walking in this woman pulls up and she's delivering pizza and so whoever ordered pizza runs out there to greet her and the woman looks so so like thankful that she didn't have to come in cuz there's people going in coming out it's this absolute mad house of people that's she goes oh thank you so much and she looks at me and my cic and all these young adults and she goes is this Comic-Con I was like like it'sot better than that right right was like no no it's like a Catholic Convention I'm like but we kind of look like Comic Con I mean we we look like we're dressed up for something and it's a bunch of young people so thank you for being young people and thank to all of our nuns and clergy for actually dressing like we're at Comic Con we should be of course because because close enough um so yes Father bonifus uh how many seeks have you been to this is my first one too this is your first one God bless you amen amen well I we're a little bit L short on time this time so I want to jump right into the topic um where is my notes I was just texting somebody I lost them there we go all right so this is the seek Miracle Father Michael actually made notes for this episode cuz I I said that she was nervous only to cover my own nervousness so I made notes I wouldn't forget anything I want to start out by asking um our Beth if so if you've ever written in DMD our podcast this is Beth right in the middle um she's so good on our media team and she'll write right back to you and if you DM or comment on any of our social media um Beth has a bunch of stickers by the way do we know who the artist is Mall yes I is she here M oh thank you m very nice so amen amen she's an amazing artist and and the way she portrays our personality so she drew a picture of mother Natalia a long time ago and basically be's going to start handing out the stickers to you um I hope we have enough if we don't I have a few in my pocket for afterwards but basically if you guys remember those of you that are listeners mother Natalia one episode shared how frustrated she is sometimes with st tce Little Flower because she's just rainbows and butterflies and and all this sappy stuff so I said you know who's going to greet you when you enter Heaven is going to be St T Little Flower you know CU you're going to have all this frustration with her and then she's going to greet you before St Peter does before Jesus does is's going to you so you you you drew a picture of mother Natalya being greeted by St theres in heaven and it was hilarious the look on mother's face you could tell it was her you could tell it was T Little Flower she got my eye roll perfectly the eye roll is perfect mother still resisting being hugged by tre's Little Flower and so we we have stickers and then so we're like well we need one of Father Michael too so we basically just did a brainstorm so as many of you know I have a snake her name is Georgia and I love her immensely and she tolerates me so basically we said since I'm Irish we wanted a picture of me with my snake Georgia and since St Patrick cast all the stakes out of Ireland it was going to be me holding Georgia and then St Patrick scowling at me getting mad at me for having a snake since he cast all the stakes out of Ireland and so so this is an extremely esoteric sticker yes they both are why I'm explaining them before I give them to you um so she Drew this great picture of Georgia kissing me on the cheek like around and me with a big smile on my face and St Patrick just scowling at me and it was only today that I thought this is the perfect sticker for our personalities because as we've shared a million times mother definitely tends towards scrupulosity and and and and the self-criticism that comes along with it and I tend towards presumption I can't imagine doing anything wrong that Jesus wouldn't forgive me instantly for and this can be very debilitating sometimes because it's a false confidence and a false humility namely its pride and that's how that it's a very happy life but sometimes it's too happy because I'm too laid back about these things so I thought what a beautiful thing because as some of you know my favorite quote from Jane Chan chrisom is every good homy should comfort The Afflicted and afflict the comfortable in one homy Comfort The Afflicted and afflict the comfortable and so mother in a sense to over overgeneralize is The Afflicted who needs to be comforted by St J Little Flower and me and father bonus and I'm the one who's too comfortable they need to be afflicted by St Patrick scowling at me whatever it is and mother Natalia thank you they're absolutely beautiful so please take a sticker and we have our we have our logo on there as well but it made me think because I love about seek one thing about seek is that you you young people especially you're reminded over and over and over again that Jesus loves you that is like the message Jesus Loves You Jesus Loves You Jesus loves you and the first week I went to I realized that I'm not the audience for that message because I assume that and it it keeps me from real repentance from actual real repentance and that that's that's a downfall I have um so there's within our personalities of mother and I there's a in a sense a paradox that works very well I think in the podcasting mode because as we talk um so I wanted to share with you and I'll kick it off I promise I'll let you guys talk in a moment um but if any of you went to the talk by Simone riscala Simone riscala is a very close friend of mine she's Armenian and Egyption she gave a talk on Armenia she also gave a talk just recently some of you that were at her talk um Simone is my little prophetess and so she she loves speaking beautiful words into my life and one time she went to a convention where they were doing prophecy so basically you would submit a name and then somebody again you got to be careful with this of course you do and it's not my spirituality necessarily but someone would would take a name on a card just a first name that's it and would would pray and then would write out a little message for that person now Simone had them do one for me and obviously I believe this is in the holy spirit so it's what I need need to hear but it is so not what I need to hear but it obviously is I'm in denial about this so I'm going to read this to you and all this person had was the name Michael that's all they had no Father Michael nothing and this is this is what she sent to me and she just handed this to me today she had texted to me earlier I hear God saying you are a good father I'm going to start crying I'm not going to start crying I hear God saying you are a good father I don't know if that's meant to apply to you as a literal father as a spiritual father or in some other way but God is saying that you carry fatherhood well and you represent God the Father well in this way people who encounter you have their false perceptions of God Rewritten and come to know the goodness of God on a new level you have a gift for Unity for uniting what is divided and especially for uniting people you are comfortable standing in a place of seeming contradiction and perhaps receive criticism for doing so but you stand there because you see the potential for Unity and Reconciliation that others can't see until it happens the scripture verse of 1 John 3:1 comes to mind as encouragement for you in this season see what love the father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God yet so we are blessings in Christ the good words team so it's those moments where I'm like okay I probably do need to hear this because there's probably even though there's some false confidence that there is something deep about what that looks like so I would love to hear both of your Reflections maybe you first father bonfice if if you're able to since you know her so well you know me a little bit less I would love to hear within the basically the message I want is if we truly knew that God loved us and knew how he loved us what potential we would have what could we accomplish if we truly truly knew that and I would love for you to speak to that in general or in relation to Mother Natalya where where you have seen her potential for Understanding God's love for her and what that looks like when that bears fruit if you will in the confidence that comes from that love well I think it's a great message to be reiterated again and again at Seek about God's love because although there can be a level of confidence that you have and I also have one of the beautiful places of growth for us is to find those places that maybe we're not as confident that we're loved and uh I know that's been a real journey for me I think especially as priests and you know any position of power we can kind of arrange our lives in a way that we don't encounter those places in our hearts as much we can sort of spend more time with this group of people who really loves us and reiterates the message that we want and a little less time with this group of people that challenges us and is hard for us but to uh find those places in our hearts where we are still thirsty for God's love is a real gift and one of the things that's been certainly a blessing for me in getting to know mother is is she is so in touch with those places and I experience this a lot in spiritual Direction people who are willing to share the places in their hearts where they're not as confident that they're loved and the gift that it is to speak love into that as I know you know happens in a moment but also only happens over time and it's it's actually where I really want to affirm your fatherhood because you have been such a constant consistent presence of the Father's Love in mother's life and your constancy and dependability that she knows what she's going to get when she turns to you and there's a way that that can only happen over time because well I had lots of encounters with people and I hope I've spoken some love into their hearts even here but what about tomorrow and next week and next month and if they knew this about me and if this thing came up and and so the consistency over time is is so essential as well but then just to again to say like it's such a gift to be able to speak that love I think of it as God has a lot of love for us but he chooses to communicate that through people in our lives and obviously parents play a particular role spiritual fathers spiritual mothers play a particular role uh coaches and teachers and uncles and aunts and and it's such a privilege to be entrusted with God's love for a person and to be a able to speak that love into their hearts but that depends on them being able to open those places of sensitivity those places of Affliction those places of question and doubt and so it's a it's a the thing that's I think U very beautiful about mother is that she has those places but she also knows where those places are and she knows how to open those places and then it's such a gift to be able to speak that and I think for you know someone like you and I I think also for someone like me that might be a little bit more confident we get to be in the position so often of of sharing that overflowing confidence with a with a tender heart with a hesitant heart any thoughts at all um yeah i' I'd like to share an experience I had on the flight out here uh can you guys hear me okay okay um so because even though I I often struggle uh to know that love for myself uh there are moments in which I'm secure in it and and the beauty of those moments is I've realized that when I'm feeling secure in the Lord's love for me I'm not as much needing to or feeling the need to to grasp at that um that validation or that love from the people around me and in encounters with them and the Lord still gives that to me through encounters with people around me but when it's given as gift and I'm not grasping at it that feels like a very different situation so on the on the flight here uh from Cleveland to St Louis I sat next to this woman and uh and I was feeling really good on the flight I was feeling like really sure of the Lord's love for me and and wanting to be present to just whoever he he placed in front of me and this was a rare moment in which I was able to actually do that uh and so the woman next to me starts starts talking she asks first like she finds out that I'm a nun and she's very interested in that and uh I find out that she is Buddhist but is exploring Christianity at this point and as she's talking with me in the first um probably the first two minutes that we're talking she just starts weeping and uh and and then she says I'm sorry I don't know I don't know why I'm so emotional about this I think I just feel so seen and and then she cries for the next 30 minutes which is pretty much any spiritual Direction I ever have so um and and as she's crying and I'm just constantly having like coming back to to to thanking her for the gift of of opening her heart to me because I know that's very scary it's very vulnerable um and and to realize the gift that it is to have someone open their heart to you and to be able to speak love into those places of fear um I think can give us the courage to do that ourselves um both with the people around us and with the with the Lord directly um because we need to be doing that in prayer as well right it's not it's not only a matter of uh letting our spiritual fathers and our spiritual mothers speak into those places in our hearts we also need to be working towards uh yeah doing that with the Lord in prayer you know I I I wanted to I wanted to stop you and to tell you like I I want to hear I want to hear a moment where you've been you've been like in control like I I want I want you you to tell a story about when you like somehow you used anything in you that that that's confident to to lead others so this is this is something and you did you did um I may encourage you further as we go along but um this leads very well into the next thing um any priest here okay well okay were were you at were you at monor Shay's luncheon talk so he gave out these beautiful these beautiful uh fathers love them through me litany for priests and seminarians and I loved it because it there's a few passages in here I got to find the one that I marked up there's a few passages in here found it thank you Lord um that that are are very very convicting and I I knew he wasn't going to do it so I didn't ask him but I wanted to tell father bonfice um father bonfice in what ways do you know that I have failed mother Natalia and that I I just mean like I know no he I'm sure he knows some I just don't know he wouldn't say them but but that but this is what saying this is what I need so list listen to some of these Lites so I'm not going to read the whole thing but this is again put out by the sisters of life and it's it's basically what a priest would pray so it starts out by saying this is called unleashing unleashing the father 's love and I'll read the first few then I'm going to jump around to the ones that are the most convicting for me in the places of my heart that haven't received the gospel then the litany repeat Jesus love me there in the places that are dead and in the Tomb Jesus L me there in the places where I continue to sin Jesus love me there going to jump ahead in the places where I am filled with shame and cannot raise my eyes to you Jesus Jesus love me there in the places that are blocked because of pain or fear Jesus love me there in that place in my family that is messy frustrating and broken Jesus love me there in this situation or Rel or relationship that is impossible Jesus love me there and then each priest has thousands of souls entrusted to his care for these Souls I pray for every penitent I will resol I will absolve father love for every person who will look to me for guidance and affirmation father love them through me for those who seem to be unattractive irritating or unlovable to me Father love them through me every time I am tempted to rely on my own strengths and talents father love them through me in every daily Duty mundane in its Works father love them through me for every unborn child whose life I alone will acknowledge father them through me for every person abandoned or wounded by their Earthly father father love them through me for all the souls and trusted to my priesthood whom I will never meet father love them through me for every person who will call me Father father love them through me that's beautiful it is beautiful and I I kind of skipped all the really affirming ones because again in the same way to comfort The Afflicted there there's um it's almost like you guys ever heard the Litany of humility oh oh oh right it it is so amazing because it makes you say the words that you don't really want to say and this is similar to that there's there's there's aspects of my ministry again again this is for priests aspects of my Ministry that I would not even contemplate like all those I'm responsible for that I will never meet I how often would I think of that but we priests most of us who are diois and we're in charge of a certain geography right like all the Catholic souls in this region are mine and I will be held accountable for them like if I'm not praying for them there's a real detriment you know um and then you know there's those that I find unattractive it's really hard I mean we walk around here and basically we should have had this conversation first but for all of you beautiful people that did recognize us when we were walking around it's like who do we stop and talk to when we need to get to lunch or get the next thing you know how much time can we spend like these are discernments that are really really hard to make we need to make sure that we're not not making them based upon anything surface you know this person looks like they've been an entertaining conversation or this person I know is funny or whatever like we can't do that we're we're asked to be purged from any selfishness like for for the for any semblance of self-reliance you know from those times there's this this beautiful conviction I think if we basically if we stood God's love for us we'd be able to say this much more confidently than we do and those things wouldn't be so startling to us I want to I want to give a little bit of um push back on something you just said uh with all due respect because uh actually what really moved me as y'all were praying this um is something that we were talking about in we recorded a an episode earlier today uh with our friend Kristen and in that we were talking about uh this concept of spiritual bypassing which you can hear if you listen to that episode but one of the things that we were talking about is part of the problem with trying to jump past the reality of what we're feeling um because we can get caught in this this trap of thinking I shouldn't be feeling this right now uh we're ashamed of feeling this particular thing I'm not supposed to think this thing about God I'm not supposed to question God I'm not supposed to have this struggle and so we try to just like we'll we'll just give these platitudes to trying to try to skip past the things that we're actually feeling and part of the problem with that is our God is a god of reality and so reality is the only place we can encounter him and so if we're trying to live in this place that's that's imaginary uh if we're trying to live in this place of feeling of the things that we're not actually feeling instead of acknowledging the reality of what we're feeling then we're missing this place that we could be encountering him and at one point you just said father uh Father Michael that um you're praying to be purged of these things but actually nothing in here is a prayer for being purged of the things you're saying in this place of failure Jesus loved me there um and and for for the the unattractive for the unattractive um person for the the abandoned and wounded person Jesus loved them through me you're not saying um yeah you're not asking him to take away the addiction you're not asking him to take away the places that are dead and in the Tomb uh you're not even asking him to to resurrect those places you're asking him to love you there and I think there's there's this great Beauty in in like yes that's what we want right we want to be purged of the sin but we can't be purged of the sin unless we're letting him first love us there you know we've talked before about how the beauty of praying the Jesus prayer with our breathing um one of the Beauties is that if we I like to pray it by um breathing in Lord Jesus Christ breathing out Son of God breathing in have mercy on me and breathing out a sinner and in doing so um in that second half we're first breathing in his mercy and then breathing out the sin because we can get caught in this trap I think also of well I need to get this sin out of my life in order to I need to stop doing this thing in order to then approach approach God and ask him for his mercy and ask him to to for his healing and his forgiveness um but we can't even actually acknowledge the sin much less start being purified of it unless we first allow his Mercy to enter in um yeah that was actually on my list so thank you for no I was I was probably going to skip it so thank you because there's something that she said in the podcast we recorded earlier today you guys will hear in a few weeks there was something about how we are so willing to tell our testimony if we've already undergone healing so if if we're done with it so I I'll share the story as long as I'm better and obious obviously many of us are attempt to do that in confession we go and i' I've done it myself this is the only What I Hear I've done it myself where I go oh I I I I messed up but I'm better now I've been good for the past few days whatever it is you know I gossiped about this person but then I finally told them and I apologized whatever it is you know I I use the very surface ones to not go deeper but um you know there there's these things but we we we want to we want to tell the priest I'm done I'm over I'm Healed that's not why we're in confession we're in confession to be healed or like you said mother to be loved in that moment and so the same thing is true for Testimony um how can we how can we say in the midst of my testimony when it is proper to say I am still struggling we do that within Community we do that within God's not going to just take this away he's going to love me in the midst of it this this struggle may be the cross that heals me so I want to read right now this is from our Byzantine compain it struck me recently we pray this every single night I prayed this a million times and it there's certain aspects of it they just strike me but but we we begin with a prayer to the mother of God and by the way when this is being prayed at compin which is night prayer it's being prayed usually in the midst of a community I'm not always with my community so I pray it alone but but you are oftentimes imagine the father or the mother of a community the one who everybody's looking up to and they pray this prayer basically it's a ritual way of saying I'm a total mess and you say it in front of the entire community and at this point in the evening you're basically saying I struggle with unchastity and so if every one of us struggles with unchastity especially late at night literally the leader of the community is standing in front of an icon of the mother of God and praying this prayer reading off of it and he begins or she begins oh chased and spotless lady never touched by blame or corruption or defilement o Bride of the most high himself so you're about to say I am weak and you start out by saying you never sinned and how intimidating is that to say if I'm really struggling do I want to talk to someone who never failed if I have failed a million times do I really want to go talk to someone who's never failed that's how we are with Christ and so it's hard to say why would I go to Jesus he doesn't understand the scripture is explicit he does understand right he is the high priest who understands us and the same thing is true for the mother of God through his grace but just listen for a moment about how the priest or the or the haguma whoever is in charge here is is admitting their weakness and their sin to the entire community so that as a community they can be healed and this ideally you can say this more confidently if you know Jesus loves you like if you know he's going to heal you he knows he's going to give you then we can in a sense unleash all of these hesitations so I'll try to read it a bit quickly because it's longer than I would like for this for this uh moment the priest just complain about how long the prayer is you brought forth the word of God into this world talk to the mother of God now in a marvelous and mysterious way thus you uniting him to us and joining our nature to the Divine you are the only hope of those who have no hope always ready to come to the aid of every chrisan who seeks refuge in you though I have often defiled myself with all sorts of impurities thoughts and words and deeds though slothfulness has enslaved me to lust though I often find myself weighed down by despair and oppression do not despise me as the mother of God your heart is filled with love and compassion For All Mankind therefore Pity Me In Spite of my sinfulness accept this prayer from these impure lips of mine with boldness that only a mother could manifest implore your son our Lord and God to show me his deep and tender Mercy entreat him not to regard the numberless times I have fallen but to lead me to True repentance that as his friend and follower I may be always conscious ious of his precepts and ever ready to observe them and you sweet lady in your graciousness stay with me take my part at all times enable me to repel all Temptations to achieve my eternal salvation at the moment of my death Embrace and comfort my sorry Soul drive off the terrifying specters of the evil one on that awesome day of judgment save me from Everlasting punishment reveal me as a true heir of that ineffable Glory which your son has promised in his grace and his love to him to his eternal father to his all holy good and life creating spirit is to all glory honor and worship now and ever and forever amen and I just think again you're the leader of a community you're telling everybody that I'm going to go to battle like you are and when we go to bed which this prayer is right before bed I'm going to struggle with self-hatred I'm going to struggle with lust and unchastity I'm going to struggle with condemning others I'm going to struggle with all the things that come with my body getting weaker as I fall asleep my spirit also gets weaker and to be able to admit that not only to yourself but to the entire community of those who look up to you as a mother or as a father is just so beautiful and I think that's one of the results of when we really do know that God loves us the the amount of honesty and humility and accurate self- gazing we can do at that moment to be able to hand these things to Christ and have him deal with them and love us there as you corrected me mother there's there's something so incredibly beautiful but it I would not give this prayer to someone who really really struggled with knowing God's love for them should I father mother should I the lurgy does the church does no you're right the church does it guides us but yeah I I guess so I guess you're right because I'm wrong because because the reason is is because I'm thinking that I am the one to heal them whereas it's God that's going to heal them it's God that's going to talk to them he's going to convict them through the words of the Liturgy of the church not my inspiration or getting anything from me yeah well I think again the more that we are in touch with those places in our hearts we have to find people to whom we can bring them to receive what we need to receive and we need to find the Lord to be able to receive from him what we need to receive and and as much as those places touch the tombs in our hearts as much as they touch the afflictions that we bear they they name all of the things you know it's as you said Jesus is the one who is tempted in every way as it says in the letter to the Hebrews thank God I'm not tempted in every way uh I know the ways that I'm tempted and that prayer is does a good job at covering the various ways that I'm tempted but there are more things in that prayer that I'm not tempted with but it's good to bring out the things that I am tempted with or that I have been tempted with and then I can can bring that to the Lord for for his comfort in the Affliction and uh and I think that you know the the places well we tend to Bear shame around some of these places where we feel unlovable you know one way to Define shame is feeling Unworthy of love and connection very simply so finding the places of Shame where we are also the places where we can really receive love and then that can become the place of of communion that's why the Liturgy is also so interested in bringing these things out that uh and and like with the sacrament of confession you know what you said about people want to come I I had some confessions where you know it's like I I said a little bit into it you're really telling me all your best qualities you know like um and that's lovely but you literally said that I I did it was it was it was appropriate in the context and the person really smiled and and was like oh I guess I am and I said this is the place where you can really bring all of your worst qualities because that's where God wants to love you right now and and I want to communicate that love to you but that's our Temptation we want to put our best foot forward we want to show off all of our best things as the three of us are doing right now I mean let's be honest so we put our best things forward because that's where we're confident that we're loved but the the faith keeps inviting us to find the places where we feel most unlovable where we feel the most shame where we are struggling in the in the Deep ways because God wants us to know that in those places also we are loved and that love needs to be communicated you know again he can do that by his grace and we do that in the Liturgy and that resounds but so often uh well Grace always Builds on nature and the the natural bonds of love that we experience with each other are part of the communication of that as well I want to say something first thanks uh so I was thinking of the the prophecy that Simone passed on to you um as you were sharing about how the difficulty of praying this prayer uh as the priest or as the hegumen or the hea um to to pray this to one who is perfect right to say um oh Chast and spotless lady and to then list all of the ways of imperfection and that that difficulty and the fear of approaching Perfection with our own imperfection um and I think that's like that's part of the truth of this prophecy that you were granted when it says um you represent God the Father well people who encounter you have their false perceptions of God Rewritten and come to know the goodness of God on a new level you have a gift for Unity for uniting what is divided because as you're sharing this I'm thinking of like part of the most healing aspect one of the most healing aspects of our relationship has been you've been my spiritual father for almost 13 years now and um and as you've shared throughout this episode we are very different people we have very different struggles um and and so it's been at times difficult for me to bring to you the things that I struggle with because I know you have no firsthand experience of this and um I know that I know that you're sinful I know that you fell off the pedestal a long time ago and but um but like not with the same the same struggles and the same sins that I have um but you have without fail to go back to the the consistency that father bonfice was talking about you've without fail um received me in those places loved me in those places and in doing so have given me the courage to approach God the Father um knowing that without experiencing sin he can still love me in those places um and and in that way in you in you loving me in my Brokenness um in a Brokenness that's different for your from yours um I think that really helps to like this gift of unity uniting what's divided like that very much is is a a unification of the division of the heart um which is just another experience of of the love of the Father Like that's that's all he wants to do that's why that's why um the mystery of penance the sacrament of confession is like it's listed in the catechism as one of the sacraments of healing um because it's meant to heal it's meant to to unify what's divided um and yeah thank you thank you thank you um that was the perfect application of calling upon the chased one in my un Chasity or for the perfect one in a much less much less of a disparity disparity of reality but anyway thank you love you um I read this the other day on Twitter and it made me think of like I would love for someone to walk confession 5 minutes thank you Beth um I would love for someone to walk into confession and say like here's the sin I had 30 seconds ago you know and I I I know this because or that I'm like still mulling over my head like I'm angry right now whatever it may be and it made me think of Alcoholic Anonymous who because they have they Rejoice if someone has been sober for like an hour and walks in there and and I love this this I just saw on Twitter so I got to read it and I don't know who this is so don't quote me on on the goodness of this guy but an alcoholic friend of Philip yansy once said to him when I'm late to church people turn around and stare at me with grounds of disapproval I get the clear message that I am not as responsible as they are when I'm late to AA the meeting comes to a halt and everyone jumps up to hug me and welcome me they realize that my lateness may be a sign that I almost didn't make it when I show up it proves that my desperate need for them went out over my desperate need for alcohol I thought how how convicting is that for a Christian to say if someone comes late it may be because they almost didn't come you know and and something in them actually had them come in if they if they walk into the confessional it's not because you're doing well it's because you're a mess like the rest of us and and and we we priests who hear confessions need to be reminded of that I hear horror stories all the time and I'm sure I've been tempted to do it myself self to get frustrated by something and like it's not me that confessional it's Jesus and it's his body of the church and he would never say those things but we just need to be reminded sometimes about how the decisions people make and how hard it is sometimes for those things in in what in whatever way they sin so that's interesting those places of judgment are likely you know I'm not late for church and so I'm going to judge you who are late for church so it happens to be one place so again sort of this complimentarity you know if if you look down on mother for all of the things she couldn't do that you can do this relationship would have lasted 5 minutes but the very fact that we can love people in their weakness and and strength and weakness I I like to say beauty is formed in complimentarity and proper balance that's philosophy that's not me but that includes strength and weakness I think strength by itself can be very ugly and weakness by itself self can be very ugly but when strength and weakness come together they form communion and beauty and so our strength should be seeking out the weakness of those who need that strength and our weakness should be exposed to be at the service of or in need of those who have the strength to offer to us and then it's sort of like puzzle pieces you know knobs and holes and the pieces fit together the knobs fit into the holes and the whole collection of strengths and weaknesses fits together in the human family to make up the face of Christ on the picture of that puzzle and so if we can see but our temptation is to sort of gather up around our strength cut off our weaknesses shove them somewhere judge everybody else's weaknesses and then we just have widening gaps between us but when that strength and weakness comes together in complimentarity it just forms something so beautiful like you're sh I want you to have the last word mother um but I I do want to say one thing this story I told recently somewhere else and it was it it I when you said father like I'm not late so I judge those who are late and that's just how we are and we don't understand the difference between strengths and weaknesses um this gave me so much joy and it sounds horrible but it gave me so much joy um you guys ever heard of lead daro and she is such an amazing mother she has like six kids now at the time she had four and she tells this story where she Ricky was a firefighter and so he was working and so she was at church two of the four kids were sick and she's in the back of the church and so one of the kids just starts screaming so she grabs all four kids and she walks into the narx and as she's holding the screaming one the second kid just starts puking everywhere in the narx so she says she's holding the screaming child and she's trying to figure out a way how do I go to the bathroom with three other children and gets something to start cleaning up this mess that this kid has made and she says as she's about ready to despair she looks over the third child has his pants around his ankles and he's urinating in the corner of the entryway to the church and she said finally one of the users ran over was like just point out which one you want me to handle first and I just thought like people don't understand like when we judge kids in church or whatever it is like all the strengths and weaknesses are different so use your strengths to help out someone else's weaknesses and they can use their weaknesses to help out your strengths and it's just it's it's the the difference between our personalities it it's the how the whole body of Christ comes together to say you know I don't need to be father Mike schmidtz I don't need to be sister Bethany I don't need to be mother Natalia I don't need to be father bonab you know that there're within the body of Christ we all have our trains and wees that all fit together to build up the entire entire body and it it's it's so nice when you realize that and in in great confidence but sorry no pressure but can you finish this with something wise and holy no pressure um no I think you should just give us a blessing that's the wisest the holiest thing okay May Lord bless you and keep you cause his face to shine upon you have mercy on you may our Lord send you forth to be truly Earth and vessels confidence in your strengths and confident in your weaknesses may you be assured of his constant companionship may you be desirous of his beautiful Mercy may you be confident in the gifts he's given you and may you share those confidently with those who need them may you truly see yourself as a treasure that God has created exactly how he wanted to and that he fixes and builds up as only he can may you be confident the Lord meet you in your weaknesses and will heal you in his time and according to his patience always be confident in his love above all else may he bless you and save your soul in name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen amen thank you all bless [Applause] [Music] you we hope you enjoy enjoyed this podcast for more info on the seek conference visit seek. focus.org this episode of the seek 24 podcast was produced by spok Street for more great podcasts visit spok street.com

Channel: FOCUS Catholic

Views: 4,230

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Id: 7jSaVks-F4A

Length: 45min 22sec (2722 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024