Sunday Night Prime - The Gift of Understanding - Fr. Andrew Apostoli

tonight we're going to focus on the gift of understanding previously in the last couple of weeks I've been dealing with other gifts that the Holy Spirit gives us to assist our minds to know truths especially the truths that we know through nature we looked at that and the gift of knowledge and that's a gift the Holy Spirit gives us a light to be able to look at the world and appreciate it from a Christian point of view how to live in this world without getting caught up in its in things that would be accessible would lead us into sin lead us away from God that's a beautiful gift the gift of knowledge the other gift we looked at was the gift of wisdom that's the supreme gift of the Holy Spirit and we're talking about the seven sanctifying gifts which the Holy Spirit gives us to grow in holiness and as we looked at wisdom wisdom was the gift that helps us to understand spiritual things in a very deep way and not only to understand them but to have a real taste for these things to really enjoy the things of God so we need the gifts of knowledge and wisdom tonight we're going to speak about the gift of understanding because it assists both the gift of knowledge and the gift of wisdom to grow it's a good and very important gift to help us grow in our prayer life as we'll see it's one of the great effects of the gift of understanding you know there's many things that we know in life and we hear but we don't always understand them for example if I picked up a book on nuclear physics I don't think I'd appear I couldn't appreciate it I don't have a background to understand those kind of things you know the what I deal with are the things of the Holy Spirit that's kind of my area of focus so I'd have to take the author's word for it if I was going to read that book and aren't there many things that we read and hear that we don't understand but we believe them you know for example I don't know how the of gravity works I just know that if I jumped up and I fight wearing a swimming pool and I was on a diving board and I jumped up I'm gonna go down but I can't tell you why that has to happen why can't I just keep going up I've got to know the reasons for that but I believe if certainly that if I jumped off that diving board I end up in that swimming pool hopefully that's where you should end up but so there are many things in life that we know we hear about we believe but we don't always understand and and so it's very important we we have a natural desire to want to know about things and especially when it comes to things of our faith and that would in regard to natural truths we would maybe we can go to classes to learn about things or make a private study or you know do some research through books and tapes and so on we can learn that way but when it comes then to the knowledge of the spiritual life we can also learn through you know going to classes and studying our faith this is very very important we're talking about the truths that we believe God has revealed to us choose that we want to live by and it's important not only to to know them but to understand them and to understand why we do this because it helps our living them out to be a richer fuller experience if we just went on somebody's word you know and we're guided only by that we might have questions we might doubt we might hesitate we might question but if we understand it makes the living of these truths much more agreeable to our human nature because we do have that instinct to want to understand what we believe and so we there was a great saint saying and some he's a doctor of the church and saying in some has a famous saying he said faith seeks understanding you see in other words what he's saying is that there are things we already believe through our Catholic faith the teachings of the Creed and so on but there's many of them that we don't fully understand we have to study them you know that's why we take classes and especially when we're younger our primary formation but we can always go on studying about our faith I spent four years of studying theology and I've only scratched the surface to understand the truths of our faith but not only understanding you can maybe take a class in our CIA program and your parish a Bible study perhaps even together getting together with some friends in a study group that's very very important it helps you again to go beyond just believing these truths which you always have to do but also to get deeper into them we'll see because that's the very meaning of understanding personal study can help you reading books listening to tapes I love to listen to Archbishop Fulton Sheen's tapes you know a lot of people tell me you know when I'm working for the cause of the archbishop for his canonization so many people tell me they listen to his tapes they read his books and they think he wrote these books you know he gave this talk like two or three days ago that's how that's how a current his thought is he was you know he had his finger on the pulse that's for sure and I believe he was guided by the Holy Spirit he used to say that his insights came from his prayer before the Blessed Sacrament you remember he made his Eucharistic holy hour every day so that's one place where we certainly can grow in understanding and as I say I personally love to listen to his books to read his books and listen to his tapes and so on let me give you an example between the difference between faith and understanding take a rose bud now when the rose bud is closed when that bud first comes out on the rosebush all the petals of the rose are there but they're all you know closed in the bud has not yet blossomed and so we have all the petals of the rose present but we can't appreciate its beauty it had those buds have to have to blossom the you know rose petal by petal has to open so we can see the beauty of the rose fully blossoming at the same time we can get the fragrance the full fragrance of that of that rose so the bud is like the truths we believe in the rose is like understanding them understanding helps to open them up where we see and appreciate their beauty you know we are attracted to want to live them and that's the work of this beautiful gift of understanding truths are unfolding truths open up for us and that's very very important and you know st. Paul in his letter to the Philippians chapter one he tells us that it's a beautiful quote here where he's talking that he's praying for his converts there in Philippi God himself can testify how much I longed for each of you with the affection of Christ Jesus my prayer is that your love may more and more abound both in understanding and wealth of experience so that were the clear conscience and blameless conduct you may learn to value the things that really matter up to the very day of Christ isn't that a beautiful passage st. Paul telling them how much he longs for each one of them with the affection of Christ and then he says that his daily prayer for them is that the love they already have may continue to grow and develop through two things understanding which is this gift of the Holy Spirit we'll see in a moment how it helps us penetrate those divine truths we live by but at the same time wealth of experience you know experience is a very important source of knowledge it's one thing to be know and the task I know when I was first a teacher teaching in high school and it was a challenge no getting to know the ways of being a teacher preparing your classes and how to deal with the students how to challenge them and the like when you're new at it it sometimes can seem a very difficult task challenging for sure but after you've done it for a number of years you know you've got plenty of experience as I always say I've been around the block a few times I think I know I think I understand a lot of what's going on so the gift of understanding this light of the Holy Spirit is certainly assisted by the experience by the experiences we have and that's very very important especially maybe parents in raising their children that's very important to have experience you know maybe the way they raise their their first child you know they might be very anxious concerned about a lot of things make sure that everything is done you know just according through everything that should be done and they might anguish over it and get nervous about it because they haven't been through it yet but when you've been maybe a third child or fourth child I take it in stride hmm you know from experience I don't have to worry so much and that that's very important for us to realize so Saint Paul prayed that their love would abound that they would understand more and more what God was calling them to if we understood what the love of God meant to us you know we I think we would never stop loving him we would want only to love him more and more and when we have the experience of these things we would come to what st. Paul said you know what he spoke about here a clear conscience in other words as we grow in the spiritual life we're going to want to put sin away more and more so our conscience becomes clearer we know what is right we know what pleases God as opposed to what's wrong and what this pleases him so we need that clear conscience and to have blameless conduct to live the way we should so understanding and the the gift of experience are very important so what is understanding well it's interesting if you look at the the where the word in Latin comes from the word and in Latin is intellect them and it comes from two Latin words in terror which means between and later a which is the verb to read so if you put them together what it means is that this gift is like reading between the lines have you ever heard that expression when you go beyond the surface meaning you're gonna read between the lines you're gonna find something deeper and that's what this gift of the Holy Spirit helps us to do where someone once said how it could also mean to read inwardly to penetrate more deeply into these truths that God has revealed to us you see this gift of the Holy Spirit relates to the virtue of faith and faith is where it all begins right eternal life to st. John when he wrote his gospel he said I have written these things that you may believe and that believing you may have life in his name so it's faith that begins that's like that bud where we where we believe all the truths that God has revealed but that many of them you know we have to take these truths on faith because we don't see many of them for example scripture says blessed is he who who has not seen and yet has believed those are the words of our Lord after he had risen from the dead remember and Thomas doubted about his resurrection how he was feel sorry for st. Thomas he's got the title the doubter your other apostles didn't do very well even when they saw there is in Christ they were incredulous they could hardly believe it they although it had to eat a piece of fish to convince him it was really him you know poor Thomas missed a meeting as they say you miss a meeting and things happen so he got labeled the doubter and and so our Lord when he acknowledged our Lord and said you know my Lord and my God Jesus said more blessed Thomas you believe because you have seen me but more blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed and there's many truths of our faith which we have not seen I've not seen the Blessed Trinity I don't think anybody listening has seen the Trinity or the Christ in the Eucharist or the risen Lord or the power of the sacrament of Holy Orders especially the priest standing at the altar consecrating you know the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ so we haven't seen these things but we believe them now we're gonna take a break now but we'll be right back you we've been talking about the gift of understanding and saying how this gift perfects the virtue of faith now we were talking about how there's many mysteries many teachings of our religion that we accept on faith we don't always understand them we haven't seen them I'm just mentioning as we were closing with a previous segment talking about how we haven't seen the Blessed Trinity we haven't seen the risen Lord we haven't seen Jesus in the Eucharist but we believe now as time goes on these we want to understand these truths more fully we believe because of two reasons because we hold that God revealed these truths the revelation of the church which the public revelation of the church where God revealed in the Old Testament and New Testament two truths he wants us to live by that revelation ended with the death of the last apostle there can be no more public official revelation to the church there can be private revelations apparitions for example of Our Lady of Fatima and Lourdes and that kind of you know that kind of revelation but that's private it's meant for you know parts of the church at different times but the official public revelation of the church ended with the death of the last apostle but in our Catholic faith we believe these truths may be because we believe God revealed them in that public official revelation and at the same time we believe them because the Roman Catholic Church teaches them these are the truths of our faith which the Church teaches in the teaching office of the church the Pope the bishops this is the official Magisterium or or teaching office of the church now we accept these truths then on faith but we don't necessarily understand them and that's why those words I mentioned previously of Saint Anselm that faith seeks understanding is so important you know in fact Saint Agustin even put in a different way he said I believe in order that I may understand in Latin he said credo or in Telugu I believe in order that they might understand in other words by believing we already accept these truths as that's true but it gives us time to penetrate them and that's what we said the gift of understanding is to go deeper to read between the lines let me give an example from Scripture a very famous chapter chapter of Saint John's Gospel chapter 6 very important because there our Lord taught about the gift of the Eucharist he spoke of the breath of life remember he said he had fed the people with with the manna with not the vanity the bread that he multiplied the loaves and the next day they wanted to make him a king and he fled but when they found him he said don't seek for me because of the bread that's keep your bodies alive you know he said I will give you the real red from heaven which is my own flesh and my blood so he told them I'm going to feed you they said my flesh is real food my blood is real drink and the one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life in them and I will raise them up on the last day he was telling us about the beautiful gift he would give us in the Eucharist now when the crowds heard that they were turned off they said how can any man feed us with his body and blood well Jesus wasn't just any man he was the son of God but because they didn't understand they wouldn't believe him and so they walked away as Bishop Sheen said about that incident Jesus lost the crowds that day because they wouldn't wait to understand if they could if they couldn't understand they wouldn't believe it's like saying unless I see it I'm not going to believe it now Jesus after the crowds are walking away Jesus turns to except Twelve Apostles and he says are you going to leave me also as if to say if you don't believe me go with them they don't believe and they're walking away and what does Peter say he spoke he's the spokesman isn't he he always speaks the faith of the church you know just as he said you are the Christ the Son of the Living God on this occasion he says to Jesus we've come to believe in you you alone have the words of eternal life who else could we go to if we leave you who are we going to go to who we going to believe we've come to believe in you we come to believe that you are the son of God now Peter at that point made an act of faith we believe in you but you know what he still didn't understand the difference between Peters and the apostles staying and the crowd leaving was that the crowd demanded to understand what Jesus meant before they would believe him and so not giving him a chance because they didn't believe that it they didn't have any chance to understand later on Peter had faith in Jesus which there was Jesus word I trust your word that's faith taking it on the word of the Lord but then remember by staying he understood later on at the Last Supper when Jesus took the bread and said this is my body took the cup of wine and said this is my blood and so when Saint Agustin says I believe in order that I may understand that's an example of it Peter believed and later on he understood and you and I we have to hold on to these truths by believing in them but as time goes on we also want to understand them and don't you appreciate the gift of the Eucharist in your own life now more than maybe the day you made your first saw the communion I'm sure that was a beautiful day and a day of great you know sweet memories for you because you receive Christ for the first time but as your love has grown haven't you understood him more fully each time you receive him say so faith has been seeking I'm believing in order that I may understand faith is seeking understanding now how can we describe this beautiful gift of understanding from the Holy Spirit well it's like an interior light the Holy Spirit gives us and in this light he gives us a deeper insight into the revealed truths that God has made known to us see that we can understand all mysteries we won't even understand the Blessed Trinity though we will be with the Blessed Trinity in heaven forever we will see the Trinity and the three divine persons as they are but because we aren't limited finite and God is infinite we can never fully grasp God even in heaven it's impossible because our intelligence we'd have to be the fourth person of the Blessed Trinity to understand God fully we will love him we will know him as much as we can okay it's like for example if you've got a 10 ounce glass you know and you've got 50 gallons of water you can't fit 50 gallons in a 10 ounce glass it can only hold the 10 ounce glass can only hold so much that's like our capacity to know and love and even in heaven it's limited compared to how great and infinite God is but we will be perfectly happy in heaven and so God is giving us this inner light the Holy Spirit to give us deep insights and then what are the effects then of having this beautiful gift in our life well first of all it will assist our growth in prayer we need this gift this draw this penetrating insight because when we pray basically what happens is we come to know who God is we come to know who we are Saint Francis but all night was in an ecstasy and all he prayed was Lord who are you lord Who am I hmm so when you pray one of the things God will do he will reveal himself to you more deeply you'll come to know him in more personal way you'll begin to recognize his beauty His goodness is love that should be happening in your prayer life in some way no not every single day you go to pray you're gonna get some marvelous revelations that doesn't happen like that but as time goes on your relationship will deepen and he will especially the more you become faithful to him the more you try to love him the more he will manifest himself to you but at the same time you're also going to see yourself in return huh God we will see God's beauty and see God's mercy his goodness but at the same time what we also recognize ourselves our sinfulness our need for God we have to be convinced of that and in prayer we can understand as well as well our understanding rose of who God is and who we are we realize more and more I need him didn't he tell the Apostles at the Last Supper without me you can do nothing and you know when you pray and God convicts you of that maybe it's because we you know did something wrong there that we had an argument with somebody or we lost our patience and things were going wrong and maybe we used words we shouldn't have been using and all of a sudden you go to pray to the Lord you're gonna tell you you know see how much you need me you can't do it without my grace don't let pride get in your heart that's why Saint Teresa of Avila says that from the very beginning from the first mansion to the seventh mansion she said you need the gift of knowing who you are self-knowledge and it and that will lead you to humility so Lord who are you like st. Francis prayed Lord Who am I through the gift of understanding we know this and that understanding will help our minds will give us a clearer insight as to who God is but it will also arouse our hearts you know and that's very beautiful a second effect of this beautiful gift of understanding is that as we meditate we can penetrate the Scriptures more deeply you know the the Fathers of the Church going all the way back to the early centuries of Christianity especially in the Middle Ages they spoke about the different senses of Scripture for example there's a literal historical sense that's the very meaning of the words that are used in Scripture that's the literal meaning of Scripture so we take the words just as what it's saying or if it's describing a historical event it's the historical meaning of Scripture but sometimes in Scripture there's also a deeper spiritual meaning example a symbolism when we meet about the manna in the Old Testament for example we spread acknowledge that as foreshadowing you know the Eucharist in the New Testament or when we hear about the the Paschal meal the Passover meal where the the lamb was sacrificed we'd begin to see that lamb as representing later on Jesus the Lamb of God who offered himself in sacrifice upon the cross so we begin to see a deeper meaning in the scriptures or even Jesus himself did that remember in the Old Testament when the people were sort of rebelling against God complaining remember God punished them by sending these poisonous serpents among them and the people ran to Moses and told them were sorry for complaining against God and against you pray for us protect us remember when he prayed God told him put a bronze serpent on a tree and anyone who gets bitten by these poisonous serpents if they looked at that bronze serpent they will be healed and Jesus in the New Testament takes that symbol of the bronze serpent and says just as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the desert you said so the Son of Man will be lifted up on the tree of the Cross and isn't he our salvation so we turned to him so there was a deeper meaning a spiritual meaning sometimes we even find a deeper moral application in our lives for example when Jesus said to love your enemy now he didn't mean necessarily someone with a gun or you know somebody's out there to get us that way he could have meant somebody who's very disturbing to us annoys us maybe we find a conflict with maybe a personality clash it might be a jealousy it might be someone who's hurt us and it's difficult to learn to love them isn't it and we apply those words of Jesus to that person love your enemy this difficult person I have to learn to love with the love Jesus would teach me because if I only loved the nice people Jesus himself said remember that if you love nice people he said he said anybody can do that the pagans can do they can land that those who lend back to them but you must be ready to love in an unconditional way to love the poor to love the stranger to love the sinner you know to love someone who may have heard us so there are deeper senses of Scripture and when we pray especially this gift of understanding helps us to apply these scriptures more fully you know in our personal lives and we need that helps us to work to see a kind of have a sense of discernment to see God had work in our lives things that happened to us maybe things that were a little bit disappointing when we when they first occurred to us but later on as we look back and we see how God was really you know moving us in in a certain direction maybe it's to a call to our vocation to marriage to the priesthood through the religious life whatever it may things and or even a person may come to realize a ministry that they are being called to so discernment helps us to distinguish the good from the bad and finally we also see God's hand working in the world around us how his divine providence is guiding everything those are some of the beautiful effects of the gift of understanding we're going to take a break now and we'll be right back but how do your questions ready because we'd like to answer them as best we can you well we've been talking about this beautiful gift of the Holy Spirit called the gift of understanding before we get through our phone calls we I know we have a caller here I just want to mention one other point is that do the gift of understanding the the it helps us to be more solid in our faith you see we already believe by faith but because now we understand we have a better grasp of these things and we can we can be more firm in our faith we can also have the ability you know to show others to teach other people about the things of our faith and we come to we be we come to realize that even even the great mysteries of our faith they're not contradictory they're not illogical they're worthy of acceptance you know Bishop Sheen used to say if I believed what 95% of the people who leave the Catholic Church say they are leaving the church because they say the Church teaches certain things if I believed what they believed he said I would leave with them but my own understanding tells me that they are wrong you know they are have a great misunderstanding and certainly would need the gift of understanding so we're going to take our first call we have a call from Chrissy Chrissy where are you from and what's your call or your comment thank you very much fellas this is Chrissy rainy Selena wanna braska how does one understand whether it's one of the three yes whether it is one of the three over the other of the three of the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ hmm God the Father how do we distinguish them is that what you mean yeah yeah well Chrissy that's a very good question we can't always distinguish them because they often work together you know as the Trinity they affect our lives but we always say that it's the the father who gives the tasks to be done it's like st. Paul said that's the father who gives us the works that have to be done it's Jesus who shows us how to serve because he said I'm in your midst as one who serves and it's the Holy Spirit who provides the gifts that we need to grow and in this case with the gift of understanding so all three of them though will help us to grow all three of them will assist us in the tasks that are given to us in life so it's not always easy to distinguish we can we have to keep in mind that the things that Jesus did when he became men and what's recorded in the gospel we know that the father was not doing them and the Holy Spirit was not doing them he was doing them in his humanity that's clear to us but in the the father was involved in sending his son and Jesus said he always did what the father wanted him to do and he sent us the Holy Spirit so all three of the divine persons work very closely together so Christi I don't think it's always possible to make a clear distinction between the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit working in our lives sometimes we can person can become very sensitive to God's presence but I think that would take someone who's really grown very close to God and can have a sense of distinguishing the Father the Son and Holy Spirit we have another call here call from John John where are you from and what's your question or your comment oh hello father company John from Ohio st. Francis of Assisi seem to have revealed extraordinary understanding of God himself and the spiritual life can you comment on that and give examples I know you already did give an example and we have to bear in mind his gift was not received by book learning and thank you that's correct John very good point st. Francis in his rule he said that this is what the Friars is particularly the friars who were not educated he said this is what they should particularly desire to have is to have the the Holy Spirit the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives to have the Holy Spirit guiding them the revelation that you know the understanding that the Holy Spirit would illuminate them with so he himself was very very open to the Holy Spirit when I when I wrote one of my books on the Holy Spirit I've written five of them on the Holy Spirit but when I wrote one of them I mentioned in there a quotation from Saint Bonaventure who tells us who mentioned I think it was 80 references to the Holy Spirit in the life of st. Francis so sin Frances life was very opened in all the spirit well I'll give you a good example of something where st. Francis was able to penetrate a teaching of the church and end up understanding something else and that was his love for the Holy Eucharist in his his Testament which he wrote at the end of his life he wrote to sort of remind the Friars what it was like when his order began and so he went back to that very beginning when God called him when his first followers came when the order was just beginning and how they were living very simply and so on and he says there that the Lord gave him great faith in the Eucharist the fact he taught the friar is a prayer which we say every day in our community we adore you most holy Lord Jesus Christ here and in all your churches throughout the world and we bless you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world and he told the Friars if they even saw a church in the distance or they went into the church and the Blessed Sacrament was there they should kneel in the direction of that church or genuflect when they came in and offer that prayer because Christ was there in the Eucharist now that may seem well very commonplace especially in and entering the church today we're very aware of that but at the time of st. Francis there was not a lot of devotion given to Jesus in the Eucharist the Eucharist was kept there but often in a something look like a silver dove and off to the side it was not the focus of devotion but Francis was inspiring to have this deep devotion for the Eucharist but you know what he learned from that he learned a great sense of the dignity of the priesthood and this was very important because it led to him for example having great trust in the role of the Holy Father the Pope at the time si remember there were other Brotherhood's there were other groups that stressed poverty community but many of them ended up either in heresy or they became very anti-clerical st. Francis remained very faithful to the church because he linked the Eucharist linked him to the Pope the Eucharist linked him to priests and that's why he had the greatest reverence for priests he just to say if I met an angel and a priest at the same time I would kneel and kiss the hand of the priest then greet the angel and so that kept him and his order from going off into heresy and into anti-clerical attitudes and were sort of drifting away from the center of the church so one doctrine one belief and his devotion to the Eucharist led him to a great reverence respect and obedience for the Holy Father the authority of the church even simple priest when he heard the Gospel read in the Church of Our Lady of the Angels was the gospel where Jesus was sending the Apostles out with nothing no money for the journey no traveling bag and so on when he heard that gospel he was deeply moved and he went to the priest he asked the priest what does this gospel mean he wanted the priests to tell him and the priest said well that's the apostolic Way of life if you want to live like an apostle that's the way you have to live and he said this is what I want this is what I desire this is what I longed for with all my heart and that's the way he lived and he is credited st. Francis is credited with restoring the apostolic Way of life in the church the in the 13th century remember much of religious life for 800 years or so and especially in the West was dominated by monasticism with amongst living in the monasteries Saint Francis said to his friars the world is your monastery here to go out like Jesus sending the apostles to preach the gospel and bring the message of salvation that way that was the way he heard the gospel call so one one doctrine that he believed in and his devotion for the Eucharist gave him the understanding of relating it to the church it was very very important we have another question call from James James were you from and what's your question or your comment hey oh I'm in the Longview Texas House east of Dallas about 125 mile anyhow good evening I was just wondering if you could give me your perspective on illnesses and tragedies striking our lives and how these events may draw us closer to understanding gospel principles I mean I myself was struck with camps from 1984 and I think I'm more compassionate more charitable hopefully a better Christian but I hope I'm not tested like that again if you get my meaning with a heavy load J James thank you for your comment your question that's very good you remind me of a story of mother Teresa of Calcutta she went to the hospital and she was speaking to a woman who was in bed in the hospital she had had many illnesses and many sufferings and mother Teresa told this woman she said you know all of your illnesses all of your sufferings they are kisses from Jesus on the cross and the woman said to mother Teresa mother would you please tell Jesus not to love me so much now you know we all know even the Saints understood sufferings were difficult look at Saint Teresa's remark when she fell in the stream you know and she got soaking wet she fell off a little cart she was going across the stream she fell into the streams and got soaking wet from head to foot when she got out of the water Jesus spoke to her and said Teresa you see how I treat my friends and she said well now I see why you have so few of them now it's one thing to to be afflicted with an illness generally we may be angry we may resent it they feel sorry for ourselves there's all kinds of reactions it takes time see this is where that gift of understanding has to work I have to accept maybe it's a blind act of faith just like we've been saying about faith you know it's just an act of faith to believe this that this comes from God that God wanted this but just like that little bud that has to open petal by petal to its fullness so we can appreciate the beauty the fragrance of the rose okay so we have to when it comes to sicknesses tragedies difficulties that God allows trials that come our way and we all have them you know may take a while to be resigned to what God permits you know that's part of the growth of holiness you begin to recognize beyond the cross beyond letting it make you resentful and angry and bitter so you remember they used to say suffering will either make you better or bitter it becomes bitter when you resent it when you hate it when you want everything you can to get rid of it and you get angry over it that's bitterness you're better when you realize God has permitted this there's a reason just as Jesus carrying that cross there's a reason saying and I accept it I understand beginning to understand that God sent this for a reason see that's resignation you go from maybe just trying to be patient with something to resignation I accept it and that's a major step in accepting the cross and as your love for God increases well you will accept these crosses that God permitted now if you reach some of those higher stages of prayer like that being a unitive way the sixth and seventh mansions where that's the area of saints you will not only accept the cross you may even pray for it like st. Teresa reached those levels and she used to pray Lord either let me suffer or let me die in other words if my life doesn't have some suffering to offer you it's probably not worth at this point to live you know now that's a very deep level of Prayer hmm but accepting this it's one thing to accept what God permits and sins okay that's one thing it's another thing to even pray that you might share more deeply in the cross of Jesus so you have to make that distinction but the gift of understanding casts a light over that suffering you see and that's very very important to remember we have a call from Robert Robert where are you from and what's your question and/or comment all right I'm from Fort Lauderdale Florida father and my question is I'm 67 years old I have a master's in philosophy a lot of people think I'm a wonderful Catholic and yet all of my life I've had a problem in one issue I could never reconcile what the Church teaches with what my conscience says I have prayed for understanding all my life and I finally got to the point where fine my conscience is my guide which might be at variance with what the Church teaches and the church is understanding so well what do you make of that well Robert you sound very sincere it's the Lord alone who can give you that understanding then then I would suggest this if you've done everything you can up to this point there may be one other thing you can do I remember one time mother Teresa told me one day as I was talking with her she said to me with her little accent father I have a new prayer I pray to God God if I am doing anything that offends you let it fall apart before my very eyes I'd be very afraid to say that prayer wonder how much of my life would fall apart I'd be a little bit hesitant but let me say okay Robert maybe that's the prayer you need now to say Lord you said you're following your conscience which is at variance with church teaching you can't see why the Church teaches it you don't understand you can't accept it then tell Jesus Lord if I am offending you let me see what I'm doing wrong that's a it's kind of like going to the back door you've been trying to go through the front door I'm asking you to go through the back door now to get into the house getting into the house is the main thing you've tried the front door apparently you've said you prayed for years and years and you sound sincere I can't give you the gift of understanding only God can give you that gift but if you are doing something wrong you can ask him Lord let me stop so that I don't offend you that I think will be another approach to the same question try it out I will pray for you and I hope the audience too will be also been doing that that you will receive that understanding of the Spirit we have another call here from Joe Joe where are you from and Joe what is yours father hi I would like to know through the Holy Spirit how can we understand the signal Grace's and sanctifying Grace's the gifts of them from the Holy Spirit thank you what signal graces I'm not exactly sure what that would mean unless that means the charismatic gifts a signal graces sanctifying grace refers to our belief that God dwells within us Jesus himself speaks of that remember when he said in the gospel he said to the Apostles I believe that the route Last Supper he said if anyone loves me he will keep my Commandments right in other words love prompts us not to offend God love prompts us to do what God wants us to do therefore Jesus could say if anyone loves me he will keep my Commandments and anyone who keeps my Commandments my father and I will come and dwell within them and so that's very very important to realize that that the Holy Spirit will come and dwell in us and that in dwelling along with the Holy Spirit because st. Paul says don't you know your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you he said then he said those three three divine persons welling in us a called the indwelling and that sanctifying grace is that divine presence within the soul now single singular Grace's uh if you mean by that the charismatic gifts those gifts st. Paul says are not given to everyone they're given only to certain people who have to have these gifts to help build up the mystical body the church the body of Christ and that's very very important to have those gifts so to give the working miracles not everybody has given that gift the gift of disarming of spirits not everyone has that gift as well but singular graces like that are given by God to certain individuals to carry out certain missions that the church needs well take one more call we have a call here from Andrew Andrew where are you from and what is your your coal what is your question we have only a few moments to answer this hello father I'm from Connecticut I like your name anyhow my question is I had like this insight that when you were speaking about understand that we need to believe and then understand and I didn't know is it accurate that that's similar to being childlike as opposed to if we're not childlike we try to understand then believe that's correct Andrew that's a very good insight yes it is being childlike children naturally trust children naturally have almost kind of natural faith so we need to we need to put that trust in God so you remember when we said the crowds walked away from Jesus when he was talking about the Eucharist because they wanted to understand first they wanted to see what he meant they didn't stick around long enough to really receive the gift of understanding because they didn't believe they didn't believe Jesus they walked away Peter in the Apostles stayed because they believed Jesus we're gonna have to end our program now we're coming to the end it's been a wonderful time I hope you pray for this gift of understanding in your personal life it'll help you to grow in prayer living your Christian life let's offer a little blessing here as we are ready to close our program for this evening Heavenly Father send your holy spirit upon your people so that we may understand that he may give us this beautiful gift we may understand our faith live it more fully and our relationship will grow with you god bless you give you his peace well you know I'm going to appeal to all of you that this wonderful station EWTN global Catholic television is going all around the world but it can't go on its own you know just as any other human Enterprise it rests not only on grace but also needs support not only by prayer but also financial support and so I appeal to you to keep this wonderful station going as Pope Benedict the 16th said some time ago he said that the Catholic Church needs EWTN so please help the station this wonderful work that Mother Angelica was inspired to begin I just saw her a few weeks ago she's wonderful she she's got that great faith and she wants the network to continue please help her to continue be as generous as you can God will bless you for any contribution you make again god bless you all

Channel: EWTN

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Id: NVsLQDOxQwk

Length: 52min 49sec (3169 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 03 2012