Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #470 The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living! #1 An Introduction!

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#470 The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living! #1 An Introduction! · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, the production of the John Paul Touring News Center.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Rigger, your host, and, as always, I'm glad you're with me.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I hope you're doing well.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: As you know, usually on Wednesday I'm here with Linda Piper and we unpack an audience of John Paul II's theology of the body Very beautiful, very powerful work.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It's really so needed today and I enjoy it so much and I hope you're getting something out of it and you're sharing it with your friends and family.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: John Paul II gave us this incredible vocabulary in order to speak to the human heart, to speak to our children and our wives and our priests, and to have a dialogue and open it up and to understand what's going on in our culture.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And these are evil times we find ourselves in and it's so important to be able to grasp the truth, answering the big questions who am I?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: What's the meaning of purpose of my life?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Why were we created male and female?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, you would think that we'd understand why we're created male and female, but we need to unpack these things.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: What's the meaning of purpose of my life?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Like I said, how do I find happiness, joy, peace?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: People ask me these things all the time, and marriages?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: How do I find love that lasts forever?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: These are powerful things and that's what we've been unpacking with theology.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: The body, this is powerful stuff, but, but, but with all of that said, I'm going to reintroduce a series today that Father Ryan Browning and I recorded during COVID, and it's on the discernment of spirits, a very important understanding for those of us who really have opened our eyes just a little bit, and opening them more and more and more.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And we sense, don't we?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We have the sense that something is going on.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Today, we sense the spiritual battle that we're in.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how, how evil has kind of raised its head.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It's no longer below the surface.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Well, as we go along, the discernment of spirits, what we're talking about with the series right now that I'm going to reintroduce here over the next couple of weeks during Lent, it's a timeless, practical teaching passed down to us from Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and it's very helpful.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: These 14 rules he caused them, which are not just rules that you memorize.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: It's really beautiful, powerful stuff.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: It's able to discern what's going on in your own heart.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Very practical they're, they're helpful.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Like I said, in these evil times we find ourselves, and I firmly believe that these times are going to get worse.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Sorry, sorry, you probably thought I was going to bring you some good news, right?
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately I've been accurate so far when I started this podcast four years ago and I started because I sensed this acceleration of evil coming, and yet it was only a few months later we had experienced the COVID pandemic, and I said it then, and I think now it's going to get worse, and I think, really, we're going to see an acceleration of this as we move closer to this November election.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Something's going to happen between now and then.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It's going to be quite a journey, so I hope we all buckle up right.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It's time for all of us really to turn intensely, take this time to turn intensely with this focus, like a razor focus on our crucified and risen Lord, and to be able to spend more time in the sacraments and in prayer, praying the rosary, reading scripture, going out, doing good things in the world, and when you do that, the evil one, though, is going to try to disrupt you, disrupt your heart, bring a disruption into the depth of who you are, try to disturb your peace and your joy, and so I want you to have a clarity of heart in this battle and that we're all in right now and Saint Ignatius of Loyola gives us these timeless practical ways or rules he calls them that we can understand this battle going on in our own hearts.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So I figured, as we get closer to Easter and start to wind down during Lent, that this would be a good time to reintroduce this series that I said.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: That again, I said has been so helpful it's really to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people over the years.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Today I want to just reintroduce this work, give you some background into what I'm seeing out there and in a kind of overview today of why it's so important to understand the spiritual warfare we're in, and then over the next couple weeks, with Father Ryan Browning, we unpack these rules of St Ignatius of Loyola.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I also want to give you a little background today on St Ignatius himself and how he came to put these rules together.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I think you're gonna find them really interesting.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: And then on Friday I'll play the first in this series and then, a couple times a week, check back with us for the next couple of weeks.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: The series will be five or six episodes and hopefully you'll be interested enough to pick up Father Timothy Gallagher's great book and a discernment of spirits, or maybe a little bit easier read would be Dan Burke's book on spiritual warfare and the discernment of spirits.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I'll put those in the show notes.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, buckle up and get ready for today's episode.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: This is the introductory episode to the discernment of spirits, but I'll be reintroducing.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Like I said in the intro, I wanna give you a little bit of a whole background, a picture.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Let's go above the trees here, and then I'm going to wind this down today's episode with a little story about St Ignatius himself, so you get a little idea of where he came from and how he came to put these 14 rules or ways practical ways I don't like to use the word rules, I guess, even though he called them rules sometimes but they're really just practical ways to understand your own heart.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: How important today.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: So let me go above the trees with you.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Let me kind of lay out the way I feel right now, what I'm seeing in the world, and then I hope that kind of just gives you a little idea why I think the series needs to be introduced right now and I hope you'll agree.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Jesus said when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: This is John, chapter 12.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And then we go on in the first letter of John to hear the whole world is under the power of the evil one.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: So that's the story we came into, isn't it?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: You know we forget it sometimes.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You know we came into a world under the powers and the principalities of this world, the demons, satan himself.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we forget about that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Jesus came into the world to break that spell, to break the spell of sin and death, and that's why he says this whole world is under the power of the evil one.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: John says but then Jesus said but when I'm lifted up to the earth, I'm gonna draw all people to myself.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Well, all people.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: What does he mean by that?
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: So we're reading these divine words and it gives us perfect awareness of what's really happening in the world, within human history, with him, and consider really in its depths the human story.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Our story is a confrontation between two forces the force of attraction and this is who sources that wounded heart with the crucified, risen one and the power of Satan who does not wanna be ousted from his kingdom.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: This is the story we came into.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: We don't understand this sometimes, do we?
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: This is what we're seeing around us.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: The area in which this confrontation takes place is where the individual human heart.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: This is again something that we're not aware of.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: We see the evil going on in the world, but really this confrontation first takes place in the individual human heart and then we take this evil or good out into the world, depending on who we were attracted to, either Jesus Christ or the evil one right.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: This is where our human liberty comes from.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: We're free.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: We're free to decide.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And the confrontation, this confrontation has two dimensions then right, an interior dimension, the dimension of the heart, and an exterior dimension, because then we go out and we form friendships and families and we get married and we go out in the culture and take jobs.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: You see, either we're bringing this force of Jesus, the crucified, risen one, or we're bringing the force of evil into the world.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: So let's consider briefly the interior and then the exterior.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: One right At the trial and this is from Cardinal Caffar, of many of these insights in a talk that he gave.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: You've probably heard me talk about this before, so let me just give you these insights.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: At the trial before Pilate, the governor asked Jesus whether he was a king, whether which is the meaning of Pilate's question.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: He has true, sovereign political power over a given territory.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Well, jesus responds you say that I am a king.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: For this I was born and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: This is from John 18, chapter, or verse 37.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Jesus wants us to understand that his kingship is not of the kings of this world, but consists of the obedience of his subjects to his word, to his truth.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Although he reigns over his subjects, it's not through force or power, but through the truth of which he has witnessed, to which all who are from the truth receive with faith.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: The great doctor of the church, st Thomas Aquinas, puts the following words into the mouth of the Savior.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I begin, quote as I myself manifest truth.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: This is Jesus, so I am preparing a kingdom for myself.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: End quote Jesus on the cross attracts everyone to himself because it's on the cross that the truth of which he has a witness is seen so powerfully.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yet this force of attraction can only take effect on who?
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: On those who are of the truth, who are from the truth, that is, and those who are profoundly available to the truth, who love truth, who live in familiarity with it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You have to be open to the truth, you have to seek the truth.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: This is what our reason does, though.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Our reason, if understood properly, seeks the truth.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Why is this innate in us?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Because we are part of God.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: This is the story that runs through our blood.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: We seek the truth.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: We seek what's good.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Pascal writes this you would not seek me if you had not already found me.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: See, just because we're seeking Jesus already, we're seeking the truth.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: We're already, you know, we've already found God, if we just latch onto that.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: He who holds the entire world now under his sway, instead dominates through lies.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Jesus says of Satan he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there's no truth in him.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: When he speaks, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: That's John 8.44.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: The wording is dramatic.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: The first proposition he was a murderer from the beginning is explained by the second.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And he does not stand in the truth.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: The murder which the devil performs consists in what?
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: In his not standing in the truth, not dwelling in the truth.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: It is murder because he is seeking to extinguish, to kill in the heart of man truth and the desire for truth by inducing man to unbelieve.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: He wants man to close himself to the light of the divine revelation, which is the word incarnate.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Therefore, these words of Jesus on Satan do not speak of the fall of angels.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: They speak of something far more profound, something frightful.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Cardinal Kfarah said the battle we see today in the whole world, starting at the very top and working its way all the way through every country and every culture, is this great battle taking place between the attraction to the crucified and risen one or, having rejected Jesus Christ, have given themselves over, either intentionally or naively, the attraction and the power of the evil one.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Now, as I go about my work at the John Paul 2 renewal center, I see more and more people not the majority, but more and more are waking up to this fact and they are starting to see clearly the weeds and the weed growing together and God's allowing this.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: But there's a great confrontation getting ready to take place between those who clearly see that they were created by God and those that believe that their lives were just an accident of history, kind of like Adams at hitting Adams hitting Adams If you believe in the God, who created you and you were created in his image and likeness, in love and for eternal life with him, or you reject him and you give yourself over to Satan, the evil one who hates God and is a liar and the father of lies and a murderer from the very beginning.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Isn't this what we're seeing in the world today?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: We're seeing very clearly.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Now the weeds and the weed grow up together.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: We're starting to see people really choose sides today like never before.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: This is why you can sense that something is happening.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: We see this happening in families.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: We see this happening in the church.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: We see this happening in our political and polity and all three of those what the church would call necessary societies marriage in the family, christ in the church and the way we organize ourselves in society from a political standpoint.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: We're seeing these divisions.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: You can see it right in the church, how people stand up cardinal against cardinal, bishop against bishop.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: And since he cannot overcome God I'm talking about Satan or since Satan cannot overcome God, he turns to who, to human beings, created an image and likeness of God and he knows his time on earth is limited and he seeks to destroy today, and at almost alarming rate God's creation and we're talking about humanity, and he attacks the human heart.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Think about this.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Today, it's normal to murder children in the womb.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: It's normal.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: This is progressive society, advanced society, no, no, no, we're barbaric.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Today, it's normal to use mentally ill and children as pawns and gender ideologies, putting children on puberty blockers and then transitioning them to cross-sex hormones and actual surgical mutilation of their bodies.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Think about that.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: We've normalized that, or we're seeking to.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: So if they, if they, if the child, I want to kill the child first in the womb, satan, and then, if they make it out of the womb, I want to render them sterile.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how he wants to do this and actually take and mutilate their bodies.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Today, it's normal to render marriage meaningless and so to make it normal for, say, two men, for example, to be married.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: It's normal, then, for this child right that they bring into the home.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Say you see people, you know, two men say, for an example, again, adopting a child and not really adopting, you wish it was just adoption, but creating a design or baby.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And it's this.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: This child is destined not to meet or even know their birth mother, either the one who donated the eggs for a surrogate or one who carried them in their womb.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: It's normal, then, for this child to be taken away soon after birth and given to these two men to raise, though we know that the children would better flourish in a home a loving home, of course, with a mother and a father.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Children need a mother and a father.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: This is just examples, so they're very important ones, and maybe the most important ones is important.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Think.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: The way to think about this is we have rejected the objective moral law, an objective moral law that does what to countless generations in our own country since the founding of the United States.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Our own civil laws would be based on.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: So what we do in our civil laws, the way we make laws right in this, in our, in our polity and in in the court systems, you know, in the legislative bodies.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: What are those laws?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Well, they should be based on objective moral truths.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: What happens then if you take these laws and you say, no, it's okay to murder now, it's okay to murder a baby, it's okay, marriage is meaningless now.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: We no longer support marriage between a man and a woman and these families, a mother and a father to raise children.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Look, we know that, that this doesn't always happen all the time, but you still got to have the aim for it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Now we just throw it all out and we base our laws on what Subjective truth?
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: See, the aim is justice.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: When, when the aim is justice, when you have an objective moral law and you base your laws on it right, create a just society that would protect children and the families and all our citizens.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: And what does that mean?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Objective moral law?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Well, honor thy father and mother.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, do not cheat on your wife or your husband, do not rob or do violence to your neighbor or his goods or property.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Now, sin and the breaking of these laws is nothing new.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: What's new?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing, what's new?
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: They are legislated.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: We have made laws that that give us the right to murder our children and those children who survived the womb, the womb again to, to lie to them, to rob them of their innocence with gender ideologies, and we consider that normal.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Then, against objective moral law, nature's law, we introduce marriage in our country as something subjective, based on whatever you think it's going to be.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: We see these new laws that support single mothers.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Who who's, who men, the fathers of their children no longer need to take responsibility for fathering children because we set up society now to to actually to, to actually pay for those children, pay for those mothers at wealth or system that we were trying to do a good thing, but at the end of the day, now, now, they don't need a father and a home to support them to be Well.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Of course they need a father and home for other thing.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: But what?
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: What happens when you again and you make subjective laws not based on anything proper anymore?
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: The fruits of this are what?
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Now we have over 80% of of our children in the inner cities growing up without fathers in their homes.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: 43% of every child born in the United States, across the country, which is the highest in the world 43% are born out of wedlock.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And again, it's the children that suffer here the most.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: They join gangs, they're often poorly educated, sexual abuse goes on and on and on and on.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: How do you solve all those problems?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You?
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: You come back together and you form these, these units of a mother and a father there to protect and help educate their children, to protect them from what?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: From?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: From all kinds of things?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Laws are being put on the books that will take custody of their children.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Today, if parents go against these gender ideologies.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Think about this, think about how the law has been twisted.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: You've heard me talk about this before.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: In Illinois there's laws being put on the books.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Today they're trying every other week, it seems with the new law that if you don't go along with these trans ideologies and abortions for your kids and all, they will actually want to take custody of your children.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: They, they, they want to be able to put you in prison and and, and and and find you if you object to all these subjective new ideologies that they made up 15 minutes ago.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: What happens when laws no longer support objective moral truths?
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Sin comes in, and sin is an infection which infects the individual human heart, then goes out into the family and then goes out into the culture, and the downward spiling of our civilization today is guaranteed without marriage in the family, without Christ in the church, without basing our legal system on objective moral law.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: We have a dual system, a duality today, right, a dualism, and our justice system across the board.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: You know, when you have someone like Donald Trump, with 91 counts against him, all frivolous, baseless, obvious attacks to bring down a political opponent, and all the while, the Biden family says I'm free to do whatever I want.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Just watch a few of Hunter Bilan's videos to see that that means anything Sex, money, power, accepting bribes and I would say it's also a form of injustice and this is very important for children being born today.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: The generation that the generations that immediately went before them, who have taken advantage of the battles fought by the generations previous to them and have brought these fruits into our culture, have given you freedoms, prosperity.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Well, instead of seeing them for the gift, what did we do?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: We just take them for ourselves, right?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: We take that surplus that was built up for our own comfort and pleasure.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: We got lazy, we got selfish and we never thought to put anything back into our country to stand for objective moral truths that our country is based on, that hold the family together to protect our children.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Of course, they didn't create our beautiful nation based on what Objective moral laws.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: See, when you take that out, people don't care because I got my life, I'm okay, it's not going to affect me.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Well, it does.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And again, the injustice especially is for the children being born today, that the generations that went before them have sucked this fruit out of it and now they're leaving these children with nothing, just huge debts, and they don't care.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: It's amazing, amazing, amazing sin coming into the world right now.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: So this reminds us.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: It lent us right now, so we have lent.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: It reminds us that we were created from dust and from dust we shall return.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: How proudful are these people who have rejected objective moral truths and accepted the power of Satan over them?
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Tick tock, tick tock.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: You know, our life doesn't go on forever.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: A liar and a father of lies with Satan right, he was a murderer from the very beginning and so many are just accepting that Satan has so has so many firmly in his grasp.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Today, men and women who will vote for politicians in fact yell and scream and clap for them.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Look at the state of the union.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: When Joe Biden brings up abortion and trans rights at the state of the union address, they get up like clapping seals against the immorality that's going on Again.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Subjective truth that we're just making up again 15 minutes ago the right to kill children.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: When you will go against God's laws, this will not last.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And that the fall position for a human being at the fall position without God, without that crucified and risen one, is sin and death.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: That's just a reality.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: These aren't just harsh words.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Tick tock, death is coming.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: That's the great equalizer.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Definitive justice is coming.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime, what are you doing to make the world a better place, unlike, I mean, these trained seals or I should say, really like trained seals in aquarium?
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: People stand up again to applaud the Joe Biden's of the world who have darkened hearts and have lost their moral compass.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And what do they do?
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: They're just more than happy to see guys like Trump, and I'm not trying to just stick up for Trump.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: It happens to Mark Hauke praying outside an abortion clinic.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: It happens to anybody standing up against these gender ideologies, against socialism and neo-Marxism being pushed on our kids in school systems.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: You stand up against that.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: They try to take you out, censor you, cancel you, but yet they get up like trained seals.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: When Joe Biden can speak to the corruption and the allowance that we can kill our kids, nobody makes us happier than that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: But the eyes of some are opening, huh, while Joe Biden, and Pope Francis too, so much confusion when he should be bringing.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Pope Francis should bring clarity through here.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: He doesn't, he doesn't.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: It's a sin, really.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: It's a shame, because when you don't do that right when you don't bring truth in the actual truth and really cut through all of this evil and this sin.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Truth points directly to that force of the crucified and risen one, so we go to him.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: If you're so confused and you leave these young people, it'll just be blown around by the spirit of the age and evil continues to accelerate, as it is now, to insane levels in our country and in our beloved church, and it could become overwhelming.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And you begin to notice a division, but also the number of truth seekers who are using their God given reason to guide them and they begin to ask questions.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Their heart starts to point to that crucified and risen one and say maybe he has the answers, because you just see the evil power around you and you feel hopeless, until you open up to him and then something in your heart opens, doesn't it?
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Your eyes open just a little bit.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And this is where I'm gonna start to get into Ignatius of Loyola right now, because Jesus answered.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Now is the time of judgment on this world.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: So you start to see people like Jordan Peterson.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Jordan Peterson's wife, tammy, just came into the church a miracle really, and how she prayed the rosary and her eyes were open a little bit.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Jordan Peterson he's searching for the truth and his eyes are open.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Even a guy's like Russell Brand, who was a drug addict and a porn addict and all these things.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: He went through AA, through the 12th step and he wrote a book about that.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: And you're looking for a higher power.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: And even Russell Brand is starting to say you know what?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to read Jesus Christ.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And he says something happened to my heart.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: See, his eyes were open just a little bit.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Guys like Joe Rogan or even, kidding, he says you know, I think we're gonna need Jesus Christ.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: This would be a good time for him to step into the story.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And they're beginning to realize that there's no man-made solution to this right.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So it'd be easy to stand up and blame our so-called leaders, like the Joe Bynes of the world and the Pope Francis of the world, who are exerting so much power.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: But the reality is, if those people were taken out, guess what Evil would still exist, because there's many people in the deep church and the deep state that are living these contradictions out already in their life.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: One person's not going to change all this.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: We all have to step up now.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: We all have to breathe the lights in the world.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: It's like Edmund Burke said the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: With that said, there's some good news.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: You see what happened in Ireland?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: They seem to be totally lost.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Ireland was just going down the hell in a handbasket, but they just rejected some woke laws that they wanted to further put into place to weaken the family even further.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Despite the strong campaign but despite the strong campaign for a yes vote by mainstream Irish parties and the NGOs that are working in there, there's a glimmer of hope because we're seeing these monthly rosary rallies organized by Catholic men across the country, kneeling down in a public place and praying out loud.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: They're yielding positive results.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: See, this is the only way to defeat Satan.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: These men praying on their knees and public right on the streets and the sidewalks understand clearly that this battle is against the forces of evil and those who are attracted to the crucified risen one or those that reject him and then they're taken out by this evil.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: As Saint Paul wrote in Ephesians 6, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Put on all the armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Therefore, he says, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, which is here today, guys, you may be able to stand your ground and after that, you have done everything to stand, to stand in the presence of the crucified and risen one.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Well, the day of evil is definitely upon us and we have to choose.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Lukewarm will not be enough to save you or our nation, will it?
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: With all of this said, I want to reintroduce a series, this series on spiritual warfare over the next couple of weeks that, again, once again, I originally recorded with a very astute priest in the spiritual war between good and evil, father Ryan Browning.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: It was originally recorded because Father Ryan Browning, who's very busy, had some downtime during COVID, when all the masses were shut down, and I asked him to do this series from St Ignatius of Loyola's Timeless and Practical Guide to the Discernment of Spirits and I thought this is a great time right now to reintroduce this, with new people who are starting to turn and come into the church and people within the church waking up to the fact that this great battle that we're in, that we have a teaching that's timeless and practical, that's come down to us from St Ignatius of Loyola, these 14 rules for the discernment of spirits that have proved to be so helpful in my life and so many others.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It's what happens when, as it says with St Ignatius of Loyola, that he was going along, until one day his eyes were open, just a little, and he was freed from the attraction of a purely materialistic or earthly power or attraction, and he turned then to the attraction of force, again, of the crucified and risen one.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: For St Ignatius this conversion would happen, like it does with so many of us how To pain and suffering.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: St Ignatius was a soldier who dreamt of valor and winning the woman, gaining notoriety and materialistic power with money, etc.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And telecannibal ripped through his leg and he was forced to convalesce for months and months at a time from a very severe injury.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Then he became aware of these emotions that's going on in his heart and his feelings that he would come to cause spirits within him and then he would study how to discern what was going on and to know what was from God.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: So he's going into his heart and he says what is coming from God, and how do I discern that and what is coming from the evil one, and then finally to take an action to reject that of the evil one and then to accept that goodness of God.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: A little bit more on St Ignatius.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: St Ignatius of Loyola became a soldier and in 1521 he found himself in a small group of fellow warriors defending the fortress Pamplona against the French.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Well, they were seriously outnumbered by the French and a more prudent and less zealous leader might have negotiated a surrender, but Ignatius was not the type to do anything halfway.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Well, finally, they were wrongly defeated by the French and during the battle a cannonball ripped through St Ignatius' legs, leaving a mangled mess.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Because Ignatius was a sort of nobleman and because rules of engagement back then, at least among some armies, demanded basic courtesy to other soldiers, even conquered armies to French, carried Ignatius on a two-week journey back to his family's castle in the country of Spain where he came from.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: We can only imagine the following long months of recuperation.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: He had two surgeries on his legs in 1521.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Surgery is with little knowledge in the way of anesthetics.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine somebody cutting basically cutting your leg open while you're awake?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: So very limited knowledge of how to deal with infection and so forth.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: He should have died.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: But probably just as unbearable for Ignatius were the isolation and the ability to do nothing while he was convalescing there in his bed.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: All he could do was read the daydream and he asked for books on romance and war.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: But the only books that his sister-in-law found for him were on the life of Christ and the life of the saints, certainly not some courtly romance novels that he had asked for, these stories that he wanted to read about these great ladies and the knights who defended them, and he wanted to dream about them, and they were erased at the time.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: These were popular books at that time.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: So Ignatius spent a lot of time in his head.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: His daydreams took him to scenes of his heroic actions that win the heart of the lady that he loved.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Alternately, the stories about Christ and the saints stimulated daydreams of his becoming a great saint, greater than all the other saints, in fact.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Then he began to notice something.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: After daydreaming about courageous acts of knighthood and winning the lady and all of that, he left feeling empty and unsatisfied after a period of time.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: But after a daydream about becoming a saint, even when he was done daydreaming, he felt his soul being lifted up, maybe because he was stuck in bed for days on end.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Ignatius started to pay really close attention to this inner state and he began to think that his mental and emotional reactions to these two very different kinds of daydreams were telling him something.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: By the time he was able to walk again, ignatius carried a new vision for his life and he was headed in a direction quite different than before.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: He emerged from his following months of convalescence intent on dedicating his life to God and following Christ.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: In 1522, a year later, ignatius left the Lyola castle on a mule, made the difficult journey to the summit of Montserrat, where he laid down his sword and the dagger before the sacred statue of our Lady of Montserrat, there in the Benedictine Abbey, and there Ignatius gave his clothes to the poor and no longer a soldier, laid down his sword, gave everything away and went looking for a new life.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: So the question becomes identify in your own life, your own cannibal moment.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: We all have those, something that changed our life, that pivoted us.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: If it hasn't been for that cannibal, there'd be no St Ignatius of Lyola until one time.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Because of the cannibal, his eyes were open just a little.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Then we all have this.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I know I did a number of times in my life.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: The eyes of the heart seek something more, something come up against an obstacle, a cannibal moment.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Something's going on.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Is God speaking to me?
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: What is he saying?
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: So this becomes the rules that St Ignatius is going to pass down to us, and this is what we want to pay attention for in the next couple of weeks.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: The spiritual process I'll just give you a little bit.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Above the trees, three steps are described by him.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: First, you become aware Ooh, something's going on in my heart, not something to push away or indulge, but I just want to listen.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And then, second, I want to understand what is going on.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: What are these feelings that I have?
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: What's going on in my heart, and I want to be able to discern them.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And then, once I understand what's going on in my heart, I need to take action, accepting God and rejecting the evil one.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: So the powerful impact of this moment for good in his own life and in the life of the church even to the present day.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: These teachings that were passed down confirms that we have touched here upon something of crucial importance in Ignatius' life and in the spiritual life generally.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Father Timothy Gallagher in his book writes what if Ignatius' eyes had not been opened just a little?
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: What if he had not reflected on this new awareness, had not acted accordingly, had followed the worldly project that so drew him instead?
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: And what if our own lives, if our own spiritual eyes are not opened just a little bit in daily living?
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: What will occur if they are opened?
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: St Ignatius' initial experience alone of the sermon of spirits renders immediately clear the great value of spiritually identifying the movements of our hearts.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: This is what we do in prayer, when we go into the deep and we want to listen.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: It also reveals to us the inestimable benefit we will find in a practical and usable teaching about the sermon of spirits.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: What's going on in our hearts If our spiritual tradition can offer us an instruction capable of permitting us to also to live our daily lives with the sermon, to know and understand the voice of God and then to accept or reject.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: To accept His voice and take action and reject that of the evil one, then tradition is offering something that's invaluable to treasure.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: So the 14 rules really the 14 guidelines we like to call them for discernment that we will consider, and the rest of this series provide just such a teaching.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: So I hope you join us over the next couple of weeks.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, you might want to buy the discernment of spirits and Ignatius' guide for everyday living from Father Timothy Gallagher or Dan Burke's book Spiritual Warfare and the discernment of spirits.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: They're both good.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I have them both.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: They're paperbacked, they're not that expensive, and even to read them both, this has been really a gift to my life.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I hope you're doing good things in Lent.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Make sure you pray fast, talk to you soon, everybody, and finally, read my last newsletter.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: And we're joining Cardinal Burke, cardinal Raymond Burke, here in the United States, and he has a nine month novena for our country and to take back our country from all the evil that's going on.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: So look up, cardinal Burke, it just started on March 12th, so you can catch up real quick.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: God bless you.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being with me, everyone.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Bye, bye.