Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #476 The Reality of Spiritual Warfare (#6); Jesus Christ has Risen while Joe Biden Celebrates Trans Visibility Day and Pope Francis Waters the Plants

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#476 The Reality of Spiritual Warfare (#6); Jesus Christ has Risen while Joe Biden Celebrates Trans Visibility Day and Pope Francis Waters the Plants · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Riggert, your host.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I am delighted that you're with me.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This is and I don't want you to get confused, because this is episode six that we've been doing on spiritual warfare, this series of discernment of spirits based on the work of St Ignatius of Loyola, with Father Ryan Browning, who's our spiritual director here at the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: This is really an incredible work.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's brought a lot of blessings to my life and I don't want you to get confused if you've been following us and now you see the name has switched.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I did put Spiritual Warfare series in the name, but I also.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: What's on my mind is this is just after Easter Jesus Christ is risen and here we have a so-called Catholics coming out of the Biden administration you know you can't make this stuff up and celebrating Transgender Visibility Day on Easter and Pope Francis watering plants and I'm being a little facetious there, but you know, I mean that's really basically what he's doing now, you know, with his Earth Day movements and Pachamama honoring.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And you know, I mean again, you can't make this stuff up.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: We're in a time where it's going to be very, very important for all of us to pick it up.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: You know, when you see, I just saw yesterday Cardinal Wilton Gregory from DC, which is a prominent position in the Catholic Church, especially that diocese of Washington DC, very visible, and here you have him on television talking about the Biden administration and Joe Biden himself and basically calling him, you know, a faithful Catholic.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Except you know he's what we call a cafeteria Catholic and we pick and choose what we want, and you know he has to say something.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: But what a weak, what a pitifully weak leader.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So this is the leadership that we have, right, it's almost disgusting when you think about it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is Joe Biden, a so-called Catholic who aggressively pushes abortion, who is arresting, having people arrested who are praying outside of abortion clinics that are pro-life.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Here's someone that's pushing a meaningless marriage down on the United States and across the world.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Who's somebody that's affirming children and their mental illness in these trans and gender ideologies, these movements exploiting children and using them as pawns.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: You can't make this up.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: You know, rendering them sterile if they make it through the womb.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And here's Wilton Gregory.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: It really, again, I get disgusted.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I'm almost sick to my stomach when I think about the weakness of this person.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: He doesn't really even look up and look you in the eye.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You know, how could he anymore?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But here's what the story is.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: We have hope, we always have hope, but the hope is in us as the laity.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: There's never been a more important time for all of us to step up to the plate.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: You know Vatican II called for universal holiness.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Bishop Sheen was calling for that a long time before that.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: He said it's going to be up to the laity.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And so these prophetic voices Bishop Sheen, john Paul II, many others.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: You know this was always up to each person.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Right, we need to all come into union and communion with Jesus Christ.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Let him transform our hearts and then we go out into the world and become persons of love.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Look at this, it's just the two great commandments Be filled with divine life and love, have an intimacy with God and then become that Love your neighbor.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: You know this goes into our families, our neighbors, into the world.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And we take positions in the world, in politics, economics, building businesses, whatever we do and we bring that goodness in the world.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: That's the solution Now.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Building businesses, whatever we do, and we bring that goodness in the world.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: That's the solution.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I think that between now and the election in November, there's going to be some nasty stuff going on.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So I think you need to buckle up, and that's why I wanted to reintroduce the series that Father Ryan Browning recorded during COVID.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: We had the time to do this during COVID spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits based on timeless, timeless, timeless rules or ways to understand our hearts.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: So these three things again, to be aware of what's going on in your heart, to understand it and to reject that's from Satan and not from God, and to accept that that's from God.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Don't forget, we're in the middle of a spiritual battle between our Satan and our Lord, and the battle is over the human heart.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: So this is something that's so, so, so important, and so that's why I introduce this.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's also interesting that COVID was going on, so you'll hear some COVID comments, and the reason I think it's important is that was just a prelude to what's coming and what the World Economic Forum would like to do and push this tyranny down on us.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So this little prelude, you kind of get a little sense of some of the stuff that was going on.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Don't forget that Pope Francis allowed mass to be shut down across the world.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: He got rid of, you know, faithful cardinals like Cardinal Burke, bishop Strickland.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: He took out.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Now he's taken out those voices that will raise up and really be faithful voices.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So you end up with these weak, pitiful leaders like Gregory and many others, you know, and so where's our hope again?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So two things I'd like to say.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I want to contrast and this intro will be a little bit long, but I want to contrast the statement from Cardinal or Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who, you know, when the pandemic first started the plandemic, I should say, first started, he was really a voice that saw this right away and this global push of tyranny, and I want to read you a little bit about it from a statement that he put out on Joe Biden and contrast that with a Wilton Gregory statement.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: But also, I don't want to just be negative, because this is not about negative.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: We know that the weeds and the wheat are being allowed by God to grow together.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: This is an old story, this is, you know, jesus told this story, you know, way back in when he was still walking the earth right.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: We know the parable of the weeds and the wheat, and God allows them to grow together, because a lot of us were weeds at one time.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I certainly was a weed, and we're all on this journey.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: So does God just take out all of the weeds?
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I would have been harvested along with the rest of the weeds at one time.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: And so he converts our hearts and allows us to become the wheat, to die to ourselves and then to rise with him.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: And so this is what just took place on Easter.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So where is our hope?
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Well, our hope is in the young John Paul II, and I'm going to do a series on this.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I'm writing right now a paper on this, and it was to young people Delecti Amici, if you want to look it up, dear friends.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And he's speaking to young people, and he starts out in you, there is hope.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: He says in you, there is hope, for you belong to the future, just as the future belongs to you, for hope is always linked to the future.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It's the expectation of future good things.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And then he goes on to talk to them about.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: He says, in the sense, the future belongs to you, young people, just as it belonged to the generation of those who are now adults, and precisely together with them, it has become the present reality.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So this evil we see upon us, these were young people, at one time idealistic young people.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine how somebody gets twisted and distorted into someone like Joe Biden?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Well, these are small steps that we take.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: You know, and each of us are in that.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You know we're eternal beings.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: We're on a journey to eternity.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Eternity doesn't mean tomorrow.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Eternity means forever.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: All of us are eternal beings and our destiny for the whole, all of us, are eternal beings and our destiny for all eternity happens here, in this temporal space that's over in the blink of an eye.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Every time you walk into this world, every time we wake up, we're either going to do evil or we're going to do good.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: We have to make those decisions every day, and this is the battle of the heart.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And so where is the hope?
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: The hope is in the young, because these old people will die off.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: You know they're going to die off, and if we make it, if we don't destroy everybody on the planet, there'll be some people left.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And the people that are left, well, you know they're either going to bring more evil into the world or more good, and so let's hope that there's some of us left right now in this older generation and really this is the work of the John Paul II Renewal Center is to be passing down our larger story to our young people who are not receiving the truth.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: We have to love young people in the truth and we have to speak the truth to them in love, so that they understand what's coming up here and now.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You see this ferocious attack on young people happening in our schools, happening in the government, happening in the Biden administration, as again, he would destroy them in the womb, but if they make it out of the womb, he's going to push these gender ideologies on them.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: He's going to push this stuff all the way through in the schools and et cetera, et cetera.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: All right, before I turn this over to the series today, I just want to read to at least part of the statement by Carlo Maria Vigano about Joe Biden.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: And he calls it the scandalous proclamation.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: On March 31st is Transgender Visibility Day.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Now contrast this with Gregory again.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So the word apocalypse in Greek means unveiling revelation.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: This revelation, cardinal Vigano writes in a statement in Sacred Scripture, concerns first and foremost the objective reality of good and evil, that is, the collective awareness of the ongoing war between God and Satan, between the children of light and the children of darkness.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: The unprecedented and scandalous proclamation of March 31st as Transgender Visibility Day by self-styled US President, joe Biden, who dares to declare himself a Catholic, constitutes the most serious offense to God and to millions of Catholics and Christians in America and around the world, before which it is impossible not to react with due firmness.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I urge American citizens and the representatives in government to recognize the total unworthiness of Joe Biden to hold an institutional position which it is well known that he used fraudulent and manipulative action to achieve in the 2020 presidential election.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: And he's looking back at what he's calling the fraud and manipulative action to achieve the presidential election.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, we all know there was election tampering going on to an incredible amount, don't we?
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So, he says, I asked my brethren in the Episcopate and the priest to recognize that Joe Biden has incurred excommunication and, as such, must be expelled from the churches and not admitted to communion.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: So he's calling on him to be excommunicated, he says.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I call on Catholics and all Christians to pray that on this solemn Easter day, the risen Lord will have mercy on the United States of America and put an end to the onslaught of the infernal forces unleashed today more than ever before.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: All humanity, he said, is awakening from a slumber that has lasted too long.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: The lives of the innocent are threatened by abortion, then we have euthanasia, manipulation and abuse.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: The health of citizens is deliberately compromised by experimental gene serums revealed to be a biological weapon of population decimation.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: The total moral corruption of the top echelons of civil authority, enslaved the criminal lobbies in a global coup, is now evident.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: The increasingly arrogant display of Satan worship by the media and the world of culture and entertainment shows us a world awash in execrable perversions that cry out to heaven for vengeance.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: The mad provocation of a world conflict claims lives in order to bury the horrendous sexual and financial scandals of a power that is now the enemy of its citizens.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Luciferian hatred of God and our Lord Jesus Christ can no longer be hidden or denied.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: This is the revelation unveiled before us, which the servants of darkness provocatively mock by celebrating perversions and vices on the very holy day when we honor the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Christians are progressively banished from civil society and considered a threat to the subversive project of the new world order, while a minority of the vicious and perverted claim to erect their deviations as the universal norm.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Isn't that true?
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: It's amazing, and here's how I finish here.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Here is the visibility of Biden and the woke ideology celebrating a macabre mad dance to the abyss.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Arise, children of light, he says.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Stand up and raise your voices, for in the face of these crimes, silence becomes complicity.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Arise, christians, rise up to avert the scourges that loom over the nations because of unsurped and perverted power.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: God calls you to be his witnesses, to fight for good and to denounce the conspiracy of an authority openly subservient to Satan.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: May the risen Christ, triumphant over death and sin, inflame you with faith, charity and holy courage at this crucial stage of human history.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Carlo Maria Vigano, Archbishop, march 31st 2024, easter Sunday.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: And so we have voices like his, and think about the courageous voices we had.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And if we didn't have them, I just think off the top right, you know, dr Peter McAuliffe, who called this out in the beginning and it was canceled.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Naomi Wolf same thing canceled.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Dr Jordan Peterson same thing.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Many, many others.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: General Michael Flynn you know we have this.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Young men and women standing up now.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: People like Vivek Ramaswamy today, who's standing up for the truth, right, always be speaking the truth, truth, truth.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Look what is true, what is true.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: You know, where would we be already today if none of these voices stood up?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: We would have been just taken over again.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: You know, if you read the Great Reset COVID-19, you see that they were going to use that to push these ideologies and, really, the tyranny and the power down.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Well, they've done it to a large extent, but there's been a pushback, people are standing up and God is really on our side.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: So, look, this is not easy, is it?
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And I think that what happened is in the Western civilization, we just got lazy, we just assumed that these gifts that were given to us and passed down to us by all those who fought for the truth, who fought to push back evil in this battle on the earth, that we all come into this life and unfortunately we came into a broken world and a world at war, and the sooner you realize that, the better.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: But we just got lazy and we wanted to just take those gifts and we just we decided that these are ours.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: And nobody fought for the truth, nobody stood up for the truth.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: So what's happening is the destruction that we've seen this over and over again.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: So where is our hope?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I would say for adults listening to this, your hope, of course, is we're not going to be along.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: You know, tick-tock, tick-tock.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: You know this is eternal life.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Our hope is in the crucified and risen Lord, where we die with him and we are risen.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Look, this was never promised us a rose garden here.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: This was always to be like this.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I think it's finally dawning on people that, oh my gosh, I think you know scripture and our tradition and everything that's been passed down to us is true.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: The battle is true.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: We have a crucified Lord.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Walk into a Catholic church and what do you see?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: You see a big crucifix with Jesus Christ hanging on it, the bridegroom who pours himself out to us and love.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: What's behind us all on a Catholic side, is of a God of love, a God of love.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: So just two great commandments be filled with that God of love and then become a person of love and do this courageously.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And then we need to pass this down to our young people, because our young people are our hope and it is.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: You know, this is an injustice what's being done to young people, and just too many parents and churches and church leaders are complicit in this, allowing this to happen.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: All right, let me bring Father Ryan Browning on, and I think you're going to enjoy this segment.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to go back and listen to the other ones.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It's really worth doing.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Take a long walk, exercise whatever you need to do and listen to these, and I think you're going to get a lot out of it.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: It's really something very, very important in today's time.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Buckle up and get ready for the rest of today's episode.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I'm excited and pumped up to be here again with Father Ryan Browning, pastor of St Thomas More Parish in Elgin, illinois, and our spiritual director here at the John Paul II Renewal Center, and Father's been unpacking the spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: In previous episodes we've outlined the spiritual battle that we are all in as members of the human race, and, father said in an earlier episode, this battle can be summed up as God has a plan for our lives, and so does the evil one.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: We've been discussing St Ignatius, who gave us 14 rules or guidelines to assist us in this spiritual battle, which simply have to do with the ups and downs in the spiritual life of each of us.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: There's going to be times when we have this desire to pray and we feel close to God.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Everything's flowing well, our energy is up, our hearts are feeling warm, scripture's coming alive for us, marriage and family seems to be flowing pretty easy.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And then, at other times, for no reason at all, the bottom seems to drop out of our energy level.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: It gets harder to pray and when we do prayer, prayer is sometimes drier.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: God has a distant feeling to us that maybe just from the day before, or maybe even from the morning to evening, I lose my patience, maybe with my spouse or my children.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: These ups and downs are going on all the time in the spiritual life, and I go on to say in life in general.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And along comes St Ignatius of Loyola with a teaching on exactly this type of experience that we all go through and again, it's nothing to be ashamed of, expected.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: All the saints go through this.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: A closeness to God.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: That St Ignatius calls consolation, and times we're going to feel discouragement and a struggle.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He calls desolation and the beauty of these the very practical guides, not high fluting things.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: These are guidelines that came out of St Ignatius's own experience and when he crafted, these 14 rules are really guidelines to help us understand this, how to help us deal with this.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So of these 14 rules, we're going to be discussing rules number 8 through 11 today, and next week we'll be finishing up from 12 to 14.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Father Browning, it's great to be with you again.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: What did I miss there?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: On the introduction and first of all, tell us how you are Give us just a minute or two, william how you're coping with this coronavirus and with the parish being closed down.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: You got anything to do over there thing to do over there.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, plenty to do.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: It's a strange thing.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: It's not necessarily what I ever expected to have to be doing as a priest when you got to kind of shift everything to support your people and to provide for them through the internet.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I know a little about technology, but only enough to be dangerous, and so I've had to learn a lot more to make it work, and it's really been a lot of help for my staff.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: It has been good in trying to feed people in this time and spend a lot of time in prayer and just trying to To give that over to the Lord as well and just pray against this virus and especially the things that come along with it, which many for people just this overarching dread that some people can feel he's going to try to make that worse for people, and so knowing these rules or guidelines is very helpful for a time that we find ourselves in.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So this has been a blessing, Father, for me already.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how practical these rules or these guidelines have been in my life already and being able to catch myself mid-day sometimes, mid-thought sometimes, and kind of understand and begin to understand where these thoughts are coming from, and just to step back and out of myself for a few minutes and kind of look down almost at myself and say, okay, these three things that we have to be cognizant of, to be aware of what's going on, to understand and then we can act, to understand when we're in consolation and to resist a desolation.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: So so, Father, it's been awesome, it's been awesome to be with you.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about one of my favorites, and this one rule number eight has come in incredibly handy for me already.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoy this rule, these guidelines, especially this one, as much as I do.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah so rule eight Ignatius tells us yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: So rule eight Ignatius tells us let the one who is in desolation work to be in patience, which is contrary to the vexations which come to him, and let him think that he will be consoled diligently using the means against such desolation, as he said in the sixth rule.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: So, in times of desolation, use these tools, work to be in patience.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Right Patience is key when we find ourself in desolation.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Now it's important to recognize where patience, where the word comes from.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: It comes from a Latin word, patior, which means to suffer, endure or bear, to go into the face of forces trying to pull us down.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: So that's why it's a work, patience is a work.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: It takes effort to be in patience.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: It's not just some emotion that we experience at times, and many times not, but it's something that we can work.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: We can work toward something that we can continue to, to practice, and especially in desolation, because that's, as he says, against the, it's contrary to the vexations which come to him.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So most of the time we get way more agitated, way more quickly, and we have to pay attention again to become aware of ah, I'm in desolation, I'm going to have to work to be patient with those around me, with myself, during this time.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: That's a very helpful little tool.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think what you said has been so helpful for me, because when I'm feeling a little down or a little energy, a low energy evident, and my wife says something, for example, you know, I feel this twinge in my heart like I want to come back, and what I'm doing, what I've been doing, is just saying you know what.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I know my energy is down a little bit right now.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I know I've had a little rough start in the morning here and I'm going to just count to 10.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: And it's amazing.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: It's amazing and because of what you said, the etymology of that word, and to say to suffer and to endure, and you feel that little pang like ooh, she hurt me a little bit, right, or my feelings got hurt.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: And just to know the root of that word and say, yes, I'm feeling a little suffering, and or my feelings got hurt, and just to know the root of that word and say, yes, I'm feeling a little suffering and I need to endure this just for a couple of seconds to kind of be aware of what's going on.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: That's been huge, father.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: That's been huge for me.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can think of St Paul's hymn to love as well, right, he says it endures all things.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: It endures all things, it bears all things.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: There's a connection there with the hymn of St Paul, the hymn of love that he gives us and patience.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: They're well-connected.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: When it comes to patience and love, sometimes love hurts and it's hard, hard, and you have to be patient and endure the things that we would prefer not to, and especially in desolation, it's working to be in patience with ourself and with others around us, which also what will help you with that is what he says next, which is to think that you will be consoled.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Right, this isn't going to last forever If we remember back a few rules.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Right, putting on the dark glasses to where it wants us to interpret our past through this desolation and to predict our future through this desolation, and we can't see anything.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: And so we just think this is going to last forever.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I'm out, I'm done, I can't do this anymore, when in reality it's not going to last forever.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: You too, will make it through this, just like this pandemic.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Right, we will get through this.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: So think to yourself that I will be consoled soon.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: And then he points us back to the rule six.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Use those tools from rule six to fight against this desolation, and these things are just more tools for your bag to pull out whenever desolation is happening.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: So, again, I mean, that's a great reminder, father, that these rules overlap, don't they?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: That these rules aren't something that you step from one rule to the next, but these are rules for different types and different times and also to be used as a compliment to each other.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just all together.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: You start getting familiar with them and praying with them and putting them in your tool bag, ready to pull out whenever you need them.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very, very helpful.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I remember some example from a patient that was two patients in a hospital room that I think it was Father Timothy Gallagher.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I was listening to something he was talking about and he was telling a story.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: And the doctor comes in and stops at the bed of the first patient.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: So there's two patients in the hospital, looks at the charts and says I wish I could tell you otherwise, but it's going to be some weeks yet before you begin to feel better.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And then he stops at the foot of the second patient and says you know, I know that you're feeling some discomfort, but I can tell you that by tomorrow afternoon you're going to start to feel better and he walks out of the room.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So both patients have the same amount of discomfort, but of course the second patient is able to deal with that much better, and that's the point you just made.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Obviously, with desolation, we feel sometimes like man I'm down in the dumps.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: This is never going to change and we just have to remember that.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it will change and God will give us the grace to get through this, and God does love us and God does want to get through this, and so patience becomes something that we have to endure a little bit.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: We have to suffer a little bit and then open our hearts and bring God's grace right into that, and then that's where so much growth can come from right, father.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely, definitely.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Using those means that we find in Rule 6 to fight diligently against desolation are always going to help us grow deeper in our love and trust of the Lord, are always going to help us grow deeper in our love and trust of the Lord, always Because we're fighting against this thing and the Lord is allowing it in order to draw us closer to Himself.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a great point.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I know, and I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself, but I think, in general, these rules that we're talking about are there to resist.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm aware I'm in desolation, I start to understand why and we've talked about that a number of times but then to act in different ways, using different rules and at different times.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: But God doesn't want us to leave us in desolation.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's not the idea, and so we can resist this, and it's not like we have to.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It's not up to us, it's going to be up to grace, but by opening up to God, opening up to grace, and then start to journey out of this back into his arms and back into consolation again.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: So yeah, these ups and downs are going to flow.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Huh, father, I probably had a couple of those ups and downs already today.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: You know how about you?
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are little subtle ways that it can happen.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: There are big ways that we can experience it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: As I said in one of the earlier rules, there's difference in intensity and duration for consolation and desolation, and so just know that it's always the same answer to whatever it is.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: It's always going to these rules, no matter the intensity or the duration that we find ourselves in.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: These rules will help.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you had mentioned Father one time and I think it might be good just to touch on this quick.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: You had mentioned about Mother Teresa, so we hear about her.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: You know that she was down and she experienced that kind of dark night of the soul, and this is not what we're talking about here.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: That was a different experience, you know, with Mother Teresa and the dark night of the soul that John of the Cross talks about.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: That's a little bit different.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Here, the desolation we're talking about is more normal, where God wants to bring us out of this, and Mother Teresa went through something a little different.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, can you take a couple of minutes or would you rather do that at a different time?
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Well, just a couple of minutes and maybe we can go into more at a later time.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: But it's important to recognize that the dark night of the spirit of St John of the Cross is not what we mean by spiritual desolation.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: The dark night of the spirit is a gift from God and it's a gift of prayer that he talks about.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Is it fun?
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: No, it's not fun, but it is not spiritual desolation.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: It's not fun, but it is not spiritual desolation.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Now, there could be times when you're going through the dark night of the spirit that you experience spiritual desolation in it and then you use the same means to fight against it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: But they aren't the same.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: One is a gift.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: The dark night of the spirit is a gift from God to purify us completely right.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Spirit is a gift from God to purify us completely right.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: That's the final purification into moving into union with God in this life and that's a gift of prayer that God gives us.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: It's dry, it's dark, it's hard to see, but it's not spiritual desolation.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Remember, spiritual desolation is always the things that tell us that God doesn't love us, that he has abandoned us, these type of things.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: There may be those feelings occasionally within it, but they don't last very long as far as the person going through that immediately recognizes like okay, that's a lie.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I know this is the Lord's work in my life.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I know this is the Lord's work in my life.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: So again, just in case somebody comes across that spiritual desolation is really the enemy after us and what things like Mother Teresa experienced, st John of the Cross these were things that you know trials that God actually gave them for and these are different.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So I just wanted to make that distinction here as people move on and understand that.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Mother Teresa's was different than many saints as well, but it was something she asked for to be in union and solidarity with those she was ministering to who were in the dark.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: So I guess, be careful what you ask for who were in the dark.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: So I guess be careful what you ask for.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: But you can tell that it was a dark night of the spirit because look at the fruit that came from her life Like no one ever knew she was going through that, because she always had a smile on her face and people were moved and transformed by just being around her and that's how God worked it.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: So you can tell by the fruit that hers was different than, maybe, spiritual desolation, but also different than many saints of going through the dark night of the spirit.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: She asked to do that in solidarity with those who didn't know Jesus to save their souls.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the beautiful thing.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Well, let's move on, father, then to rule number nine, and rule number nine then, what is that, father?
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: So, basically, going through this and you can have come to your mind why would God allow this, why would he permit this experience of spiritual desolation, right?
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: So so St Ignatius answers that question and gives us three main reasons.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: There could be others, but three main reasons.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: That kind of cover most of the most of them, and so I'll just read a little bit of like a summary of it, because it's a very long one.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: It's a good one to read through and pray about, but I'll just kind of sum them up for us.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: So the three causes of desolation, just kind of sum them up for us.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: So the three causes of desolation One is that being tepid, slothful or negligent in our spiritual exercises has caused God to remove consolation, to wake us up, right, we've fallen asleep to our spiritual practices and it's my fault, and God doesn't want us to be drifting away from him.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: So he helps us by taking those away and by us experiencing spiritual desolation.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: It should wake us up, to begin to move back toward the Lord.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: So that could be one reason, and it's good to go through these reasons whenever you experience spiritual desolation, right, take inventory of how has my prayer been?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Have I slacked off?
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Have I become slothful or tepid, and if I have, then I can ramp that back up, right?
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Get back to what I always plan to do each day, and that may very well take care of that spiritual desolation.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: So that's the first reason that he gives us.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: The second reason was that God wants to try us and to see what our motivations are, right.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: So he wants to try us to see how much we are and how much we will extend ourself in his service and praise, without the payment, so to speak, of consolation or increased graces, right?
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: So sometimes the best way to understand this is sometimes we get attached to the good things that God gives us, but God doesn't want us to be attached to the good things he gives us.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: He wants us to be attached to him, right?
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: So sometimes those, even the good things God gives us, become an obstacle to us trusting and attaching ourselves to God alone, and so he'll allow those, he'll permit those to be taken away, or he will take those consolations away to help us recognize okay, it's not those that I am in love with, it's him.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: And so I know he's with me in this right, so yeah that's awesome yeah.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he doesn't want to become just another attachment, another addiction.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: He wants us.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: He's looking for a love affair with us and, like real love, it's a relationship.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: And I always get back to my thought on this vending machine.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: So many times we're praying, we're just looking for something, looking for something, and if we don't get it, we feel distant.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: And sometimes here I could see that, hey, you know what he's not going to always give you everything that you ask for.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: But yet we need to pull back into this love story this is a relationship and keep that long-term view.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: And so go ahead.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: You can think of the difference between parents and grandparents, right?
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Grandparents?
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: At that point in their life they get to spoil the kids.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: They kind of give them everything that they want.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Parents have to say no a lot of times for the good of their children.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And so God is a father, not a grandfather.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: So he's not one who just wants to pass out candies and have you know, he's a father who wants what's best for you, and so sometimes we need that purification of our image of God as well.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: And then the third one yeah, the third one is to sum it up would be to remind us that all is gift.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: There is no cause for pride in time of consolation.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: You did not cause the consolation.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, just because I prayed, I didn't cause it, right?
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, grace still has to come.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like sometimes we'll think, well, come on, God, I've been praying, I'm doing good, I'm like I deserve this, you know, and God's like no, it's all a gift.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: You need to recognize that it's all a gift.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: So if there are times when we maybe have, we get a little prideful of like man, God must love me so much, because look at all this consolation.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: You know we can put ourself in a place of getting.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: You know, pride cometh before the fall, right it's.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: We don't want to be prideful.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: We have to remind ourself constantly and God will do that by removing spiritual consolation to remind us it's all a gift, you don't earn it.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: I give it freely, when I want to give it, because I know what's best for you, and so that helps us to kind of get away from pride, of vainglory, of thinking I've, I'm causing this consolation or because of my practices I'm doing these things.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: You know God has to give it to me.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: It's just recognizing everything's a gift.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Literally everything we have is a gift.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Whatever talents I have, whatever money I'm able to earn, whatever job, it's all a gift.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Whatever money I'm able to earn, whatever job, it's all a gift.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: We should be grateful for it and never take it for something that I've done myself or some pride.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: I've responded to God's grace, but it always flows first from him, and remembering that it's a gift could be one of the things why he's allowing it to happen to us, to just remind us like this is all a gift, you're not earning it, I give it freely.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one thing comes to mind when we're talking about trials you have often said it to groups that we've talked to and then that beautiful prayer that you wrote on temptations, and I think about temptations as trials.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we have these temptations and to know that temptations are not sins again, sometimes I remember I think it was St Francis that said the more we're tempted, the more you're loved by Jesus.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Right, so Jesus himself was tempted.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: So, again, temptations are not since, and these are times.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: So these temptations, say these trials where we lose our patience, say getting back to the prior rule, you know, these can be really periods of growth for us to understand that we can resist these temptations and, instead of being just totally frustrated with them, say, hey, you know, these are times I can really open up my heart to God, realizing that I really cannot overcome these by myself.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: And these are times, these weaknesses and temptations and these trials, are times of true growth, of true growth and coming into a deeper relationship with God.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: And, of course, when that happens, this consolation right, it's this move back into consolation again, this closeness, this peace again with God, that we hope we receive.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it is just important to recognize that there's an ebb and flow in this inner spiritual life.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: You're not all of a sudden going to immediately be able to put all these things into practice.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: When you experience spiritual desolation, sometimes you may go for a few hours or even a day, right without recognizing that this has happened to you.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Or you can think sometimes you can think well, I deserve this, or you know, and so we'll.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: We'll do the opposite and we'll kind of beat ourself up or we'll just allow ourself to be in it because we think well, this is just life, and so it takes a while of practicing these things to be those first three things become aware and then to understand what's going on and then to take action in one way or the other.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: So it's going to be a one of those things where you got to be patient with yourself.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: I could really be patient with yourself, because sometimes you're not going to recognize it right off the bat.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: But when you do, then you can start engaging in these guidelines that are going to help you get out of it.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: But it's it's taken years of practice and stuff to just become more and more aware of the movements of our heart, so that we can respond with ease.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: And then we're going to move on.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Then, just because of time, I want to make sure you can get through 10 and 11.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: And so we're going to switch it a little bit here, right, I think?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: 10, father, we're going to move from desolation and really talk a little bit about consolation.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right before I do that, can I just sum up?
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the last one very simply yeah, that'd be awesome actually Okay.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: So number one God's reason is our faults.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we're slacking.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Now the reason for that, or the fruit of that, is conversion.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: All right, the second one is a trial.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Let's go back to it again.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: So, father, when you're talking about when our faith is tepid or slothful or negligent, right, and so I think about again, because I think it's worth probably staying here for a minute I think of times where I fell out of prayer.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I have a practice of the Lectio Divina at night, right, so it's just basically praying with scripture for the next day and then meditating on that, praying over that contemplation, and it takes, you know, 15, 20 minutes.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Well, there are times in life that real things do come up and problems come up and I do fall asleep before whatever, and that's okay.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: But when things start to recover and you know, and I do get a, you know and things, that these problems in my life settle down a little bit after a couple of days and I get, I catch up on my sleep, you know I need to get back on track again and what happens sometimes?
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I can get out of that habit, and that's what I think about this, this rule that I become tepid or slothful.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I actually, you know, in just a couple of days, I got out of the habit of going back to that prayer life.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: So, so, yeah, that's important, you know.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: So when, uh, to stay on track, right, to stay on track, and to keep our, our prayer life going, and uh, and so that's what I think of with that one, and then so the next one.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: You said with you, you, the trials.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Then yeah, so there's a trial, trial, and the fruit of the trial will be learning.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: You're going to learn about the Lord, you're going to learn about how he works and about how the grace that he gives us, the grace in those trials, to make it through right.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: So it's a learning process.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: He wants us to keep trusting in Him and to direct everything to him, not to the gifts that he gives.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: And then the third one can be summed up as a God's reason for allowing it is that consolation is a gift, it's a complete gift, and so the fruit of that will be humility.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Right, because he's going to fight our pride.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: But so those are the right because he's gonna fight our pride.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: But so there, those are the like quickly, the god's reasons for him and the fruit that will come from them.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, when we're aware of it, and what?
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: was the fruit on the first one again, because I kind of uh, added some things in there again.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: So so just the fruit on the first one again.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: When we're tepid, slothful and negligent and we step back into, you know, we feel that desolation and it's time to get back on track again.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: What was the fruit of that one father?
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: So when it's our faults that are the problem, it's conversion and healing.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yes, all right, that's awesome.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Now the 10th rule and the 11th rule are a little different because they kind of he's given us just a little guidelines about what to do when we are in consolation Right, because we also need to have guidelines for consolation.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: And he says in 10, let the one who is in consolation think how he will conduct himself in the desolation which will come after taking new strength for that time, right.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: So he wants us to to not get too elated with consolation, right.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: And so because that those are ways that we become kind of addicted to the consolation, but to to remind ourself like, okay, this also will not last, I will enter into desolation, but I'm going to soak this in with the Lord right now as strength for those times of desolation that will come.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: And so we kind of and look at how he phrases it, right.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: So one who is in consolation think Ignatius always wants us living a reflective, discerning life, right, we're always discerning what's going on in our heart, what's going on in our life.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: So he wants to think how he will conduct himself in the next desolation, right?
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: The example of that in biblically would be Joseph of the Genesis, right?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: The Joseph who was sold by his brothers.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: And so what did he do In a time of consolation?
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: He stored up seven years' worth of grain of wheat for when the time of desolation or famine came, he was able to take care of all of those surrounding people and the people of Egypt.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of an image of what we're doing in time of consolation is we're like Joseph, we're gathering in the grain, so to speak, of consolation, so that we can take strength for when desolation comes again, because it will, because this life is an ebb and flow and up and down of spiritual consolation and desolation.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: So that's what he wants us to do in those times of consolation.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: And so here are maybe ways of taking new strength from it or accepting consolation.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: So we pray, make a prayer of petition for strength in the future against the spiritual desolation.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Lord, this consolation is a beautiful gift that I receive wholeheartedly from you.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Right now I ask you to strengthen me for that time of spiritual desolation that will come Right, and so little petitionary prayer, a little meditation on the truths that will sustain us in spiritual desolation.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: So without it we remain.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Without spiritual desolation and that opportunity to grow, we remain spiritual children, not the kind that God calls us to be, which is trusting and, you know, devoted to that, but like we won't grow into the mature faith that the Lord wants for us if we don't go through that.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: And so we can meditate upon that and those reasons that God allows us to experience spiritual desolation when we're in consolation, because that's going to give us clear thinking in consolation, if we remember way back in the rule four in desolation, spiritual desolation, ignatius said not only do you experience this differently, but you also think differently because you're being guided by the evil one who's causing this spiritual desolation.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: So you can't.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: So when you're in consolation, you can think about spiritual desolation and you're going to think more clearly and develop tools for when you're in it and it's harder to think about that does that make sense?
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: yeah, and at the same time, uh still uh accept and be open to and feel that love of god right to kind of fill up those, those bins full of peace, joy.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Allow him to fill our hearts.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: And so I'm remembering that I, you know, for desolation, at the same time, I know myself, I, you know, it's those periods of desolation.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I remember those great times of consolation where I felt that peace, I felt that warmth, and so that's going to fill up that grain bin too, so that when I'm down, when things aren't working well, I know that this won't last forever and long as I stay on track, I follow these rules and I resist a desolation, that I'm going to get back on track and feel this consolation again.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: So that's a beautiful thing.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's just one of those ways that we can.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: You know, during spiritual consolation too, we could pray through these guidelines, these rules of St Ignatius, so they become more and more ingrained in our heart and it gives us a deeper awareness of them, because we can think about those different times of desolation and how, like oh, I could have responded like this, because it's way more clear now in this time of consolation.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: So we don't want to just um, necessarily like bask in it, so to speak.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: You definitely want to accept it and absorb it, but use it too as an opportunity to think about those other times and ways that you can respond, developing your arsenal for spiritual desolation.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: You know even scripture too, Scripture that speaks to you in times of consolation.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Write those down for your times of spiritual desolation.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Go back to those, because those can bring us strength and peace in the midst of spiritual desolation.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so use it well.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Awesome, that's awesome.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: And rule number 11, father, and this will be our final rule of the day All right, yeah, so rule 11 is receive consolations.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: To sum it up, receive consolations with humility, remembering how little you are able to do in time of desolation.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: In the time of desolation, think how much you are able to do in time of desolation.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: In the time of desolation, think how much you can do to resist enemies with god's grace.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of a gives us both consolation and desolation.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: It talks about both of it.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: So when we're in consolation, we want to humble ourself, right, we don't want, we don't want it to puff us up with pride, because it's always dangerous, it's always where the evil one can come in and knock us down.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: So we want to think of how little I'm capable of doing in time of desolation.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: And so I recognize in humility this is all a gift.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you Lord, right, not thank me, but thank you Lord for that.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: And then, on the contrary, he says in a time of spiritual desolation, you want to think how much you can do with God's sufficient grace to resist your enemies and to take strength in God.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: So you do the opposite, thinking in time of desolation and just think about it for a moment, because normally we do the opposite without these guidelines In time of consolation, it's like look how good I am, the Lord really loves me because I'm so good.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: And then, in times of desolation, we're like look how terrible I am.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: I hate this, I hate myself.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: We'll do that to ourselves, right?
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: We have this negative self-talk that we hear about in the world today.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's rooted spiritually and so we'll do that to ourselves.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: So Ignatius wants to give us these ways of thinking when we're in consolation and desolation.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Consolation, I humble myself because I can take that, I can understand that better.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: In times of consolation and in times of desolation, I want to think how much I can do because God's giving me sufficient grace to resist my enemies.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to take strength in God in this moment and I'm His.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: You know when I think about you know humility, and you know, in times of consolation, you know the thought comes again that you know when you're attached to very little, and I know that that's grace from God I'm not attached to a lot of the.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: You know the enemy doesn't have a lot of space to pull us down anymore, right, so I'm kind of shedding.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I'm shedding those things that he could grasp onto in a way, right.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: So I, you know.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: So by doing this, I'm thinking, father, I'm thinking out loud, that I can stay in consolation a lot longer if I stay humble and if I give the enemy less things to attach to, because I'm really being attached to God here and I'm being humble and I'm opening myself up to his grace and saying, hey, thank you so much for this consolation, humble, and I'm opening myself up to his grace and saying, hey, thank you so much for this consolation.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: And if you want to attack me, it's going to be a little more difficult than to be puffed up full of pride.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's his normal way of working and maybe that brings up a good time to mention.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: These rules or guidelines are what Ignatius says are for those in the first week of his spiritual exercises, which basically means if you know the three different kind of stages of the spiritual life, according to most of the saints they kind of fall into these categories of the purgative way, right, this purification that happens before entering into the illuminative way, or spiritual adolescence, and then another transition into the unitive way.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: So Ignatius is saying this is during the purgative time.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: This is the normal way things work.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: And so when we transition into the illuminative way, uh, which you know it's, it's all little you can.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: You can experience both at the same time.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: But what the what the evil one will begin to do is to work within spiritual consolation, trying to take us down.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: So it becomes more crafty as you move along.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: And those are going gonna be rules we can study later on.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: But it is important, I think, to recognize, like, what Ignatius wants us to do during this time is to even out those ebbs and flows in our spiritual life by our response to them, Because in the beginning we're going to be really high and really low until we start practicing these guidelines and rules that are going to keep.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: They're going to stabilize us in the spiritual life.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking about why you're saying that, those highs and those lows, I mean we see that in Scripture all the time, right, I mean that's St Peter, that's St Peter, you know, the one time, you know, I remember I don't remember exactly, so I'm just going to paraphrase here but God, our Lord Jesus, I'll die for you, I'll do anything for you.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: And he's up, right, and then we hear, just within a day or two, he denies Christ three times and he's down, he's so far down.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, christ comes in there and he's down, he's so far down.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, you know, christ comes in there and, and Peter starts, you know, really in his humility, starting to understand that that the power is coming from Christ.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: You know, and, and, and, and you could see that later on, as he's speaking, that you know he started to work out some of these ebbs and flows a little bit.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: You know he's, he's much more balanced.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I remember even times that he's listening to St Paul and he actually, you know, was quiet for a little while, right, and he's listening, and listening, and he comes out with his answer.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, these examples happen all the time, right.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think Peter's a great one as far as like going through those three stages of the spiritual life.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Peter is in the purgative stage his whole time with Christ, right All the way up through the crucifixion and death of the Lord.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: It's only after the resurrection that he is brought into that illuminative way, and that's by undoing those three denials on the shore when he makes him do the three acts of love or three sayings of love to Jesus, to undo those.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: But then he doesn't reach the unitive or that really powerful and strengthened way of living until the descent of the Holy Spirit.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: And so Peter's a great one for us to look at, because that's precisely the place he's like, I'll never deny you.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: And he's all gung-ho and he's fired up and stuff and then the next thing you know he's denying Christ and he's falling apart.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: And so it's good for us to recognize that the Lord wants us to be a mature spiritual person.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: And that takes time.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: A mature spiritual person, and that takes time.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: Right, it takes time, it takes practice.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: And just continue to learn from our down times, our mistakes, our failures, not to beat ourself up, to learn from them and entrust ourself to the Lord again, to His mercy, and so it helps us kind of even out over.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so kind of humility and consolation, and then trusting in God and desolation.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: And again, I love Sister Faustina and the image of the divine mercy.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Jesus, I trust in you and I tend to say that whether I'm in consolation or in desolation, and it helps me even out these flows quite a bit in my own life.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: I mean that's why all the spiritual authors will talk about the need for humility.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: It's the foundation of all the other virtues.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: It's impossible to have other virtues if you're prideful Because we haven't got it yet.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: And Peter's prideful, you know, and there are different personalities got it yet and Peter's prideful, you know, and they're different personalities.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: But you know, he never loses that real conviction to live fully to the Lord.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: He just had to the Lord had to purify that, yeah, yeah, and he did, didn't he?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: He did.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: So I guess we'll have to sum this up a little bit, father, we're out of time.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Time goes so fast, right.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: But I guess you know, in our lives, and if we're aware that God's with us all the time, he's always working, you know, the big question is, are we aware?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Are we aware?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Right, and then, if we're aware, we'll understand that he's always with us, always working with us, always loves us, and then try to understand these ups and downs in our lives and then, through these rules of St Ignatius, we'll be able to act again in consolation or desolation.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, these beautiful tools that he gave us Now we're not just getting thrown around and led around, like you said, father, by our emotions and our feelings all the time.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: We have some real tools that we can use.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: And, father, we're going to finish up through the rules 12 to 14.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: And I'm pretty excited I don't know if we only got a minute, but those rules are powerful, coming up and they're really getting.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: I think about knowing really the enemy and remind us again about the spiritual warfare and this journey that we're on.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: And so, 12, 13, 14, father.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Any way to sum those up, what we're going to be delving into in this last episode, yeah, so we shift in focus from spiritual desolation, which he's been giving us tools to combat, to temptations.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: He wants to show us how the enemy tempts us rather than the experience of spiritual desolation.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: And so those temptations they go hand in hand.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Right, the spiritual desolation, enemy's temptations, they often go hand in hand, and so we want to learn what are the most common ways that he tries to attack us.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: Therefore, we can prepare ourselves for it and even maybe protect ourselves from those ways.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: So being aware of how he attacks is very important.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: Just think of any general in an army.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: Is you're going to learn about your enemy so that you can know how they operate, so that you can put into place those things you need to combat that?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: And again, I would get back and recommend to people that they look in the show notes and to get at least one, if not both, of the books that we're recommending there, and to get at least one, if not both, of the books that we're recommending there.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: So, father, thanks again for joining us.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks everyone.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: I hope you had a great Easter season.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Keep up the good work, keep us in your prayers and don't forget to financially support us, if you can.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: We're expanding into a lot of different avenues right now.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: You can find the details for all that in the show notes.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Bye-bye.