Well, let's go ahead and open in a word of prayer so we can get rolling and people can keep mosey and on in okay In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Lord Jesus, thank you for all the gifts that you pour out upon us. You give us the greatest gift There is because you give us yourself Please open our hearts and minds to all you have to share with us Holy Spirit, please give me facility of words so that everything I say will glorify you and set a fire of love of Flame in the hearts of my brothers and sisters and me as well in your precious and holy name. Amen The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen. Thank you all so much for coming as crazy as it is. This is my very first defending the faith conference Where I've actually spoken I'm always at a pie biblical studies and I didn't do that one this year And so it's a joy to be here with you guys I was actually at this conference years and years ago right after I became Catholic and Have not made it back since so this is fantastic to be here with you And it's a little surreal to be a speaker at this conference now given the fact that I'm a pastor's kid who was really anti-Catholic growing up Stories, but I won't share them with you this time But what I want to talk you guys about today in this session again My name is Matthew Leonard and for those of you who are kind of like weren't weren't you with the St. Paul Center? Scott mentioned it last night just to clear air. I was the executive director and executive producer at the St. Paul Center for more than a decade I just left to go out on my own in January and founded next-level Catholic Academy Which is an online subscription site that's dedicated to spiritual theology and laying out a systematic unpacking of Catholic spiritual teaching It's called the science of sainthood is the first course in there We have people that are in the science of sainthood here right now. I have a few that's great Overnight the thing became the largest online school of spiritual theology in the world just like that It's been awesome And one of the reasons why I love Catholic spiritual theology and what I love what we're gonna talk about here today Is because our lives as Catholics are not meant to be spent treading water just waiting for Jesus to come back and praying to God We're not a state of mortal sin Or if you read a bad book and you're thinking that the rapture is gonna happen because the rapture is not gonna happen people Just so you know that's bad Catholic theology If you have any of those Tim Lehey books their highest and best use is Firewood, okay, but our lives as Catholics are supposed to be transformative We are on a process of divinization. That's part of what I want to talk to you about You were supposed to be transformed in this life and one of the main ways we do that is through our relationship With sacred scripture, so we're gonna talk about scripture. I'm gonna pivot to prayer We're gonna talk a little bit about lexiodivina silence and I'm gonna tie it all together in the liturgy, but What is this? Is that a coffee table book? No, this is like my little condensed travel-sized Bible, right? This is the one that oftentimes has gone with me on the road, but The Bible guys, this is our book This is our book Hey, the Bible is unlike any other book ever written the catechism says that God is the principal author of Sacred scripture and yes He used human authors to write down things inside of it But they wrote down exactly what it is that he wanted and nothing more and that's why we call it the inspired Inerrant word of God and we call it that because the Catholic Church does and where did it come from? Because I used to think as a Protestant and went You know dropped down out of the sky into the pew in front of me I had no idea that it was Catholic synods and councils that gave us sacred scripture back in the fourth century That was total news to me and and when you step back and think about it just by saying that there is a Bible You're giving tacit approval to the Catholic faith because no church no Bible the church came first And she like Catholic Church gave us this book that looks great on our bookshelves, you know Oh George make sure you put it at eye level so when Father McGeely cut he comes over for dinner He can see it in the built-in bookshelf, right? And I realized this is defending the faith crowd. I know you guys the uber Catholics But how many of our brothers and sisters in the faith certainly not us really only encounter their Bible when they're dusting I mean that's the only time they find it And I think even times those of us who have really tried to make an effort to get through sacred scripture Find ourselves at a loss at times. How many of you guys have ever tried to read the Bible all the way through? How many of you made it past the book of Leviticus before you passed out and you guys are the troopers the ones With your hands still up it's hard because they're all kinds of levels of meaning that are going on in sacred scripture and Levels of nuance and that's because it's a divine book You are never going to be able to plumb the depths of sacred scripture in this life So what I want to do today is boil the Bible down to its essential Purpose I want to show you that it is a love story And I want to show you how this love story between God and man is meant to be wedded To our prayer lives so that we can be incorporated into the family of God for which each one of us was actually made so the Bible is basically About how you and I were made From nothing less than the sheer love of Almighty God and how he gave us life how we set a plan in motion to Save us even after Adam and Eve rejected this outpouring of love and God us kicked out of the family of God And how in the fullness of time God sent his only son to save us and to reincorporate us back into the family of God for which we were made the Bible is the biggest Mushiest most beautiful love story ever written and yes, I got enough sleep last night You're like some of the parts I read in there Yeah, I know but top to bottom this thing is the biggest love story in the world Which means women you guys should be all over this thing right because you're always dragging us off to see Like pride and prejudice and hand of green gables and all that kind of stuff. I got three little girls I've seen all of those things multiple times and I'm not saying that men are not romantic Are you guys heard me last night right a little love email? I wrote to my wife that email the female book. I told you about is that thick like literally men can be romantic too In fact, I used to drive all the way from Chicago to Steubenville after two weeks of work 55 60 hour work week. I fight through rush hour traffic in Chicago drive eight hours in the most boring road in all of America I 80 right just so I could stare for an hour and a half into the chocolatey dark eyes of my wife Right or girlfriend at the time so I get the whole romance thing and when I wasn't with her I was calling her I was writing those emails. So there's a romantic side to to Men as well and just talking about her makes me want miss my wife, but the Bible The Bible is way better than my stuff Even if my stuff was good enough to marry me the Bible is a love story of biblical Proportions, it's the real goods and we don't have time to go through the entire story of sacred scripture So what I want to do right now is zoom in on one of the books of the Bible that actually kind of embodies this idea That scripture is a love story and that is the song of Solomon Hey, the song of songs. I hear you right? What is the song of Solomon? It's a poetic allegory about the desperate love Between a bridegroom and his bride. They're longing for each other. Let's do the bridegroom Behold you are beautiful my love.   Can you do that?   How much better is your love than wine and the fragrance of your oils than any? spice Gentlemen slap that on a Valentine's Day card and see where that gets you right now Why am I reading this care this stuff because it's chilly in here. It's not really chilly in here but What I want to try and just make you understand and help me understand to how much it is God longs for us How much he thirsts for us? How much he desires union with us? Real union right and so the Bible and God is that bridegroom in this passage. Okay? We are the bride metaphorically and that's why the Bible is filled with all kinds of examples of of the highest The highest examples of all the earthly love that we know like The love between a bride and a bridegroom is this thing that we can all identify with on some level this longing for each other In fact, earthly marriage is an icon, right? It's an image of the divine life of the Trinity, which is one of the reasons why the church teaches against contraception guys Anything that inhibits our marriages from being able to image the love communion between the father and the son is Wrong contraception cuts off that mutual self-donation between spouses and we're no longer imaging the Trinity It's one of the reasons why the church teaches against contraception and if you go through the Bible especially in the song of Solomon if you've ever read through it. There are a lot more Romantic examples that you could point to or the kind you kind of close the Bible when you're pre-prebrescent teenage son Or pre-prebrescent sons walking by is like, oh, you know, don't let him read that part, right? There are some erotic examples in there and the Bible is filled with this now I don't want to confuse anybody with this kind of language. Okay, because the song of Solomon is an allegory of God's love. It's a poem Expressing to us in human terms so terms with which all of us can identify God's love for us and really that love for us is a reality. We can't even comprehend Can you comprehend God? Because God is love Says 1 John 4-8, okay? because God what he does in the Bible is he uses examples of human relationship to try and convey this idea to us of how much that he Longs for us, but even though we're talking about metaphors and allegories and poems. There's a reality here Realize that there is a reality God really wants to wed himself to us Sacred scripture starts with the story of a wedding in the Garden of Eden It ends with the marriage supper of the lamb when we are fully brought into the divine family for which we were made Now not everybody's married Right priests aren't married for the most part nuns aren't married lots of Catholic single people That's great romance is something that everybody can identify with you know on some level Which is one of the reasons why hallmark movies are so popular you seen one you seen them all right ladies But there's an even deeper more universal expression of the love that God wants to convey to us And that is the relationship between father and child a father and child more than anything else The image of God as our father is really the fundamental basis of our faith It's like blessed columbum army and said that God's fatherhood is the fundamental dogma that precludes all others In other words everything we believe as Catholics starts with the idea the idea of Understanding that God is our father, and he's been fathering for all time Right that's what the Bible is really all about in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5 to 7 Jesus uses the term father 17 times, and he's not just telling us who he is By using that terminology. He's telling us what our identity is Okay, because through the sacraments what happens we become part of the mystical body of Christ So God isn't like our father God is our father That's our reality. Who's your daddy? God is your daddy, right and God has been father from all eternity. It's who he is in his identity Okay, other terms that we use for God creator and things like that those have to do in His relationship vis-a-vis us, but father is who he is in his identity Okay, it's who he's always been and again if he had if he's the father, and that's who he is Then he's got children, and that's us Everything in this Catholic life is ordered to be coming a part of the family of God period and God is family This is so fundamental to our Catholic faith that was on Father Mitch Pack was show last year and you'll be ten live and we were talking about the issues that I had as a convert and Coming into the church with Mary and she was hard for me very very difficult and one of the things that got me over the hump with our lady was the fact that Scripture is full of this familial language in fact the Bible is really just one big genealogical line those of you who have done the journey through scripture series are very familiar with this right and understanding that That God is a family and that's what he's conveying in sacred scripture gave me context for Mary You have a father.  Obviously. She's not divine I don't want to be accused of heresy I have all other talks where I talk about spousal union with the Holy Spirit and their relationship and all the rest of That I get that but recognizing the fact that there is a family of God helped me to understand Mary's place in the divine economy and The reason why the Bible is full of this familial language again is because God is Family St. John Paul the second said that God and his deepest mystery is not a solitude But a family because he has within himself fatherhood Sonship and the essence of the family which is love And again, some of you like wait, where's the mom? It's the love portion in there which Mary embodies in her relationship to the Holy Spirit But I don't want to get sidetracked off into all that. That's a lot of St. Maxim and Colby's some beautiful theology there So God is a family of divine persons. That's the family for which you and I were made So by joining ourselves to Jesus Christ, we become part of that family. That's what the Bible is really all about It's the story about God's undying unchanging overwhelming tenderness love for you His child and this life is all about making that relationship with Almighty God a reality Okay, and some of you are like well Matt, how do we make that happen? How do we enter into that relationship because I've been hearing this language since before I was conceived I know I'm a child of God. I've heard about God as my father and Jesus is my brother But I struggled with what that relationship really looks like How does that apply in the actual world? Well, obviously the way we enter into the family of God starts with the sacraments, right? That's fundamental. It starts with baptism and confirmation and Eucharist and confession and all the rest that that are ordered for your vocation, but realize this Catholics The sacraments don't do you any good if you do not have a life of prayer There's enough grace in one consecrated host to save the entire world. The only thing stopping it is us Prayer is what gets us out of the way and opens the channels so that the grace of God can have its Maximum impact upon our lives so it can transform us Okay, you have to have a life of prayer prayer is the key that unlocks the door of your spiritual life of your Relationship with with Jesus Christ it waters the soil so the grace can actually take root and our soul can grow And can bear fruit so not pivot from sacred scripture to the life of prayer because I know y'all know you're supposed to pray I know you know it I know you've heard it, but a lot of people are still wondering what in the world prayer actually consists of Because for a lot of people even good Catholics Prayer is that thing you do when you see the flashing blue lights in the rear view mirror, right? Oh God I'll never do it again, right? Or prayers for your spouse to do on your behalf or prayer is You know something for monks and nuns who seem to have a lot whole lot more free time than the rest of us Or maybe it's just a crotch, you know weak people need that That's the way a lot of people view prayer and it's opening page on the subject the catechism uses the definition of St. Therese of is you and she says for me a prayer is a surge of the heart It's a simple look turned toward heaven. It's a cry of recognition and of love embracing both trial and joy And notice she does not define it in one simple way. She says it's a surge. It's a look. It's a cry Therese is telling us that there are many different faces and facets to our prayer life But even though there are different faces and facets you can basically boil it down to one thing It is personally relating to God and notice I said personally In this day and age everybody's using social media. We have completely lost the idea At least a lot of people have of what personal relationships actually look like They're not bad, but God's not on Facebook. Okay, he certainly doesn't have a Twitter account but What he wants is to share himself with us and he's inviting us to share ourselves with him That's really what prayer is in its essence And I want you to step back and think about this for a second because we're so used to this idea of this personal relationship That we can have with Almighty God that we forget the opportunity that is laid at our feet You can't get the manager of Kroger on the phone if you called but the God of the universe Is constantly on hold waiting for us to just pick up the phone so to speak He's waiting and all he wants to do is Share himself with you and he wants you to share himself or yourself with him That's the essence of prayer and let me tell you something prayer works It does I'm sure many of you guys have experienced this in your life And I'm not just saying that because it's the title of one of my books so you can get down to the bookstore There's my bad pitch. Okay, but prayer really does work. Thank you. I'll give you your five bucks later.  I'm concerned with all kind. I have to dress half my kids every day So yes, I am concerned with sock color times most of the time. I'm just happy. They're putting shoes on we go to mass But God wants to take care of every aspect of your life I'll never forget just a few months after I became Catholic I was a student here at Franciscan and I was in O'Hare Airport Getting ready to fly to Austria to do my study abroad semester and I was flying with a couple of my friends and The problem was we were flying standby Now I fly a ton speaking all over the place and you just don't ever want to fly standby much less Internationally and that make matters worse had been storms in Germany for two days and flights were all backed up And this gate was packed with people who wanted on the last plane getting out of dodge to Frankfurt Germany and I wanted on that plane and They called everybody and me and my two buddies were the only three people left in the gate and The whole plane was done, right and I'm like, oh god, please Right, please. Let me go this plane It was like tumbleweeds going across the gate My friends they didn't care. You know why because they were in love They're now married with six children But all I want to do is make googly eyes in each other They didn't care about spending the night in O'Hare So I wanted to puke just looking at them So I went across the other side of the gate and I pulled out my rosary and I was like, let's see if this thing works, right? So I start praying and I don't remember what decade it was But I got to a certain point I saw the jet of the gate agent come up off the jetway and as he's walking by I said you wouldn't happen to have Any more seats on that plane would you and he said how many of you are there? I said three He said grab your bags. I'm like grab your bags. We ran to the ticket counter It was the fastest check in an airline history. We ran down the jetway and we got on the plane Like Right God, thank you and Mary too, right? And I was like, thank you for getting us on this plane Stewardess walks up and she says welcome aboard our 747 We have three seats left on this plane two of them are in coach one is in business class I went, I'll see you guys later Have fun touching knees or whatever you're gonna do is Franciscan students, right? So I went I sat down in the biggest fattest leather chair. I'd ever seen I was like, this is fantastic God, I'm on the plane. You got me a business class. It doesn't get any better than this Then the stewardess walked up and she said gentlemen I'd like to take your order for dinner tonight tonight's menu is chicken or filet mignon And she looked at me. She said mr. Johnson. I said mr. Johnson couldn't make it But mr. Leonard will have the filet Right So prayer works people God is concerned with your life But really prayer is something that's built into our DNA Realize that this is something that you were made for this is one of the reasons why you enter into a real life of prayer Over time it becomes easier doesn't mean you're not gonna experience obstacles in your prayer life But it's a lot easier if after you've been praying for a year than when you first started Why because this is what you were made for you were made to enter into this kind of relationship with Almighty God Remember God wants us to be part of his divine family. He made us. He made us for himself Right by God and for God as the Catechism says and the only way That we can enter into the divine life of God that we can become part of the family again is if we become like him Okay, we have to become like him and the Catechism says is that prayer restores man to God's likeness So we have to do this That's how we re-enter and we re-engage in the divine family of God Now I know that you guys know your uber Catholics are three different modes or states of prayer Vocal meditative and contemplative prayer. I cannot go through all these stages in detail.  Good intentions doesn't matter if you have the will to pray You have to know how to do it the Catechism says there is an art to pray That is essential to the art of living as a Catholic. That's why I write books. That's why I have a podcast That's why I do videos and all the rest of it This is the fire that burns inside of me It is transformed my life and if you don't have a deep life of prayer it will transform yours as well I can tell you right now that the one thing that most Catholics do not have in their life that they need is a deep life of authentic Catholic meditation You have to have this guys and authentic Catholic meditation doesn't mean twisting your body into some kind of a pretzel It's got nothing to do with down dog or how are you do that?  Catholic meditation is about filling your mind up with God That's what it's really all about. We want to fill ourselves up with him It's the quest of the mind to seek to understand the why and the how of the Christian life says the Catechism in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking and It's so important The St. Alphons of Sigoury Says that short of a miracle a person who has not entered in the mental prayer meditation will end up in mortal sin period In another place he paraphrases St. Teresa of Avila and he says if you are not entering into regular Meditative prayer you do not need demons to carry you to hell you carry yourself there in your own hands That's terrifying and I don't like the smell of burning flesh, especially when it's my own, right? I'm assuming you guys don't either so you have to pray in fact in one of my favorite spiritual theology books those of you Who are in next level Catholic Academy? I reference this guy constantly because he's phenomenal Father Adolf Tanker a in the spiritual life says that meditation most effective means of assuring one's salvation Meditation you got to do it, okay now you're like wait. How do I do that at the bottom of your handout? There is there are directions for you to get a free cheat sheet on mat meditative prayer. It's a three-page PDF It's free just use the directions at the bottom of the handout and you get it delivered right to your inbox, okay? They're not tens of thousands of copies of this thing. It's just the basics of how you enter into Catholic meditative prayer, okay? So it is not an option Meditation is a necessary part of your spiritual life if you're going to get to heaven Okay, the church knows that you need it, which is why there's an entire section of the catechism That's only about prayer and a huge part of it. It's about meditation. Now. What is it? Basically meditation is a tentative reflection on God aided by some kind of a spiritual input a tentative reflection on God Aided by some kind of a spiritual input it could be a book it could be a piece of art It could be all kinds of different things right? Maybe you're even in nature and you see something which helps you move into meditation But it's an interior prayer where God begins to reveal himself to us and it's not a one We ponder on the mysteries of God and he begins to speak to us So there's a conversation that takes place. We focus on him. He speaks to us and meditation is not shooting the breeze with God Like how you doing God right whenever I enter into a third-person voice it always is Italian I have no idea why but that's not the way we're supposed to do it prayer realize this guys This is baseline prayer is always ordered to action always prayer is meant to Transform your life because the whole process is about being conformed to Jesus Christ and that involves some process here Now and speaking of process. This is one of the biggest areas of confusion for most Catholics when it comes to prayer Prayer is not the same thing as process They realize this prayer is a relationship with a divine person.   All right It's not that okay prayer is God right and all those things are good. Don't get me wrong. Those are necessary things, but they are tools They are preparation to get you to move into real prayer Don't just keep plowing through your rosary or your litanies just to get done Because the goal isn't to get done The goal is God That's what it's all about It'd be like if you call up your friend.  Okay You could go so far as to say that technically speaking that reading and pondering and even reflection and focusing on the mysteries of God That's not really prayer. They are preparation For the movement of the heart and will to God, but true prayer says Father Thomas Dubey who also wrote some great books on prayer is adoring thanking Praising and sorrowing with inner quiet words That's what prayer consists of that means when you're into a conversation with God starts Put down the thing that you're using to move you into that relationship Okay, and also don't be afraid to change things up if you find this technique that you've been using for a long time in your Meditative prayer is no longer helping you move into that conversation with God then move on to something else The one exception to that is the rosary Our lady said pray the rosary and guess what I listen to our lady So you keep praying your rosary prayer is not about feelings. It doesn't matter how you feel Okay, it's an act of the will sometimes you're gonna have consolations. Sometimes you're not Okay, we can talk about that in the Q&A if you want to but Let me zoom in now on one of the church's favorite forms of meditation and my senior Charles Pope referenced this last night And I'll bet you a lot of you guys are already doing this, but I want to talk for a moment about lexiodivina Now lexiodivina is just a phrase that means divine reading. It's reading and praying Oversacred scripture and it's been around for ages. That Pope Benedict 16th takes it all the way back to the third century with origin and From origin in Rose and Augustine and others learn the method origin says this While you attend to this lexiodivina Seek a right and with unwavering faith in God the hidden sense which is present in most passages of the divine scriptures So because it's the story of how you're saved the Bible is a really important part of our Movement to our God to our dialogue with God when you read the Bible says St. Augustine God speaks to you when you pray you speak to God and Lexiodivina is so important because you're not just reading a book. You are having an engagement with divinity Okay, this is an engagement with the divine life of God Now it follows a very similar format to other forms of meditation Which you'll see if you download that that PDF that I described on the bottom of your handout But because lexiodivina is all about the Bible and the Bible is a divine text that means Lexio is in a class by itself Okay, now there are four basic steps. They're on your handout reading meditation prayer and contemplation Those of you who have really tried to read the Bible Know that it's a little bit trickier than reading, you know Harlequin romance book or Tom Clancy novel, right? It's got all kinds of stuff going on. Sometimes you're like what in the world is this mean? That's when a good commentary comes into play best one. I've seen Ignatius Catholic study Bible right Curtis Mitch wrote most of the commentary in it. It's phenomenal But what you need to do is figure out the literal sense of what's being said in other words What did the human author intend to convey that's always your starting point when you're doing this kind of prayer Okay, then from there you move on to step two meditation now. You're asking yourself. What does this passage actually mean to me? Is the Lord speaking to me? Is there something that catches my attention if the answer is yes You pause you move to three you pray if the answer is no you keep on reading Okay, remember true prayer doesn't consist of method. It's the result of the method true prayers the movement of the heart to God Now lexio ends with Contemplation during which we take up as a gift from God says Benedict his own way of seeing and judging reality. So in other words Contemplating scripture gives us the mind of Christ so that we can see the world as it really is It gives us the ability to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart says Hebrews 412 That's the power reading over the and praying over the word of God now. We go the Carthusian We go the Carthusian sounds like local Italian muscle who moved to Steubenville from Chicago, right? He's really the guy who wrote the classic text on lexiodavina. It's a 12th century monk. This is what he says This is how he summarizes lexiodavina Reading seeks the sweetness of the blessed life meditation finds it prayer asks for it and Contemplation tastes it The guy's Italian right? He's comparing it to eating here in another place. He says reading places solid food in the mouth Meditation shoes and breaks it prayer extracts the flavor Consumption is the very sweetness that gives joy and refreshes Like the psalma says taste and see that the Lord is good now If you're a member of the science of sainthood You know that Contemplation I hammer this constantly Contemplation is not something you make happen Contemplation is a gift from God is the highest of all three stages of the spear of the three modes of prayer Okay, it is an infused prayer the Latin. It's infusum, which means that which is poured in Okay, you can't make it happen. It's a gift from God What's happening is at that stage of your prayer life and your spiritual life the infinite is starting to be poured into the finite God is literally pouring himself into you. Okay, so you don't make it happen You can't conjure it up on your own what that means is with regard to lexiodavina It's not something you kind of whip out of your prayer pocket anytime you want to Lexiodavina has to be practiced and and done repeatedly in order for it to Have an impact upon your life Otherwise we go says the exterior letters will profit the the reader nothing okay, and lexiodavina has gotten really popular lots of books about it these days One of the things a lot of people don't talk about with regard to lexiodavina is the fact that when you start reading the masters of this method like We go the Carthusian very quickly you realize that what he's really doing is connecting different parts of sacred scripture So you better know the story of the Bible if you're really going to get out of lexiodavina what you want So if you think that Noah led the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land you should go back and watch You know Genesis the Jesus okay, you got to know the story so you can really enter into lexiodavina But really at the end of the day Lexio is meant to lead to action. It's supposed to transform your life. It's supposed to make you like Jesus Christ You don't put on the mind of Christ just to think differently, right? You have to act differently lexios supposed to make you more humble and patient and loving and kind More like Jesus Christ, and if you're gonna be like Jesus Christ There's one other thing we got to talk about here And that is something a lot of us don't fully grasp or understand the importance of Silence This is huge now typically We associate noise with our kids or our grandkids. I got six kids Sometimes the TV is so loud the neighbors two houses away know what we're watching, okay? But really even though we associate it with with our kids and our grandkids and all the rest When we shush our kids or grandkids, it's really so we can hear something else We want to hear the iPad or the radio or the TV or whatever else We're not really craving silence most of the time and in this day and age. We are so conditioned for distraction and noise it's everywhere Music is constantly assaulting us you walk into the grocery store, and there's music playing You get on you go pump gas and all of a sudden TV screens pop up and start yapping at you You get on an elevator and you're hearing a bad orchestral version of Millie Vanilly, right? Like give me a break Why? Why all this constant noise? Well It's really pretty easy actually silence is scary Silence is scary. It forces us to peer inside and be honest with ourselves Right in silence you're confronted with yourself Like you go so far as to say that silence puts us to the test because it forces us to peer inside and to be honest With ourselves. I once read about how soon to be beatified archbishop Fulton Sheen Made any directive that came to him go to adoration for a solid hour with no books No, nothing just them and God and the reason why he did it is because he knew that God would do all the heavy lifting for him Now unfortunately the modern world has no time or tolerance for silence Like he's got no value in our utilitarian universe. We're so obsessed with production Exploitation of resources. So what do you do with silence that has no value? What can I do with it? Who's gonna pay for silence? Now in the eyes of the world silence is a holy useless nests says the French philosopher Max Bard And one of our problems is that we have a tendency to view silence as the absence of anything Right, but really silence isn't a nothing silence is the reality into which sound invades Think about it. I stopped talking Silence it's always there and silence is sacred This is why when you walk into a beautiful church when you're on pilgrimage in Europe or wherever You walk into this beautiful place and all of a sudden you You lower your voice why because the knowledge of who dwells there and this beauty that you're surrounded with Creates a feeling of awe and reverence which naturally translates into silence Even the most beautiful piece of sacred music doesn't belong in an adoration chapel We need silence To enter recollected into the presence of Almighty God And we got a quiet the exterior noise It's always threatening to drown out our interior lives Solitude stills our passions and gives our reason and opportunity to cut them out of the soul So the same basil the great. I love that quote and Problem is we don't like to do it Most of us rather go dig a ditch for 15 minutes than be quiet with God It's hard when you first try and be quiet with God, isn't it? It's hard when you try and be quiet with God after five years of praying We have so many competing things but it is a necessity if you're going to put yourself in the presence of God The Heavenly Father has spoken one word says John on the cross It was his son and he speaks it eternally in an eternal silence and it's in silence that it can be heard by the soul But silence is also something that's more than just no sound. Okay, you have to quiet our interior lives, too St. Isaac and Nineveh great Eastern father says let us love silence till the world is made to die in our hearts Isn't that beautiful? Seek after a quiet mind Says basil and if you haven't noticed our mind of the wonder all over kingdom come even when we're so-called quiet All right, your mind goes everywhere.  You're like man this carpets from the 80s. I mean, we're so ADD, right? We need quiet Yeah, you know distraction from within is just as problematic as distraction from without and Saint Teresa of Avila says if you experience distraction in prayer Just give it back to God and it becomes a prayer in and of itself But it's better to never be distracted in the first place. Now. What does that mean? It doesn't mean you move into for those of you from the 60s Maxwell smarts cone of silence right for the rest of your life But what it does mean is reigning in your consumption of the world in general terms This is really hard. It's really hard Interior quiet is not a switch. You can flip any old time you want You have to set yourself up for this Don't ever forget that the sights and sounds that we put into our mind are they affect us They think they're food for the imagination and it's vitally important that we guard what it is that we put into our minds It's hard enough to focus when innocent distractions about a balance, right?  I know people It's hard, but prayer is something that's supposed to extend your entire life When you walk into an adoration chapel you go into prayer your mind is going all over the place And so what do you do? I like maybe I turn the radio off on my way to the adoration chapel so I can begin to quiet down before I ever get Into the adoration chapel and then you take it back even further Well, maybe I shouldn't just fill my mind with all these things anyway. Take a hard look at what you were filling your mind with This is a really big question and I'm not saying to associate yourself completely from culture All right We have to be a part of this world and we need to be leaven in this culture But it is a fine line to walk because remember It doesn't just stay inside either as the old saying goes garbage in garbage out That's right. Now the book of James The book of James scares the dickens out of me It does because this guy doesn't pull any punches This is why I took him as my confirmation name when I became Catholic James says he writes what I think is one of the most sobering verses in all of sacred scripture He says if anyone thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart This man's religion is vain Right vain Realize that as a participation in the divine life of God our spiritual lives are of a very very delicate nature even small quote-unquote sins and There's nothing really small about any sin because all sin is in a front against Almighty God But even small sins can derail our ascent to God Like a snuff out the fervor that we have inside of our hearts and there is no easier sin than saying Something we shouldn't Can I get an amen?  Our imperfections make themselves known by what we say if you think Lou Thoughts it'll come out as lewd speech If you're envious another person you will backstab if you're angry with somebody else Look out right Person can actually tame the little monster in their mouth It's a pretty fair indicator that they are growing in other parts of the spiritual life as well But since the tongue is a fire says James full of deadly poison This is all easier said than done is it not and history shows that a lot of people went to great lengths to Avoid the sins of the tongue the desert fathers are called the desert fathers because they moved out to the desert Partly so they wouldn't have anybody else around to talk about All right now you and I are not desert fathers What are we supposed to do? Is there any hope buddy who lives in a city of population more than one and There is hope that's what grace is for and don't get me wrong. It's not that speaking of itself is bad All right, that's not what I'm saying In fact our ability to speak is one of humanity's distinguishing features And I don't care what the animal planet channel tells me my dog is never going to talk to me Okay, Flipper doesn't talk to the kid in the show, right? Doesn't mean anything. All right. I Love that show, but we we use our tongues to communicate ideas and to glorify Almighty God and and really if I was just to be quiet around the house all the time My wife would probably have a few choice words for me That would be followed by the dreaded silent treatment, which is not the kind of silence you want so you have to speak and God created the world through speech, right? The words are so powerful, which is why we have to be so careful with them You can build somebody up. You can tear somebody to shreds with your tongue And look the Catholic faith was proclaimed verbally long before it was ever written down Which was news to me as a Protestant But James says bridle your tongue right not cut it off. We have to talk rather than being a total negation of speech Silence is a means to help us put our tongue to right use All right, which remains a problem for most of us and while it's obvious We have to speak at appropriate times It's more than obvious that a lot of things that we say should never have been said at all Much of our speech is motivated by pride is motivated by pride and jealousy and anger and a whole host of Other bad things and for some reason we think that cutting somebody else down to size is going to elevate ourselves When in reality all it does is lower our standing with God and even when you are not Denigrating someone else excessive speech can be problematic Many of us love to chat. We love to be the person with the breaking news that nobody else has heard rights And what is that? Why do people like that so much because it gives us a sense of superiority It gives us a sense of control which really at its root is nothing more than egoism It's pride Incorrect use of the tongue doesn't just damage us. It also damages other people as well. We love To say something that we know will set somebody else up, right? We do this all the time. We want a particular response from someone. We know exactly what to say How simple it is to say something we know will elicit a negative comment from somebody else even a question as Inocuous as guess who called again is problematic If you're saying and you know you're setting it up so the other person then launches in the negative commentary on their own about that person We got to be really careful what we say Jesus said temptations of sin are sure to come But woe to him by whom? They come Now those are scary words But they're not the scariest If I had to pick one verse out of the Bible that scared me more than any other it's Matthew 12 36 I tell you on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word They utter I don't know about you guys.  How do we tame the beast? Well the solution is really supremely simple, but it's devastatingly difficult Stop talking as much as possible Stop talking even when your emotions are running a muck put a sock in it Put two socks if you have to don't forget that if you don't act on any emotion that's happening Oftentimes it will lose its force now. I'm not saying you repress your emotion So you have a heart attack, but you know like people get really angry and you take a step back and you take a few deep breaths, right? It goes away don't lash out you got to get into the habit of not speaking first, right? Yeah, really what it is. It's mortification It's mortifying your your desire for speech and the sinful satisfaction that speech can lead to Just like you would mortify your desire for beer or chocolate like during Lent. That's what it's about God gave us a tongue to glorify him too often. We're just glorifying ourselves What a mama say if you can't say anything good Now I realize it's pretty coming from a guy who makes his living traveling the world and speaking to thousands people on a regular basis I get the irony. All right, and I'm betting that speech is necessary for you, too Right now you can maintain silence even when you are speaking if you follow the golden rule of Father Edward lean one of the greatest spiritual writers of the 20th century. This is what he says the rule is Never to speak merely for one's own sake or for one's own gratification or to satisfy some impulse But solely for the glory of God for the right accomplishment of duty for the promotion of truth for the exercise of Charity for the comfort of the sorrowful and for the purpose of brightening the day of one's fellows I'll probably just try and shut up Right, that's hard to live up to isn't it? But that's the goal and don't forget that Jesus Christ did the same thing You want to be conformed to Jesus Christ scriptures replete with examples of Christ going out into the wilderness In Mark the Holy Spirit drove him out into the wilderness so he could be quiet for 40 and 40 nights before he even launched His public ministry he was up all night in silence with his father before he chose the 12 disciples So if the second person of the most holy trinity found silence and quiet as a necessary part of his conversation with the father Shouldn't we too right? All right now there's a reason I started with the Bible and then moved to prayer and the reason why is because the Bible and Prayer go together like haul and oats Okay, or some of you are older like who are hauling out. It's captain and Taneel. Okay, the carpenters. All right Look, this is one of the things that reminds me of how great it is to be a Catholic because realize I had the Bible in prayer as a Protestant. My Bible wasn't quite as big, but it was still pretty good I was reading and praying over sacred scripture long before I ever thought about becoming one of you people But that's as far as I could take it But the Catholic Church takes it to the next level why because the Bible and prayer come together fully in the mass And they lead us to the Eucharist they lead us to a real encounter with Almighty God It's in the liturgy that God interacts with us most powerfully personal prayer Finds its end in the liturgy its source and goals as the catechism. Why? Because the liturgy is the activity toward which is this excuse me The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the church is directed Everything you do is ordered to the liturgy which means people If you have a daily mass that is available to you and you don't have anything that's keeping you from going What is wrong with you? The God of the universe makes himself available to us And that's the summit toward all of our activity as Catholics is to enter into that communion that we have with Him that's only available in the Eucharist If you can get to daily mass you better get there All right, the liturgy is what brings us into the mystery of God. This is where heaven and earth kiss This is where all the love that God has for us that you see play out in sacred scripture that you begin to experience In your life of prayer come together where God literally pours himself out into us We become part of him. He becomes part of us We're consuming him in the same way that the Israelites consume the Passover lamb back in Exodus 12 Why did they partake of that sacrifice because it became a part of them and they it that's what we do with Jesus Christ in the mass St. Augustine says if you receive well, you are what you have received We eat God Get to the liturgy As often as you possibly can guys. This is what it's all about and this whole progression is laid out in the Liturgy we start with the liturgy of the word it leads us to the liturgy of the Eucharist and prayer is sprinkled all the way Through this it's in the liturgy that all of our preparation all of our reading and our meditating our lexiodivina This is where it finds its end It's a liturgy where we most fully become what it is that we were made to be Sons and daughters of Almighty God real members of the divine family. That's what this is all about That's what this conference is all about. That's what your Catholic life is all about It's about becoming a real member of the family of God and realize you cannot be a member of the family of God Unless you are like the rest of the family of God You have to be and this is something that most Catholics just don't get In fact again, I'm not trying to do a commercial here and you signs of sainthood people You know this and forgive me for repeating this, but this is so foundational This is how I explain this all the time So if you've heard me do this before forgive me, but I'm riffing on st. Thomas Aquinas, which is always a good thing to do This is what it means to be part of the family of God. How many of you have a pet? How many of you consider your pet to be a member of the family? Go ahead.  I Never got called the furry little child And you can probably see why right? But when Dixie had to go to the bathroom guess what Dixie didn't get to go to the bathroom Dixie had to go outside Why because Dixie is a dog Okay, even the son-in-law goes to the bathroom Now compared Dixie's relationship as a dog in the family with a real furry little child half Greek and half Italian That gets wedded into a family That baby can become part of the family in the way the dog never can Why because even though it doesn't share the same bloodlines it shares the same nature as the rest of the family It's human like the rest of the family God takes this whole divine adoption thing and he kicks it up on steroids Because Jesus the second person of the most holy trinity In his divinity came and he took humanity his sacred humanity and he wedded it to his divine nature So that through the sacraments you and I pass through his sacred humanity and on into his divinity why so we can be like him So that we can participate in the divine nature of God says second Peter 1 for if you're going to be a member of the Divine family of God you have to be divine like the rest of the family You have to share the same nature as the rest of the family. That's what this is all about That's what the incarnation passion death and resurrection the ascension of Jesus Christ was all ordered to we talk about the family of God There is a reality there your entire movement through this life is about re-acquiring the nature of God It's going beyond what Adam and Eve had I shouldn't even say it's reacquiring You're going beyond what Adam and Eve had back in the garden. Oh happy fault unnecessary sin of Adam which gained for So great a redeemer why is it a happy fault? Because now we get to become part of the family of God in a real way Adam was on his way into the family He got derailed he got sidetracked got kicked out of the family before he was fully divinized the catechism says He was destined to be divine it never happened You are destined to be divine in reality and it happens primarily through the sacraments in a life of prayer But you have to become divine. This is the public secret of Catholicism I don't know why more people aren't talking about this if we really understood this We wouldn't be tearing churches down selling them to Protestants are becoming nightclubs breaks my heart We'd be busting out the walls to add additions because more people were going how do I get a piece of this? But we're not living this because we haven't really fully absorbed the fact that your destiny is to be divine That's mind-blowing when you think about it. Is it not? Is it not Catholics? Amen to that Well realize we don't become equal to him. I want to be very specific about this. We don't become equal to God Right, we participate through grace in his nature God pours himself out so that we participate it through his love in who he is so he remains God We remain creatures, but we are divinized by grace grace is Unbelievable the power that it has and we waste it so often But that is the divinizing principle so by reading the word and entering into prayerful communion with the word We become one with the word. That's what it's all about That's what Catholicism is all about and it's not something that just happens later when you go to heaven It's something that happens right now through a life saturated in Scripture through a deep life of prayer and getting into the sacraments As often as you possibly can and realize God the maker of the universe who holds your very being in existence right now is Your father and he wants you to be a part of his family But you have got to get close to him for that to happen You've got to get close to him so you can hear exactly what it is He wants you to do in every aspect an area of your life draw nigh unto him and he will draw nigh unto you Says the book of James I can yell at the top of my lungs for my kids to come in for dinner But if they're outside the doors closed they're not gonna hear me You've got to pray to get close to God You've got to get to know sacred Scripture to know Jesus Saint Jerome says ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Jesus Christ You've got to know the story and you know knowing the Bible really the Bible really help you go off the rails when you're trying to make big Decisions in your life Because you see how God works right? Prayer in the Bible and what I don't mean by that.   You're like all the book of Genesis Take your son your only son whom you love and offer him a sacrifice upon one of the mountains which I shall show you like Billy You might want to rethink your actions Don't do that. Okay, get to know the story and get to know God That's how you're gonna get to know what it is that he wants you to do with your life I've got to take time to pray you've got to take time to get to the sacraments And if you put your relationship with God first you'll be more tuned into what it is that he wants for your life You'll be able to hear what it is He wants you to do in every single aspect of your life and more importantly you will enter into divine life That's the pearl of great price. That is the prize beyond compare So get into God and let him get into you amen Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen Jesus you give us all there is because when you give us is yourself Help us to live according to your promises help us to move into divinity. Thank you in your precious and holy name Amen, I'm the father and the son of the Holy Spirit amen now. I know you guys are fighting the food coma I ended right on time so before I take any questions, which I will I just want to hold up the bookstore Ask me to do this look the two books that I have I've already signed a bunch of copies They got more copies there this one goes through prayer vocal meditative and contemplative prayer and the three stages of the spiritual life Which most people have never heard of the purgative illuminative and unit of ways I lay it out all in layman's language and when you get that everything changes this one's an overview of the Catholic life That shows how it all ends in divinity. It's all about redemptive suffering and how to read sacred scripture and meditative prayer All the Catholic things and how they end in divine life. So there I've done my job as far as that goes One other thing Scott mentioned last night next level Catholic Academy It is closed down right now. I got too many people in it that for me to handle at the point in time So I shut it down. I'm reopening the doors to this at the end of the summer It's again. It's already the largest online school of spiritual theology in in the world There's a wait list you sign up on the wait list you get a discount, okay? You go to next level Catholic Academy comm. It's on the bookmark I know you guys are gonna buy books you guys about bucks your books. I gave you a bookmark. All right So what questions can I answer? Yes, ma'am? I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Oh Father Edward lean L E E N Father Edward lean Yes Oh the nation's Catholic study Bible. Yeah, you can buy that for like 15 bucks on Amazon It's the full Bible is not out yet It will come out next year the New Testament you can buy in a bound version You can buy it's fascicles of the Old Testament right now, but it's not all one bound copy. It's coming. Yes Full machine that's exactly right He said full machine made it a holy hour every day in fact He made more than a holy hour every day on the art of Catholic podcast which I have which is free audio if you guys don't know a podcast are Someone can explain it to you, but my next guest Is named my senior Hilary Franco and he is a man who lived with fold and sheen for five Twelve years, I think and worked with him if any you guys ever saw you know if you're old enough to have ever seen Life is worth living or you've seen it on YouTube this man that I interviewed was the angel who erased the blackboard for him Yeah, he's amazing He's been a priest for 64 years and not only did he live and work with soon to be beatified and fold and sheen He lived and worked with st. John Paul second this guy's phenomenal. So he's the next guest. I have on the art of cat Anybody else? Yes, the spiritual life by father a Dolph tanker a T a n q e r e Why tanker a I'm gonna tell you right now. It's this thick all right Guys look the reason why I started next level Catholic Academy to begin with is because all the things that we do Is Catholics or ordered to the spiritual life all kinds of the theology are great, right? But the rubber meets the road and how you live your life and how your interior life is integrated with God That's where it all comes together. You're not going to get to heaven by knowing the Bible You're not going to get to heaven by knowing the dogmatics of the church You're going to get to heaven if your interior life is wedded to God That's what the spiritual life is all about next level Catholic Academy is 10 minute videos It systematically lay out what the ancients called the science of sainthood. That's the name of the course It's called the science of sainthood. Why because it's not a free-for-all There is a systematic progression that you and I are supposed to go through in this life Just like you grow from being an infant into adolescence and an adult in natural life You do the same thing in the spiritual life and it's all laid out Can I get an amen from any science of sainthood members? Right another question. Yes, ma'am My favorite father the church that's like picking between my children my favorite father's church is probably st Ignatius of Antioch and the reason why is because when I was coming into the church I first read him back in the second century saying that he was talking about the Eucharist Which blew my mind. I'm like, oh, that's a Catholic word We don't have a Eucharist and he said if you are outside of your bishop. You are outside of Christ We didn't have a bishop and That was the first guy who was like, oh my goodness the Catholics might be right and so that's why he remains my favorite Yes, ma'am Attentive reflection on God aided by some kind of a spiritual input. It's on your handout that definition Yes, oh, yeah With prayer and fasting first It's it's such an annoyance. Isn't it you're trying to enter into Almighty God And it's even worse afterwards realize guys that the prayers that you give after you're receiving communion are the most Powerful you can give because you're literally united with God in the closest way that you possibly can be but you prepare for it before mass and Other than having the priest say something from the anvil. That's the only thing I've ever seen that's effective or having the organist Say something before mass starts other than that. I don't know what to tell you because it drives me crazy, too Yes, ma'am Is it for is it someone she's saying she has a struggle and praying for someone that she should be praying for it There's someone that you're struggling with or someone you're actually you want something good to happen to them Yeah You your expectation should be that the will of God is going to be done St. John Damascene says prayer is asking God for what is fitting and That's the key so you're praying for the will of the Lord to be done and realize guys If you want the right answer if you want to get what you want in prayer every single time There is a real simple secret to it You get close to God You know why because the closer you conform yourself to Jesus Christ all of a sudden the desires of your heart become his Because you're joined to him and the things that you're asking for in prayer are what he wants anyway And he's gonna grant that prayer every single time But when you don't know what's going on the other in the will or in the life of another person You just pray for the will of God to be done and that's the most important thing you can possibly do You can still pray for someone to be healed and all the rest of it Lord I accept your will because you have to realize that if God is our father That means that anything and everything that happens in our life happens for a reason Look when my mom was struggling with cancer for five years before she passed away She passed away during my first semester here right after I came into the church I had to leave school three weeks early and I struggled with that hard. Why God did you let that happen? She was the only person in my family who expressed any kind of an understanding of why I was becoming Catholic And now she's still the only Catholic in my family because she's probably having a therese right now because she had a devotion Our late artist Therese, but I had to get to the point where I accepted that in God's good And perfect will as my mother's loving father that it was in her eternal best interest That her time was up That's the point we have to get to in our spiritual lives Where you accept the will of God no matter what? Happens That's when you achieve that interior peace that the church writers talk about The peace that passes all understanding you can't get there until you fully Grasp the fact that God is your loving father who always knows what's best for you even when you have no idea What's going on? anybody else yes Yeah, they say they say the rosary before mass Until the one dude who thinks a decade means it takes ten years and he's like oh Hail Mary like mass is supposed to start Yes Yes, sure It's hard, but you make a commitment commitment to do it now.    I went and I prayed my rosary now. I planned it I know we're gonna have a holy hour tonight, so I pray the rest of my meditation during that My schedule is such and you have to have a schedule if you don't It's not gonna happen. That's why the monks and nuns have rules of life, right? So you have to have a schedule for me in the mornings. I get up really early where it's 7 a.m. Mass We go to Mass as a family. It's hard guys.  What am I gonna do for him? Right, so we go to Mass at 7 o'clock I go to the adoration chapel after that after dropping my kids off at school, and I spend a half an hour in adoration I'm praying my rosary where I can fit in but I do the rosary every day without fail Meditation at least do 15 minutes Okay, we're not monks and nuns most of us anyway. We have busy lives right so you do it according to your state and life Seems answers to sales is very clear about this And you just got to keep your eyes on that because otherwise you're gonna alienate the people around you because you're not gonna be doing What you're supposed to be doing as a father or a mother or whatever your vocation is But it's hard and it changes based on season and life as well, but you have to have a rule of life Right It's a Baptist. Yes, so I should have had the microphone up to you. She's talking about when we are baptized We are entering into the life of grace. We enter into the the life of Christ as priest, prophet, and king We enter into every aspect of God's life at baptism and getting back to what we were just talking about how you grow up in the faith Those three sacraments are the sacraments of initiation, right? So by the time we hit confirmation whenever that is in your in your diocese What's supposed to happen is that seed that of grace that was planted When you become part of the family of God at baptism now, you're not just a child of God now you're taking on the mission of Jesus Christ you're supposed to be grown up in the faith enough to be able to start to live as a Christian Based upon the grace you get I know there's a big Argument over when you should do confirmation I'm of the camp where the earlier the better because I want the graces for my kids, right? But you're right We're integrated into that that mystery of who Jesus Christ is but of course the baby doesn't realize that Right, but over time the baby does and our job is to make them to recognize that Right, and you know how you do this guys. It's not rocket science You model your life of prayer you model the Catholic life for your kids my daughter when she was eight years old I think I found a piece of paper that was a school project And it was one of these where they start the sentences off and the kids supposed to fill it in and one of the sentences on it was My dad is my hero because and she wrote I see him pray They you have no idea what they're looking at So you got a model who the father is this is terrifying to me as a dad My kids are going to relate to Almighty God based on how I treat them that's sobering and Same thing ladies with regard to Mary We don't talk about that very often But this is the reality we modeled it for our kids just like Jesus Christ modeled it for us Starting with baptism. Yes When I enter into meditation, how do I pick the scripture that I'm going to do? Sometimes I will have a book that I choose that I'm just gonna make my way through that most of the time though I use the liturgy of the hours I mean I have the Magnificat on my phone I use it a lot and you I just go through the daily readings or I use the morning prayers because they're just replete with scriptures So I'm just praying and roll on with the whole church, which is there's real power in that Yes Yes Generally speaking, yeah Well, you're getting nice liturgical discussion, aren't you? Because frankly I'm of the opinion there shouldn't be I mean it's one thing to have background music, right? But as I said before like after receiving the Eucharist the most powerful time of meditative prayer What are you supposed to be doing in mass?  That's the way he made us It's very difficult for us to not be distracted by the things that are going on around us That's why we need silence and this isn't Matt Leonard's opinion This is the opinion of the fathers of the church the great spiritual writers who talk about the importance the critical role of Silence when you walk into an adoration chapel, it's hard enough for me to quiet my mind if I hear a tune that I know Like unaccompanied Bach my mind is going right along with the music Right. I'm not so much difficult more difficult for me to focus on Almighty God That's why silence is so important because you got to quiet down the interior life I'm not saying music is bad at all. There are there are time and place for everything But when entering into meditative prayer quiet is the is the perfect environment for it. Yes Absolutely am I a fan of St. Ignatius? I've celebrated mass on pilgrimage in St. Ignatius's room where he recuperated after he had his cannibal accident where he had His conversion. Yes, I'm a big fan and his whole movement between Desolation and consolation is a beautiful picture of our movement through the spiritual life because even as you mature in the spiritual life You know, they're suffering and the more you go in the spiritual life, you know that suffering is So redemptive and you welcome it more and you even start to desire it Dare I say and so your desolations actually become consolations in a weird ironic way, but yes I love St. Ignatius of Loyola Yes, ma'am Contemplation is the question. Okay, this is the last question because I know it's it's quarter after You can't again you cannot make console contemplation happen It happens to you from God you prepare for it through mostly through meditative prayer Okay, that's how it happens But you get to a point in the spiritual life where God starts to move you into contemplation If you are someone who prays a lot You have probably gotten to the point where you suddenly feel the urge to stop praying your rosary or to put the book down That you have and just be present with God There's a great line of the peasant in ours who said I look at him and he looks at me, right? That's the beginnings of contemplation, you know theologians talk about how it is we see God in the beatific vision in heaven Contemplation is the beginning of that site. How do you know it's happening? It's one of the things I go over in the science of sainthood next level Catholic Academy, right? There are different markers like what I just said when you feel like the meditation is becoming like slogging through wet cement in Glosses, that's how you know All things being equal like you're making spiritual progress It's not because you're trying to get rid of the garbage is in your mind that kind of stuff But when meditation starts to become difficult That's when it's an indicator that you are beginning to move into contemplation, but you cannot make it happen What happens is God kind of put you in this tractor beam and he's slowly drawing you toward him now that said The spiritual life is a marathon. It's not a sprint, right? And so you can be in different stages in different modes of prayer at the same time There are multiple levels in each one of these stages that you were making your way through So you can have the beginnings of contemplation of that infused prayer and still be meditating in your transition time And the spiritual writers differ with regard to exactly when it happens But it happens at a different point for each person because even though we go through the same stages You're an individual and God's gonna give it to you when he knows that you are ready But you have to be aware of the nuances of what it is You're looking for otherwise you can miss the boat which again is one of the reasons why I found out this whole Academy So I will close with that. Thank you guys very much.


How did quiet and still become our highest priority for children during a worship experience? How did quiet and still become our highest priority for adults? This world is a vibrant mix of turmoil and joy and suffering and fascination. Maybe we all need to spend more time shouting and jumping up and down or playing games or eating snacks or crying out. And we can start by declaring this is boring whenever the liturgy doesn't match the intensity that we experience in this life.