35 Burst results for "Loyola"
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from LST2 A Glimpse of Zlie The Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux with Fr. Timothy Gallagher Podcast
"Of the Mary, a religious community dedicated to retreats and spiritual direction, according to the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He is featured on several series found on the Eternal Word Television Network. He is also author of numerous books on the spiritual teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the venerable Bruno Lanteri, founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, as well as other works focused on aspects of the spiritual life. The Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux with Father Timothy Gallagher. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Father Gallagher, it seems to me that the way you've described the wonderful home of St. Therese that she was born into, that this really exemplifies what St. John Paul II called the domestic church, that this is an area where in the heart of the family, faith is nurtured, love is nurtured, hope is nurtured, all these virtues are nurtured in this interaction, and yet they're still very much in the world. I mean, they had to be, did they not, to be able to even sustain their businesses, but also to engage with their family and friends, and yet they made a point of creating this space so that their children could be raised in such a beautiful environment. And I'd say there are two components of that. The most important is what they created within the home, and that was that faith, God, Jesus were very much at the center. The five children saw this evidenced in their parents. For example, they would rise to go to 530 Mass every morning at the beginning of these very busy days, and the way they prayed taught their children the faith, their prayers, their esteem for the church, their fidelity to the various devotions, you know, when Lent would come in the various times of the year. God, Jesus, faith was very much at the center of this home, and without strain because it was so authentic in both parents, and the daughters were very much drawn into that and imbibed it as children growing up with the results that are evident. So the main thing was what they created positively within the home, but as we already saw in one of these quotes from the daughters, they were also very careful to exclude any contrary influence from the home. So they were very, very careful about that, so that the daughters grew up with a kind of appropriate and healthy innocence that was not taken away from them by harmful contacts. So much so that when Therese finally, when they were now in Lisieux, she did begin her formal schooling at the Benedictine Abbey run by the sisters at the school there. For the first time, she encountered things like meanness and selfishness and these sorts of things which were unknown to her because the family was this loving family that it was. So you see, the parents concerned to do both things, put God at the center and with care remove the influences that could undermine that. Probably harder today because those influences are so much more invasive, but a parenting that would attempt to create the space in which the faith can be lived deeply rooted. I think for the example of these two parents would want to be attentive to both of those elements. I can't help but recall in the life of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Teresa of Avila, where she says, watch out just from her own experience to be able to guard your children and watch out who their friends are, see the influences because she saw the ill effect in her own life not being protected from that. It seems to be a general consensus, no matter what era we find ourselves in, that this is a basic staple for raising an environment, ideally a healthy family, one that allows God's grace in the fullest form to be able to anoint the family. Would that be a way of saying that? Yes, and this is just a traditional thing in our whole spirituality. If we move it to another notch, not just harmful influences, but bad influences, then we are always invited to avoid the near occasions of sin in our own lives and so on. And I'd say if we're responsible for others, then we need to have an eye out for that to remove those today. So that would mean decisions that the wise parents would make about the internet and phones and tablets and television and social media, all of these kinds of things, which are pretty important today. What we're doing right now with podcasts indicates the richness of what can be done through these means, but they can also be used in a harmful way. And so, especially children growing up obviously would need to be protected from that. When they are not, children are exposed too soon to too much. God's grace can do anything, so anything can be overcome. Nothing is impossible for God. I can do all things and God who strengthens me, as Paul says, but it's harder. So to, well, let's just take an illustration from Therese again, when she is speaking about the image of the flower, which was so, which she used so widely. Of course, she loved flowers very, very much. And the different flowers in the Garden of Sanctity, you have a Saint Mary Magdalene, who is a beautiful flower because of her repentance and holy life after a life of sinfulness. And she says that's a great love of God that he would bring someone out of that and lead a person to such a life of love of God and holiness. But she said it's an even greater love when the parent, the father, seeing the stumbling block and the path of the person removes it before the person gets there. And that's what she is so grateful to for God in her own life. And that's an image, I think, of what a loving father and mother do. And certainly, Therese's parents did that with great care. They were close to their children, they knew their lives, they were available to them, of course, they had very busy lives themselves with their own businesses and everything else, but the children were always loved, the parents were always available when they needed them. And so, because they were that close to them, they were able to help them in that way. Well, let's pick up again with Celine, Therese's sister, Celine, four years older than Therese, speaking about their parents. Eternal life was the dominant concern of my parents. My mother once wrote to Pauline, the second of the daughters, I wanted to have many children so as to rear them for heaven. That sentence itself already says an awful lot about their mother. Whenever one of my little brothers or sisters died, her spirit of faith gave her such energy and she was so consoled by the thought that these little angels were in heaven, that people around her said, quote, it is not worth commiserating with Madame Martin, she does not grieve over the death of her children, which was certainly not the case. If you read her letters, you see the deep, deep pain and sorrow that she had as she watched child after child die so early in life. But her faith sustained her, these have entered eternal life. Both my parents went to early mass every day and received communion as often as they could, both fasted and abstained throughout the whole of Lent, which was the practice until some years ago, the full 40 days. My father was wonderfully kind to his neighbors and never spoke the least evil of them. He made excuses for all their faults and allowed no criticism of them. Above all, he had a great esteem for priests. Our father loved his children very much. He had an almost maternal love for us. In fact, after the death of their mother, his daughters became almost simultaneously paternal and maternal. We, for our part, had an affectionate reverence for him that almost amounted to worship. He was especially fond of Therese, whom he called his little queen, but we found that quite natural and we're not at all jealous. Besides, we were conscious of the fact that at heart he loved us all equally, nor did Therese take advantage of this affection for her own ends and so forth." So that's just a little word about both parents. Nice start. Well, let's move now to her mother's letters. This particular letter is from two years before Zélie's death, and it's a letter to her sister, who there was a great closeness and love between Zélie and her sister. Her sister entered religious life and was a nun at the visitation convent at Le Mans, which was, oh, maybe 50 miles or so away from Alençon. As I say, there was a deep bond between them. Unfortunately, this is the one letter of Zélie to her sister that has been preserved. It would have been a treasure to have the rest of these. Now, this is two years before her death. Her cancer is not really in the picture at this. She's aware that something's not right, but it's not impeding anything. It's not serious at this point. And she has just been to Lisieux to visit with her daughters, to visit her brother Isidore and her sister -in -law Céline. And she's describing this visit, Sister Marie d 'Ocité, which was the name in religion of Azélie's sister. I was delighted by our trip to Lisieux. Now, see what I mean about ordinary? This is a mother and her daughters who have been taking her daughters to visit their uncle and aunt. I have a sister -in -law who has a kindness and sweetness that are incomparable. And you know, as you read these letters and get to know Thérèse's aunt Céline Guerin, her uncle Isidore's wife, you really, you can't help but really come to appreciate her. She really does seem to have been a very, very warm and loving and good person. And a deep friendship developed between Céline and her sister -in -law Céline. Marie, that's the oldest of the daughters, says that she doesn't know her to have any faults. And neither do I. I find that Isidore, in spite of all his problems and business struggles and so forth, is very happy to have such a wife. It would take a long time to tell you her virtues, but that will be for later. I assure you that I love her as much as a sister. She seems to feel the same way and shows my children an almost maternal affection. As I mentioned, in fact, Céline would ask Céline, her sister -in -law, to take over the maternal role after her own untimely death. She showed them every possible attention and did everything to make our lives pleasant. If I seemed worried, she looked at me with sympathy to seem to hurt her. Marie quickly came over to say to me, Mama, please look more cheerful. My aunt thinks you're sad, and she's hurt over it. I answered her, leave me alone. I can't do better. And I reproached myself for it. One day we were in the countryside, so they take them out into the country outside of Lisieux. I went there reluctantly to accompany the others. Then we settled in a meadow to rest, and during this time my sister -in -law secretly went to prepare a snack for us, secretly because Céline just doesn't want her putting herself out. When she brought it to us, I was so upset at the trouble she went to. You know, every year you see this, her sister -in -law sends these wonderful gifts around Christmas time for the children, and every year Céline responds the same way. She thanks her. She's so grateful, but you shouldn't have done it. It bothers her when people put themselves out for her in any way like this. I was so upset at the trouble she went to that I was far from showing appropriate gratitude. She contented herself with laughing at my apparent coldness because she knows Céline, oh well, I'm truly not very pleasant. So she's very matter -of -fact about herself this way. She never puts herself on a pedestal. Fortunately, I'm still willing to admit it, exclamation point, but if I don't know how to show signs of affection, this is why I chose this letter. I feel the sentiments inside. I believe I wish for my brother's prosperity more than mine. Her brother was a pharmacist, and he had a pharmacy, he had started a drug business, and they were struggling at times. In fact, Céline and Louis would help him even financially. Later things went very well for Isidore.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from LST1 Introduction The Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux with Fr. Timothy Gallagher Podcast
"Discerninghearts .com in cooperation with the Oblates of the Virgin Mary presents The Letters of Saint Therese of Lisieux with Father Timothy Gallagher. Father Gallagher is a member of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, a religious community dedicated to retreats and spiritual direction according to the spiritual of exercises Saint Ignatius of Loyola. He is featured on several series found on the Eternal Word television network. He is also author of numerous books on the spiritual teachings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the Venerable Bruno Lanteri, founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, as well as other works focused on aspects of the spiritual life. The Letters of Saint Therese of Lisieux with Father Timothy Gallagher. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Welcome, Father Gallagher. Thank you, Chris. Always good to be here. Talk to us about Saint Therese. What is the little flower to you? One thing I've noticed if you look at the writings of most people when they write or speak about Therese, they always start with how they first encountered Therese. If you look at Dorothy Day's book on Therese, for example, that's the way she begins, but you see this as kind of a pattern. In my own case it's very simple. This was before I entered the seminary and at a certain point, I'm a reader, I love to read, and resolved that I probably should do some spiritual reading, a little reluctantly because what I really like are stories and those sorts of things. Maybe it was Lent, I don't recall, but I remember going to a shelf bookcase with spiritual books, going through them, not really being drawn to anything, and then I saw this title that said, Story of a Soul, and it was the word story that caught my attention because I love stories. So I thought, well, maybe that'll be a little easier to read than some of the others. I began reading it and immediately fell in since then, very much at the origins of the process that led to entering the seminary. After theological studies, perhaps having read the basic sources, it felt like something done and kind of there, but more recently has opened up in a wonderful way again that leads to what we're doing now, and a rereading of the sources and amplifying that reading, and just coming to see in a new way the remarkable figure that she is. And so that's what leads us to do this now. You know, it was Pope Saint Pius X who called her the greatest saint of modern times, and I think we can easily not agreement at that now, declared a doctor. There's so much there. So I have the feeling that as we dive into this huge sea that is the life and teaching and writings of Saint Therese, that you can't go wrong. You know, wherever you enter, there's always going to be richness. You know, it strikes me that some of our listeners may be thinking, what's Father Gallagher? And he's an expert on Ignatian spirituality, and yet they may not realize that there's a heavy Carmelite influence in the Oblates of the Virgin Mary through the spirituality and the life of their father. But it's not a real push to see where in the charism of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, this calling, as it were, to also come to a ability to be able to communicate aspects of that Carmelite living. Does that make sense? Sure. Yeah. I mean, as I mentioned, I initially came to her before I even knew Venerable Bruno. But once I entered and got to know him well, I discovered, exactly as you said, that he was essentially Ignatian but not exclusively Ignatian. And you do see a lovely Carmelite component. For example, as he is approaching his ordination to the priesthood, you see amongst his spiritual proposals the plan to read in its entirety the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila. Also familiar with Saint John of the Cross, of course, Saint Therese comes after his lifetime. So that component is very much there. What is contemplative, what involves growth in prayer and deep prayer, and the kind of things that lie at the heart of the Carmelite vocation, all of that is very real in him, not only in his learning but very much in his own experience as well in his own prayer. It's so fascinating that, as you said, Pope Saint Pius X would say that she is, again, one of the most significant, one of the most important saints of the 20th century that she would be. At a time and era where the family has been so much under attack, the fact that this little flower can bloom in a garden of a family, as it were, that they themselves have become saints, not only her mother and father, but it looks as though her sisters are on their way in this area of the cause of canonization. Well, the cause of her sister Leonie, who would have seemed a very unlikely candidate of all the sisters, the most unlikely candidate for sanctity, that cause is underway now. She's the servant of God, Leonie Martin. And yes, there is a movement to try to promote the cause of the other sisters as well. In God's time, we'll see where all of that goes. But you have a family which is very much built on faith, on the search for holiness, on love for the church, on the desire to respond to God's vocation, in which all the members strengthen each other. And you see that in the letters that we'll be looking at. And of course, you see it in Therese's deep gratitude to her parents and her love for her sisters. Their family is simply a remarkable witness to a family as a family. It's the kind of family everyone would hope for, where there's a deep unity and bond and love between the members, and not only the immediate family, but also with the more extended family, very specifically Therese's aunt and uncle and their two daughters. And you see the great love there amongst all of them. You can go through all of the letters, and that's two volumes, 1 ,300 pages. And all you will see is there are times when there are some disagreements about this decision or that decision. You see some of that. But enveloping everything and underlying everything and above everything, what you see is a deeply united and loving family. It's a beautiful witness to the family, very much. The letters of Saint Therese are absolutely remarkable. If you are a devotee of the story of the soul, that in itself can sustain you for a lifetime. But letters the give us a fullness, a beautiful, rich imagery. And I say this in all reverence, but a more complete picture of Therese, doesn't it? Well, as you've said, Chris, I think it's obvious that the real center to get to know Therese is the story of the soul. That's the real heart of it. And then around that, there are other primary sources as well. What's called her last conversations, where her sisters and some of the others in the convent recorded her sayings and doings in her last months. The book entitled Therese by those who knew her, which is a large extract of the witnesses that were given on the diocesan level as her cause for canonization was begun. So these were people speaking out of their own personal recollections of Therese, about Therese. If you want to have there a real richness as well. But our initial focus will be the letters, probably because they don't get cited all that much, you know. We may have the feeling that looking at passages in the story of the soul, which we'll get to, that this is familiar territory. The letters might be less so. It does take a little bit of energy and persistence, I'd say, to read them because it is fairly lengthy, but they are remarkably well done, amply annotated with very helpful footnotes, with introductions. So they are a very rich resource to take the next step. The first step would be the story of a soul, but if a person wants to take the next step, then the letters would be the next step. There is a remarkable heritage that we've received from the lives of the saints through their letters. I think of the letters of, of course, Teresa of Avilot, Ignatius of Loyola, but we've seen through the letters of Venerable Bruno Lanteri, the letters of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. The list could go on and on, and I have to say the letters of Catherine of Siena. When you read those, you get a real sense of the friendships, the, the family relationships, their interaction with those around them and with the world, don't you? Soon -to -be Saint John Henry Newman says at one point in his writings that his sense of the best way to get to know a person is not through a biography, but through reading the person's letters. And I think, as is generally true, he is right on the mark, and generally true of what, I'll call him, St. John Henry Newman says he is, I think, right on the mark. Today, I suppose, we do this more digitally, but if you were to take a selection of 30, 50 emails of a correspondence between two friends or two family members or two people who love the Lord and whom, you know, sanctity is evident, you would get, with a great immediacy, you would get a feel for the person. And that's what you get here with Therese. Now, there are qualities about her letters that I'll just mention one now. As I read through them over a number of months, it dawned on me after a while, all of these letters are other -centered. Just, it's remarkable. This is not a woman who is writing because she needs to write for her own sake. But you look at all of these letters, commemorations of family members' birthdays, encouragement to her father after she's left home, and she knows he's suffering her loss, and her sister, Celine, who is caring for her father and his illness. It's remarkable that we think of her as the one who practiced love, a very loving person, which she certainly is. If you want to get a concrete feel for that, of course, after the story of the soul, you can just read these letters. You know, most of us, when we write emails or letters, there'll be something that's a bit self -centered. I don't want to criticize that too much. Our friends, family members do want to know. But we may have some complaints here or there or be unhappy about something here or there, be angry about something here or there. In Therese, the one thing that you see is love. And after you go through this, after a while, a vision arises of, if this woman who is writing this way so consistently in every relationship that you see portrayed in the letters, lived this way within her community, her presence must have been a very beautiful thing. If she lived, there's no question that she did, but what you see when she spontaneously expresses what's in her heart in the letters, if that's what was in her heart as she actually interacted with the people with whom she shared life day by day, for us, we can think of our families or workplaces or parishes, then you get the image of what love can really mean in very ordinary, humble, concrete ways, as we'll see.
Audio
A highlight from DOS1-media file
"Welcome, Father Gallagher. Thank you. The Discernment of Spirits. Could you tell us just a little bit about its formation? Well, it really began when I was ordained as an Oblate of the Virgin Mary and my religious community is dedicated above all to the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises to making this retreat experience available to people in all different kinds of settings. Formal retreats in a retreat house of a few days or many days or as an experience in parishes for larger groups, weekend retreats, retreat settings, and so on. And I quickly realized that I really couldn't do this responsibly. Lead Ignatian retreats, retreats based on the teaching of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Unless I knew more about this particular piece of his teaching, the Discernment of Spirits, and specifically his, what he calls his rules or guidelines for Discernment of Spirits, which really has to do, that title, the Sermon of Spirits, generally is kind of appealing to people, but at the same time they're not quite sure exactly what it means. And very simply what it deals with is the ups and downs in the spiritual life. We all know how at times we feel a desire to pray and when we do pray God feels close and our hearts are warm and there's energy and we get up from the prayer with a renewed sense of God's closeness. And we have, the scriptures are alive, we willingly go to church, we creativity have in the Lord, we want to take new steps, and then other times, for reasons that escape us often, we're not quite sure why, the bottom seems to drop out of that energy. And it's hard if we're honest, it's hard to even want to pray. We may get ourselves to pray, but it's a very different experience now and we don't feel God's closeness and God's warmth. And the new steps that we've been taking in the spiritual life now don't seem quite so inviting. It's hard to get myself down to church for the Bible study or the the activity. And to reach out in a love based on Christ in a new way, let's say in my marriage or toward my children or in my workplace. These ups and downs are going on all the time in the spiritual life. And Saint Ignatius of Loyola, certainly not the only one who spoke about this in our Catholic spiritual tradition, but clearly is the one who spoke about this with the greatest clarity, practicality, and usability. And this teaching is formulated in 14, I'm about to say, simple guidelines. They're not simplistic, they're very deep. They touch very profound things in the spiritual life. But the simple does fit in the sense that they're very clear. They're very usable. I've been teaching this around the country now for probably about 20 years to groups of all different kinds of backgrounds, to lay people in parishes, to priests and seminarians and religious people with very developed educational backgrounds and professional people and people who may have only high school backgrounds and all the rest. I have never yet found one person when we have gone through this teaching who has said to me, I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone does. Everyone that is who has at all in some personal way tried to love the Lord Jesus, sincerely tried to live his teaching, tried to pray. This teaching will be simple, clear and usable in a way that transforms really. When I began giving these retreats, shortly after ordination, people began asking for them. And quickly, as I say, I realized that I really couldn't do these retreats responsibly without knowing a lot more than I then knew about these 14 guidelines or Ignatius' teaching on discernment. I was teaching in a seminary at the time and a point came when I had a month free and I can still see it. I went to the upper floor of our residence so I wouldn't be disturbed, brought my books up there, commentary on these rules and began pretty seriously studying them, pacing up and text. And after that, began somewhat hesitantly to give very simple half -hour teachings on these rules in retreat settings. And it was the response that began everything that led to the book eventually, maybe about 25 years later. It was electric. I'll never forget one particular retreat. The first time I did this, it was a retreat over a number of days and each day I would give a simple half -hour presentation and we went through the 14 rules. The retreatants knew and I knew that in the transmitting of that teaching and in the receiving of it, something electric had happened. And out of that retreat came a good many more requests for that teaching and it got so I was doing that teaching repeatedly in the course of a year in retreat settings. Then people were asking for it as a separate teaching just in a parish or in a seminar setting in a retreat center or wherever. And then finally people began saying you should write this up as a book. And when my religious superior said it once and then said it a second time and then said it a third time, sort of in casual conversation, finally dawned on me that maybe the Lord was saying something to me. You think so? And so I asked to speak with him and we sat down and I said, do you really mean it? He said yes. We looked at a calendar, set aside time and that's how the book came to be written. Just to help us who may not appreciate the vocabulary, because it is foreign, the actual going deeply into a spirituality based on the great teachings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, that a term like discernment, it's not just simple decision -making is it? No, in these 14 rules what we're really talking about is spiritual experience, the ups and downs, the things that are going on in our hearts and in our minds, the way we're thinking, the stirrings of our hearts, this kind of interior stuff, if I could say that reverently, of spiritual experience that's going on every day, most of which we don't even notice, although it affects us very much. But we'd be hard put, for example, I wonder how many of us could remember what was stirring in our hearts and thoughts this morning when we rose to say nothing of yesterday or a week ago? How much of that did we notice? How much of that, if we use Ignatius' word, could we discern? So eventually it will lead to decision -making, but it begins as an awareness of interior spiritual experience in our hearts, the stirrings, the feelings, the movements of our hearts, what we call affective experience and also the thoughts, what runs through our minds. This is the more conceptual side of things, thoughts and stirrings of the heart. What is of God in that? What is not of God in that? If I feel great energy toward this particular activity and feel a certain resistance to that other, if I really would want to do this spiritually speaking and don't really want to do that, how can I know what within that interior experience, which is changing and shifting all the time, ups and downs, how can I know what is of God and should be accepted? What is not of God or Ignatius would say is of the enemy, the tempter, the one the scripture calls the liar, and therefore is a lie, is not true, is not leading me where God wants me to go and therefore should be rejected. A teaching which allows us to understand, to notice and understand this experience and then know what should be accepted and followed and rejected, that's the teaching which we call the Sermon of Spirits. That's what Ignatius is doing in these 14 guidelines or 14 rules. It is so much more than an intellectual exercise, isn't it? I mean when you talk about listening to our hearts, again that is something that, isn't it, they're a trend to try to separate the head and the heart, that somehow the emotions that we're feeling shouldn't be integrated into the thought process that we have? I mean this combination is really quite foreign, isn't it? There's only one human being and there are different faculties, different capabilities, different aspects of our humanity, but there's only one human being and what we'll find when we grow in the ability is, please God, as we go through these rules, this will become clear how we do this. What we'll find is that when our hearts are feeling certain things, we tend to think in certain ways. When my heart is happy and alive and feels God's closeness, the thoughts are probably going to be thoughts of new initiatives that I could take spiritually speaking, new understanding of what I'm doing, thoughts that open up new ways and point out a kind of chart or pathway toward growth. When my heart is feeling heavy, doesn't feel God's closeness, is feeling a kind of, well, it can get to a kind of hopelessness at times or a sadness or just a lack of any kind of energy in the spiritual life. The thoughts now are going to be probably the contrary. Why am I doing this? Do I even want to do this? Does it make sense to pray this way? Why should I continue this? Maybe I should let that go. I was thinking of taking this new initiative in the parish or in living Christ's love in the family. All of these kinds of thoughts. So what's important is, and that's why it's important to be aware of the movements of the heart and their related thoughts because they're going to go together. We'll see Ignatius say this very clearly in the rules. So these are different aspects of our humanity but they work very much, very much in tandem if I can use and say that word. You use the term rule, a rule. Help us to understand that in relation to the exercises. If we look at, let's say the writings of Saint Francis de Sales, for example, something like the introduction to the devout life. Now depending on how it's published, let's say, what will it be? 300 pages. It's an organized, developed treatise on the spiritual life which goes kind of systematically through various things. Or Saint John of the Cross with his systematic treatises on the life of prayer and many other saints like that. Saint Ignatius is writing spiritual exercises. He's not giving a theology or a theory to help us understand a set of truths, although obviously there are theological truths which underlie what he's doing. These are, this is a very practical book. It's the spiritual equivalent of a manual of physical exercises. They're things to be done that are outlined and that is what is behind this word rule. What that means is these are short, concrete, practical guidelines which in a few words give a very rich understanding of this kind of up and down spiritual experience and related thoughts and then give us a set of tools for actually responding in real life to these experiences. When you are feeling the warmth of God's closeness, this is what you do. When you are feeling the heaviness, God seems far away and there's no energy in the spiritual life, these are things you should do and things you shouldn't do in that time. So that it's in that sense that Ignatius calls these rules. They're very practical guidelines for life. Those of us who are out here listening to the teachings of this, assuming that we're total neophytes, we're beginners in this quest, we just want to get started. What's the first thing we should do? What's the first disposition or position we should take in this exercise? Well I think for most of us and I'll certainly speak of myself because until someone taught me Ignatius text and helped me to understand it, I wouldn't have known where to begin. If someone were to say to me, well you need to be aware of and notice your interior spiritual experience, my response would be help me to do that because I wouldn't know what I was looking for. The first need that we have is to be instructed. So that's where I would say that's where we begin. That's what led to the writing of the book. That's what now about 20 years of traveling around the country teaching this has been about. Once we begin to get our feet wet in this, we begin to get an understanding of this spiritual experience, then everything can begin. Then we can begin to notice it in daily living. We can begin to name what it is. This is of God, this is not of God and then we respond with spiritual wisdom to that, accepting what is of God, rejecting what is of the enemy, as Ignatius will say. So I'd say the place to begin is to learn. What a wonderful thing that in our Catholic spiritual tradition we have masters like this with a proven teaching, proven not only by the sanctity of the author, in this case Saint Ignatius, in other cases Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross and the rest, but proven also because in Ignatius case this teaching has been used for 500 years now and has blessed countless generations of Christians before us. It is approved by the Magisterium of the Church, so we have a very solid source to which to turn in order to learn, but that's the first step. It's just formation in the spiritual life. When I think of physical exercise, sometimes we're about to begin the process of physical exercise. We jump in and we try to do too much or we try to go too far in the beginning and then we get discouraged and we drop away. What would your advice be to that person who's beginning to enter into these exercises? Wonderful point, it's a wonderful point. I think the parallel holds absolutely with the spiritual life. Start slowly, go through a gradual process of learning more and more about this and then everything else will follow and ideally with some kind of guidance. I would hope that something like the book that I've written could provide a kind of guidance even at home or for friends who want to go through this together. If there is in one's area someone who is knowledgeable in this and could actually lead the teaching, that would be a wonderful thing, whether a priest in a parish or someone in a retreat house or just somebody who has a background in this kind of teaching and with the help of maybe a book like that I've written or other instruments would be able to guide us. So I would say take it slowly, grow gradually in it, begin to apply what is clear, don't overreach in doing this. If something is not clear in the teaching, if I don't understand the experience, I can very simply acknowledge that and accept that. We in walk the proportion to the clarity that we have without overreaching that and then we just trust that as we continue to grow in this with the various helps that we've mentioned, we'll increasingly find our way. If a person could ever make an Ignatian retreat, obviously that would be almost the best way to learn this. It is such a fundamental building block of the spiritual life now in the life of the church today for that body of Christ, that it is not something that is limited to say a particular order within the church and I'm thinking of course it is not just the Jesuit exercise, it is available for everyone, it's a gift to everyone. For example, even your order, but your particular order, the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, it is, this is an essential part of your careism. Yes, I suppose I'm a kind of living witness to the fact that you don't have to be a Jesuit to benefit from this kind of teaching. Our founder, who is the Venerable Bruno Lanteri, an Italian priest who died in 1830, fell in love with the Ignatian spiritual exercises. His spiritual director was a real man of God, a Jesuit who was a man of wisdom and holiness whom he met as a seminarian. And through this Jesuit, Father Diesbach, a Swiss Jesuit, he came to know the Ignatian spiritual exercises and Ignatian spirituality and fell in love with it and became convinced that there is, this was the gift God gave him as a founder, that there is no instrument equal to the Ignatian to spiritual means lead people to the dispositions which create a saint. It has to be lived out, but to take a person from where he or she is in the spiritual life to the point where this person now really longs for holiness and then wants to become active in the service of Christ in the person's vocation, marriage or priesthood, religious life, single life. There's nothing like the exercises of Saint Ignatius to do this. And at the same time it was evident to him that although the Jesuits have this, these spiritual exercises, they are so involved in other work, especially education, which is obviously of great importance for the church too, that in practice the spiritual exercises are not at all as available as the church needs. I think we could, a very simple test of that is if any of us listening now were to feel moved to make the Ignatian spiritual exercises, probably we wouldn't know exactly where to turn. Who can guide these? Where does one go? And so he said the church needs a group of men, religious priests and brothers who will be trained in these spiritual exercises and will not do other things so that they can make them available to the church. And he said even if you add this to all the Jesuits in the world will still never meet the need in the church. And I'll say from my own experience that I think he's absolutely right. I just constantly witnessed the power of the exercises and the fact that as soon as people know that they're available and that they can be given well, you cannot possibly meet the demand. People want them. Their heart cries out for it I think. Oh when people learn this teaching they can't get enough of it. I always remember one time I was doing this teaching for a group at a retreat house and toward the end of the teaching one woman who was on the retreat told me that she'd been looking out her window on the retreat grounds one day and she'd seen the head grounds person over toward a kind of tool shed go in and come out with several tools that he needed for the work that he was doing and she said that's what Ignatius has done for me in the spiritual life. He's given me the tools that I need to live my daily experience in the spiritual life. Now I'll say too that I think the reason why this teaching is so powerful is because it is about the ordinary spiritual experience of every Christian of everyone who loves the Lord Jesus. You have people like Saint John of the Cross who write about advanced higher states of mystical prayer which is beautiful. Most of us probably when we read that teaching or hear of it say that is beautiful but it's different than my experience. I'm not there but as I've said I have never met anyone yet who has learned Ignatius teaching and said anything other than this is it this is what happens this is my daily experience this gives me the tools that I need to live at home in the parish in the workplace in my family in my case in my religious life and priesthood in my ordinary daily experience now I know what's going on now I know how to understand it I know how to respond to it. Oh that in itself is a great gift and as you said it's one for not everyone just Catholics.
Audio
A highlight from DC26-Bernard-pt1
"Discerninghearts .com presents The Doctors of the Church, the Carerism of Wisdom with Dr. Matthew Bunsen. For over 20 years, Dr. Bunsen has been active in the area of Catholic social communications and education, including writing, editing, and teaching on a variety of topics related to church history, the papacy, the saints, and Catholic culture. He is the faculty chair at the Catholic Distance University, a senior fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, and the author or co -author of over 50 books, including the Encyclopedia of Catholic History and the best -selling biographies of St. Damien of Malachi and St. Kateri Tekakawisa. He also serves as a senior editor for the National Catholic Register and is a senior contributor to EWTN News. The Doctors of the Church, the Carerism of Wisdom with Dr. Matthew Bunsen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Welcome, Dr. Bunsen. Great to be with you, Chris. I'm really looking forward to talking about our next doctor, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Tell us why he's really quite special in the rankings of the doctors. Well, he's known as the Doctor Malifluous. He's known as the Ophthalmaturgist. In other words, he's a healer and a miracle worker. He was also kind of one of those doctors that was all -encompassing for his era, but who also imparted then important lessons for us today. He was a reformer who helped build the Cistercian Order, who helped reform much of monastic life. He was also a brilliant theologian who defended the teachings of the Church. He had a particular devotion to the Blessed Mother. But there's also one other thing that we're going to talk about, and that, of course, was his impact on the society of his time. And it came, as we're going to see, especially where the Second Crusade was concerned, at great price to him personally. And that's one of the other hallmarks of the Doctors of the Church. We always think of them as brilliant, as magnificent writers and theologians, but they were also saints. They were also people who put themselves totally at the service of Christ and his Church. And there, I think, was one of the areas where St. Bernard of Clairvaux really shined forth across the medieval sky, but it's a brightness that we can still see today. Help us to understand a term like mellifluous. What we mean by mellifluous is somebody who is perfectly capable of speaking, who's gifted as an orator, who is a brilliant speaker. Somebody who, we always say that the words just seem to roll off their tongue. Well, that certainly was St. Bernard. But there's also implied in the use of the term mellifluous, a smoothness, an elegance. Now, it's something of an apparent contradiction to think of somebody who lived a life of such severe austerity as St. Bernard of Clairvaux as being elegant. And yet, his theology, his mind, his love for the Church were indeed very elegant. He had a beautiful turn of phrase. He had a way of expressing himself that was indeed intellectually elegant. So mellifluous, I think, really works quite well when we're discussing a Doctor of the Church like this. What do we know of his upbringing? Well, we know that he was born into a noble family. And he, in France, he was born probably around 1090 to a very prominent family. His father, in fact, was a nobleman, a lord of what was known as Fontaine. His name was Tesselyn and his mother was named Alith of Mont Barde. They were part of Burgundy. So when we think of France, we think of the Burgundy region as creating these beautiful wines, the Burgundy wine. Burgundy, during this time, was emerging onto the French scene and then the European scene as one of the most prominent of the great duchies in medieval Europe. It was positioned sort of between France and Germany, but then the Burgundians would also influence the great and terrible Hundred Years' War in a couple of centuries. So the family itself enjoyed quite a bit of prominence, which meant that Bernard, as one of seven children, was given the opportunity for a great education. He was then sent to a very prominent school of chatillon that was run by a group of canons. And he quickly showed himself very capable of great learning. He enjoyed poetry. He had a skill, an aptitude for literature. And he demonstrated that ability to speak well, to be mellifluous. And he had two interesting devotions. The first was a great love of the Bible, and then the other was a particular devotion to the Blessed Mother that was going to carry him forward for the rest of his life. What led him into the Benedictine Order? Yeah. Well, Bernard himself always had a rather low opinion of himself. He was tempted by the great opportunities of life, by the temptations of the flesh, but also of the mind. He was somebody who probably would have excelled, and boy we have seen this with so many of the Doctors of the Church, he could have excelled at anything he chose to do. He could have become a very, very powerful and prominent leader in the secular world, in the world of the nobility of the time. He understood that about himself though, and I think his mother had a great deal to do with that. His mother helped ingrain in him an abiding love of the faith. And when she died, when he was 19 years old, he understood that he was being called to something else. And as we have seen with other Doctors of the Church, he felt called by Christ to escape the world, to live a life of prayer, of solitude, of contemplation. And so, in order to control himself, he used the phrase that he was aware that his body needed strong medicine. And what he meant by that was that he needed strong spiritual medicine. He turned himself over to the Benedictine order. Now, as it happens, when Bernard was only 8 years old, a very famous saint at the time, named Robert of Mollem, had founded, near the great French city of Dijon, what was known as the Abbey of Citeaux. This was the foundation of the Cistercians. Their objective was very simple, to restore the rule of Saint Benedict. Now, there's no implication that the great house, for example, of Cluny, that was the dominant institution of the time from monasticism, was corrupt. Rather, it simply did not have the same devotion to the rigor of the rule of Saint Benedict that there were some who felt it needed to have. Robert of Mollem was one of them. So, the Cistercian monastery really looked to recapture the vigor of the original rule of Saint Benedict. And it began attracting many people, many young men, who also sought what Bernard was seeking. And, as it happened, in 1113, another saint, by the name of Stephen Harding, became abbot of Citeaux. And Bernard arrived, along with a group of other young noblemen, who followed him from Burgundy and the surrounding regions, with a desire to enter the Cistercians. And Bernard proved himself, really from the very beginning, a most apt postulant. And he found his true life in Citeaux, in the Cistercians. And it was clear, in short order, that the Cistercians saw in him somebody with almost unlimited potential. You mentioned his great love for scripture. He's known for some of the most beautiful teachings, from one book in particular of the Bible, that being the Song of Songs. Yes, yes. What's interesting about his love of scripture is that he was able to reflect on scripture, but how did he do it? He did it through a series of sermons, in particular, as you note, on the Song of Songs. Now, the Song of Songs is one of the most controversial, so to speak, of the texts of scripture, of the books of the Bible, because so many people interpret it in almost exclusively sensual terms. And yet, here we have Bernard preaching on this beautiful book of the Old Testament. And for him, it was not just simply a rhetorical device to use sermons, but it was a way of imparting to every possible audience some of his most important teachings. And so we have, aside from his sermons on the Song of Songs, we also have in excess of a hundred sermons that he delivered throughout the year, throughout the liturgical year. And then he gave sermons as well on a variety of other subjects, and then of course we also have his letters. We'll be talking more, I know, about his writings in a little bit. What are some of those marks of those early years in his involvement with the Cistercians, or his living out that Cistercian call? We know, as I said, that Bernard was acutely aware of his own failings, of his own temptations, and the need, as he said, for strong medicine. The environment, Cistercian with its stress on prayer, on contemplatio, on contemplative prayer, on discipline of the monastic life, on the full embrace of not just the rigor, but also the deep humanity of the Benedictine rule, of the rule of St. Benedict, I think had a really profound influence on him. He was able to control himself, to focus his mind as he needed to have it focused. And within a short amount of time, I mean, consider that he entered around 1113, what happened within three years. He was chosen by the Cistercians to set out and do something that was almost impossible to imagine at the time. This young man was sent out to establish a new house, and it became the great founding of Clairvaux. Now, where he was sent was in the Diocese of Langres in France, in what was called the Valley of Desolation. It gives us a little visual of what we're actually talking about. This was a virtual swamp where they chose to establish this new community. And this is around 1115. And it soon became a place of almost ceaseless toil. But imagine trying to convert a swamp into a new community of religious life, and yet this is exactly what Bernard was able to accomplish. But he did it with austerity, with prayer, with almost ceaseless toil, and that took its toll on him. And always of a somewhat frail disposition, he consistently embraced austerity to the point that he wrecked much of his health, but he saw it as a worthy gift in order to get this institution of Clairvaux up and running. Now what you've just described sounds so unappealing. We're really honest with ourselves, and yet it attracted so many to the extent that it would thrive. Yes, that's the thing precisely. The harder the life was at Clairvaux, the more people seemed to be attracted to it. Now, it's not a sense of, oh, I want to embrace suffering. What it is, rather, is I want to conform my life to what the Cistercians, what Clairvaux had to offer. Think about the Sons of Nobility, who a century from now would be joining the mendicant orders of the Dominicans and especially the Franciscans. We're seeing a similar impulse toward a lifestyle of the rejection of the self, of giving up everything we have, picking up their cross and following Christ. This was the appeal of Clairvaux. This was the appeal of the Cistercians. And it was accomplished. Why? Because Bernard was able to create an environment that, yes, it was difficult, there was work and toil for everyone. But two things. One, that prayer life, but also the joy. The valley, which had once been called a place of desolation, a valley of desolation, soon acquired the title of the Valley of Light. Why? Because it was a place of prayer. It was a place of joy. And young men in growing numbers came to Clairvaux to embrace that life, but also to place themselves under the spiritual direction of Bernard. Among them were Bernard's brothers. His father, after the death of his mother, of course, embraced this life. And even his sister, Humboldtine, remained out in the world and yet she eventually, with the permission of her husband, became a Benedictine nun. This is the influence of Bernard. Bernard's brother Gerard became the master of the cellars of the Cistercians. And, of course, what soon happened, this small community of Clairvaux was bursting at the seams. They simply had no more room for the young men. So, they themselves then went out and found, established new houses, new Cistercian communities based on the model that Bernard had established at Clairvaux. And by the time of his death, more than 160 new establishments were flourishing across, not just France, but increasingly across the whole of Christendom. And if we want a testament as to what the Church thought of all of this, one of the Popes came for a visit one night and he was asked, Bernard was asked, to make it possible for the Pope to dine at Clairvaux. And he certainly gave what was a very warm welcome to the Pope and the whole papal court. Well, what was the meal? It was a humble meal of bread and a few fish. The analogy, of course, being very obvious to the Pope. Wine was not really served, but rather he received water that was filled with herbs to give it some taste. So, in other words, the Pope came to this monastery and he was not served a feast. He was given loaves in the fishes and a cup of bitter herbs. And yet, the Pope was grateful and found the entire experience to be so powerfully edifying that it confirmed once again Bernard's value to the Church, but also his value to the Popes. And that was something that many Popes availed themselves of. We'll return in just a moment to The Doctors of the Church, the terrorism of wisdom with Dr. Matthew Monson. Did you know that Discerning Hearts has a free app where you can find all your favorite Discerning Hearts programming? Father Timothy Gallagher, Dr. Anthony Lillis, Monsignor John S. of Deacon James Keating, Father Donald Haggerty, Mike Aquilina, Dr. Matthew Monson and so many more. They're all available on the free Discerning Hearts app. Over 3 ,000 spiritual formation programs and prayers, all available to you with no hidden fees or subscriptions. Did you also know that you can listen to Discerning Hearts programming wherever you download your favorite podcasts, like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, iHeartRadio, Spotify, even on Audible, as well as numerous other worldwide podcast streaming platforms? And did you know that Discerning Hearts also has a YouTube channel? Be sure to check out all these different places where you can find Discerning Hearts Catholic podcasts, dedicated to those on the spiritual journey. A prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is Yours. Do with it what You will. Give me only Your love and Your grace. That is enough for me. Amen. Show your support for Discerning Hearts by liking and leaving positive reviews on your favorite streaming platforms, such as Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more. With a collection of insightful podcasts led by renowned Catholic spiritual guides such as Father Timothy Gallagher, Monsignor John S .F., Dr. Anthony Lillis, and more, Discerning Hearts is your gateway to a deeper understanding of discerning life's mysteries and growing deeper in your relationship with Christ. Your likes and reviews not only affirm the value these podcasts bring to your spiritual journey, but also help others discover the guidance and inspiration they seek. Share your thoughts, spread the word, and be part of a community that's committed to elevating hearts and minds through meaningful conversations. Your feedback fuels our mission to help others climb higher and go deeper in their spiritual growth. Like, review, and let your voice be a beacon of light for fellow seekers on this spiritual journey. We now return to The Doctors of the Church, The Charism of Wisdom, with Dr. Matthew Bunsen. Is it possible for us to underestimate the power of the foundational element in all of this, of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict? And in particular, that very first paragraph, that very first exhortation by Good St. Benedict to listen with the ear of the heart. As you're describing this, that's exactly what Bernard was doing. Yeah, and in that sense we see in Bernard not something extraordinarily new, but something wonderfully old. In the sense that here was a reformer, here was in the great tradition of the church, a reformer who wanted to go back to recapture the original zeal, the fire of St. Benedict. But what was it that was always so remarkably successful about Benedict's rule? To pray, to work. All of these rules of St. Benedict are aimed at bringing the soul to Christ through work, through prayer. But there is this underlying practicality to Benedict's rule. Benedict knew people. He knew humanity. So that the rule itself was able to take a person, form them in Christ, and help them not to become less than they were with rules and other things, but rather through the rule to form them into more fully created humans, living as Christ really wants us to. Authentic freedom in giving up of ourselves for Christ. But in a way that still accommodates human frailty and human weakness, not by catering to it, but by understanding it and forming it. To use that word again, forming an authentic human person. And I think Bernard, while incredibly tough on himself, helped create an environment that was truly faithful to what Benedict had in mind. He's visited by the pope and the papal court. From this point forward, he becomes quite a, can we say, influential person within the life of the church. Very much so. In Bernard, we have one of those great voices within Christendom. And what did he use his voice for? He always placed it at the service of the popes. He defended the church against secular interference. He worked to diffuse potentially violent situations. Despite the fact that he wanted to stay at Clairvaux, he wanted to give his life exclusively to his monks, to his life of prayer. He was constantly being called out of the monastery to travel, to go forth on behalf of the popes. In 1128, for example, he took part in the Council of Troia that had been convoked by Pope Honorius II. Its was purpose to settle controversies that had developed among some of the bishops in France, as well as to try to make some sense of the ecclesiastical life of the Church of France. The church at the time in France was growing, but it was also being beset by the demands of secular rulers, of the need for internal reform. And what was Bernard given the task of doing? Well, he served as secretary of the council. He was asked to write the statutes of the synod. And as a result of it, one bishop was deposed and a real effort at reform was implemented. It's notable that coming out of this particular synod, though, there were those who did not like him. There were those who found him excessive in his call for reform. There were others in the church who felt that as a monk he had no business interfering in the life of diocese. And in one particular instance, a letter was sent to Bernard describing him as sounding like little more than a noisy and vexatious frog sitting in his marshes. Which of course was a phrase sort of going back to the very origins of Clairvaux. So here was this noisy and difficult frog croaking in the marshes and annoying as this one cardinal wrote the Holy See in the cardinals of the church. Well, of course, Bernard, using his sharp mind, made a reply to this cardinal by the name of Harmeric. And he said that he was the one who was asked by the pope to do this. And so he said, if you wish, forbid the noises of this vexatious frog. Don't allow him to leave his hole, to leave the marshes. And if that's the case, then your friends of the Holy See in the cardinals will not be forced to endure the accusations of pride and presumption that this frog is croaking in their direction. What it did was to diffuse the entire situation. And Bernard actually rose in the estimation of people because it implied two things. It showed that he had a sense of humor, which he did. He was able to do a fraternal correction of a cardinal, but in a way that everyone could appreciate. But it also pointed to his humility. It pointed to the fact that he'd been given these tasks against his will. There were other things that he would rather be doing. And yet he took up that task and he did it exceedingly well. And so in the next years, two years later, what happened? With the death of Pope Honorius, you had a new schism in the church. You had two popes who were rivals and, of course, Bernard entered the fray and helped to settle many of these issues. And then, of course, in the next years, he was so profoundly trusted that he was summoned to the second laddering council in which the schism was decisively put down. In which the rights of the real pope were validated. And then, in the coming years, he was asked by the pope to bring about the second crusade. And this, of course, became one of the great crosses that he was forced to bear. With some of the doctors that we've explored, their lives are so full and their teachings so rich that it takes us sometimes two, maybe even three episodes. And I think this is what we're encountering with St. Bernard of Clairvaux. So in conclusion of this particular conversation on his life, what's a final thought? The final thought is that we can trace in the life of St. Bernard from his earliest days a love of the faith, a desire to serve the faith. But as we have seen consistently with doctors of the church, serving in the way that God wills, not what he would rather do. And he was called, felt deeply the love of the contemplative life, but God had other plans for him. The wider service of the church. And he spent those years, his early years at Clairvaux, serving the church. And he was asked to serve on a wider plane. And he was going to give the rest of his life to that, regardless of the cost. And there, I think, is the lesson for all of us. I look forward to our future conversations, particularly about St. Bernard. So do I. Looking forward to it, Chris. God bless. Thank you.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
IDL78 Part 3 Chapter 34 Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales Discerning Hearts Podcast
"Hi, this is Chris McGregor of Discerning Hearts. Can you please help support this vital ministry? Discerning Hearts is a 100 % listeners -supported Catholic apostolate. Now through the end of August, please prayerfully consider making a sacrificial gift to help us raise $30 ,000 to fund truly life -changing Catholic programming and prayer. The financial contributions of listeners like you enables us to continue this important ministry. We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Your donations are fully tax -deductible. As an independent, non -for -profit lay organization that is not affiliated financially with any diocese, our apostolate is fully listener -supported. Again, between now and the end of August, please visit discerninghearts .com to make your donation. Thank you and God bless you from all of us at Discerning Hearts. Part 3, Chapter 34 of the Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales. This is a Discerning Hearts recording read by Corey Webb. Chapter 34 When to Use Such Amusements Rightly If you would dance or play rightly, it must be done as a recreation, not as a pursuit. For a brief space of time, not so as make you unfit for other things, and even then but seldom. If it is a constant habit, recreation turns into occupation. You will ask when it is right to dance or play? The occasions on which it is right to play at questionable games are rare. Ordinary games and dances may be indulged in more frequently. But let your rule be to do so chiefly when courteous consideration for others among whom you are thrown requires it, subject to prudence and discretion. For, consideration towards others often sanctions things indifferent or dangerous, and turns them to good, taking away what is evil. Thus certain games of chance, bad in themselves, cease to be so to you, if you join in them merely out of a due courtesy. I have been much comforted by reading in the life of Saint Carlo Borromeo, how he joined in certain things to please the Swiss, concerning which ordinarily he was very strict, as also how Saint Ignatius Loyola, when asked to play, did so. As to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, she both played and danced occasionally, when in society, without thereby hindering her devotion, which was so firmly rooted that, like the rocks of a mountain -lake, it stood unmoved amid the waves and storms of pomp and vanity which it encountered. Great fires are fanned by the wind, but a little one is soon extinguished if left without shelter. Discerning Hearts provides content dedicated to those on the spiritual journey. To continue production of these podcasts, prayers and more, go to discerninghearts .com and click the donate link found there, or inside the free Discerning Hearts app to make your donation. Thanks and God bless.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
IP#494 Fr. Thomas Morrow Straight to Heaven on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor Discerning Hearts podcasts - burst 1
"Hi, this is Chris McGregor of Discerning Hearts. Can you please help support this vital ministry? Discerning Hearts is a 100 % listeners -supported Catholic apostolate. Now through the end of August, please prayerfully consider making a sacrificial gift to help us raise $30 ,000 to fund truly life -changing Catholic programming and prayer. The financial contributions of listeners like you enables us to continue this important ministry. We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Your donations are fully tax -deductible. As an independent, non -for -profit lay organization that is not affiliated financially with any diocese, our apostolate is fully listener -supported. Again, between now and the end of August, please visit DiscerningHearts .com to make your donation. Thank you and God bless you from all of us at Discerning Hearts. DiscerningHearts .com presents Inside the Pages, insights from today's most compelling authors I'm your host, Chris McGregor, and I'm delighted to be joined by Father Thomas Murrow, who has an STL in moral theology from the Dominican House of Studies and received his doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. Father Murrow has appeared as a guest on numerous Catholic media platforms and is the author of Overcoming Sinful Anger, How to Master Your Emotions and Bring Peace to Your Life, and Overcoming Sinful Thoughts, How to Realign Your Thinking and Defeat Harmful Ideas. With Father Thomas Murrow, we go inside the pages of Straight to Heaven, A Practical Guide for Growing in Holiness, published by Sophia Institute Press. Father Murrow, thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure. My pleasure. It was such a delight to get a copy of the book. I just love your writing. You have been on the forefront of evangelization and teaching the Catholic faith for so long. This is such a great book, and we need it today, Straight to Heaven, A Practical Guide for Growing in Holiness. Thank you so much. You're most welcome. It's so important, don't you think, that not only to grow in holiness, but to know why we're growing in holiness, where we're going, what's the goal? And you set that out right in the very beginning, don't you? This is how I motivated kids in school when I taught in the school, is to teach them about heaven, hell, and purgatory, and once I taught them about that, they listened the whole year. For many people in today's culture anyway, we all believe in heaven, that there's going to be a heaven, we're not so sure about hell, and for many of us, we have no idea what purgatory is. That's right. When you talk about heaven, which I kind of like, you start right off the bat about what it's going to be like. What are some of those basics that you would want to communicate to someone about why heaven's worth it? So our Lord speaks of a heaven like finding a buried treasure, and it's worth selling all you have in order to have it, and it's also like a marriage with God, and we don't talk about that enough, I don't think, the fact that it's going to be like a beautiful marriage with a beautiful spouse who is so good and so holy, and it makes us so happy. St. Therese said, I formed such a lofty idea of heaven that at times I wonder what God will do in my death to surprise me, because your hope is so great. So John of the Cross wrote beautifully about the marriage in heaven. He's a wonderful romantic, and St. Therese of Abla wrote that the Lord appeared to her in 1572, and said, from now on you will be my bride, till now you are not married to this, but from now on, not only will you offer my honor as that of your Creator and King of God, but as my true bride. So there's plenty of evidence in scripture that we'll be married to God. Isaiah 62, you shall be called my delight, the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married, or as a young man marries a virgin, shall your God marry you? As his bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. So there's plenty of evidence in scripture that we're going to be married to God, but I don't think people talk enough about that, that he wants us in this intimate relationship, which is so beautiful and so delightful that we forget that, because perhaps we priests don't talk enough about it. I was really struck when I was reading your book, Father, that in this imagery of the divine marriage and having that connection to heaven, I can't think of anything more wonderful than to be in union in love, because as St. John says, God is love. And so in that divine marriage, it's the sharing of love, and then in itself, wouldn't that be the best place to be for all of eternity? Absolutely, absolutely. And the nice thing about heaven is that there's no time there. Everything is compressed into the present, so everything's happening at once. You don't have to wait for anything. You don't have to eat anything. You don't have to retail anything. Everything is right there, and everything is happening at once, but a lot of things are happening. It's not to say that they're not happening, they're happening in an instant. St. Paul told us, no eye has seen, no ear has heard. It's hard for us to fathom it, isn't it? Yeah, I think we come up with our own ideas. Sometimes we think from our own vantage point that if I go to heaven, I'll have the riches. I'll have the nicest house. I'll have the nicest car. Everything will be happy, and it's so much deeper than surface items, isn't it? Absolutely, that's true. I mean, we'll have all these things in a sense, but we'll have something better. We'll have beautiful, beautiful relationships with wonderful, wonderful people, and especially God. Yes, we want heaven in a very real way, but we don't really want to discuss hell, do we? The reality of that is a real possibility if that's what we're going to choose. That's right. People, they have a tendency to shy away from that, whereas that's very strongly mentioned in the scripture. And that's where we get in trouble when we forget about scripture and we start coming up with our own ideas. You can't get around that. It is mentioned by our Blessed Lord, isn't it? Yeah, between 25 and 30 times in sacred scripture. He does mention heaven about 170 times, so the emphasis on the positive, but it does not leave out the negative. That's, I think, so confusing for some, because when we talk about the negative, it's a loving warning, isn't it? Because ultimately, isn't it true, Father, that if we end up in hell, we've chosen that. Everything has kind of set our hearts towards that. Yes, yes. And in a sense, we choose hell because we choose the riches that God has offered us in being with Him forever. And so the problem is, the reason there's a hell is because we have freedom. And freedom is a good thing, but it's not an absolute good. It's an instrumental good. We can use it for the wrong thing. And so if we use it for the wrong thing, we get in trouble. We use our freedom to not love God and not love our neighbor, well then we have to suffer the consequences. But the only way that there can be a hell is because there's freedom and we have a choice and we have to make the right choices. It's a reality that I'm glad you brought forward the doctors of the church, whether it be Bernard of Clairvaux or Teresa of Avila. And you have an extensive quote from St. Francis de Sales. These are extraordinary saints who give us a very important warning. Absolutely, absolutely. St. Francis de Sales has a whole chapter in the introduction to the devout life on hell. And Ignatius of Loyola also have a large section in his spiritual exercises about hell. You brought up the word suffering. Whatever the great mystery of it is that suffering is an element in all this, even here on earth, we suffer here on earth, don't we? Yeah. Can't get around it. Yeah. And the solution to that is the crucifix. Jesus suffered because of sin. And St. Peter said, Christ suffered for you and left you an example that you should follow in his steps. So we have to share in that redemptive work, not merely to the extent that Jesus did, but to some extent, yeah, we have to help make up for sins of the world. Maybe not our sins, but maybe our sins too. But all the sins of the world have to be made up because God is so good, he's committed to justice. He is. And I think that's one of the reasons, isn't it, that not only the justice, but also his great mercy, that we would have the opportunity and what is still very much a dogma of the church is purgatory, the existence of that existence and where Christ helps us to heal. But it also involves the suffering because of the choices that we made here on earth. Yes. Jesus' atonement, we have to make atonement. Jesus took on most of the atonement and said, we have a relatively small amount to make up in purgatory, which is very, very arduous. And people that say they just want to go to purgatory are really very mistaken because it's not the kind of place you want to go to. It's painful, the section that you have of Thomas Aquinas' teaching on that. Even now in our own lifetime, haven't you experienced this, Father, particularly with penitence that you've might have spoken to, where they're a realization of the pain that you caused another or the experience of pain that because of other people's choices on the soul, it causes emotionally such an agony. Imagine that when you don't even have the body to in the senses, that is just sheer, the soul coming to an awareness of the pain that it's inflicted on others.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from IP#494 Fr. Thomas Morrow Straight to Heaven on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor Discerning Hearts podcasts
"Hi, this is Chris McGregor of Discerning Hearts. Can you please help support this vital ministry? Discerning Hearts is a 100 % listeners -supported Catholic apostolate. Now through the end of August, please prayerfully consider making a sacrificial gift to help us raise $30 ,000 to fund truly life -changing Catholic programming and prayer. The financial contributions of listeners like you enables us to continue this important ministry. We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Your donations are fully tax -deductible. As an independent, non -for -profit lay organization that is not affiliated financially with any diocese, our apostolate is fully listener -supported. Again, between now and the end of August, please visit DiscerningHearts .com to make your donation. Thank you and God bless you from all of us at Discerning Hearts. DiscerningHearts .com presents Inside the Pages, insights from today's most compelling authors I'm your host, Chris McGregor, and I'm delighted to be joined by Father Thomas Murrow, who has an STL in moral theology from the Dominican House of Studies and received his doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. Father Murrow has appeared as a guest on numerous Catholic media platforms and is the author of Overcoming Sinful Anger, How to Master Your Emotions and Bring Peace to Your Life, and Overcoming Sinful Thoughts, How to Realign Your Thinking and Defeat Harmful Ideas. With Father Thomas Murrow, we go inside the pages of Straight to Heaven, A Practical Guide for Growing in Holiness, published by Sophia Institute Press. Father Murrow, thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure. My pleasure. It was such a delight to get a copy of the book. I just love your writing. You have been on the forefront of evangelization and teaching the Catholic faith for so long. This is such a great book, and we need it today, Straight to Heaven, A Practical Guide for Growing in Holiness. Thank you so much. You're most welcome. It's so important, don't you think, that not only to grow in holiness, but to know why we're growing in holiness, where we're going, what's the goal? And you set that out right in the very beginning, don't you? This is how I motivated kids in school when I taught in the school, is to teach them about heaven, hell, and purgatory, and once I taught them about that, they listened the whole year. For many people in today's culture anyway, we all believe in heaven, that there's going to be a heaven, we're not so sure about hell, and for many of us, we have no idea what purgatory is. That's right. When you talk about heaven, which I kind of like, you start right off the bat about what it's going to be like. What are some of those basics that you would want to communicate to someone about why heaven's worth it? So our Lord speaks of a heaven like finding a buried treasure, and it's worth selling all you have in order to have it, and it's also like a marriage with God, and we don't talk about that enough, I don't think, the fact that it's going to be like a beautiful marriage with a beautiful spouse who is so good and so holy, and it makes us so happy. St. Therese said, I formed such a lofty idea of heaven that at times I wonder what God will do in my death to surprise me, because your hope is so great. So John of the Cross wrote beautifully about the marriage in heaven. He's a wonderful romantic, and St. Therese of Abla wrote that the Lord appeared to her in 1572, and said, from now on you will be my bride, till now you are not married to this, but from now on, not only will you offer my honor as that of your Creator and King of God, but as my true bride. So there's plenty of evidence in scripture that we'll be married to God. Isaiah 62, you shall be called my delight, the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married, or as a young man marries a virgin, shall your God marry you? As his bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. So there's plenty of evidence in scripture that we're going to be married to God, but I don't think people talk enough about that, that he wants us in this intimate relationship, which is so beautiful and so delightful that we forget that, because perhaps we priests don't talk enough about it. I was really struck when I was reading your book, Father, that in this imagery of the divine marriage and having that connection to heaven, I can't think of anything more wonderful than to be in union in love, because as St. John says, God is love. And so in that divine marriage, it's the sharing of love, and then in itself, wouldn't that be the best place to be for all of eternity? Absolutely, absolutely. And the nice thing about heaven is that there's no time there. Everything is compressed into the present, so everything's happening at once. You don't have to wait for anything. You don't have to eat anything. You don't have to retail anything. Everything is right there, and everything is happening at once, but a lot of things are happening. It's not to say that they're not happening, they're happening in an instant. St. Paul told us, no eye has seen, no ear has heard. It's hard for us to fathom it, isn't it? Yeah, I think we come up with our own ideas. Sometimes we think from our own vantage point that if I go to heaven, I'll have the riches. I'll have the nicest house. I'll have the nicest car. Everything will be happy, and it's so much deeper than surface items, isn't it? Absolutely, that's true. I mean, we'll have all these things in a sense, but we'll have something better. We'll have beautiful, beautiful relationships with wonderful, wonderful people, and especially God. Yes, we want heaven in a very real way, but we don't really want to discuss hell, do we? The reality of that is a real possibility if that's what we're going to choose. That's right. People, they have a tendency to shy away from that, whereas that's very strongly mentioned in the scripture. And that's where we get in trouble when we forget about scripture and we start coming up with our own ideas. You can't get around that. It is mentioned by our Blessed Lord, isn't it? Yeah, between 25 and 30 times in sacred scripture. He does mention heaven about 170 times, so the emphasis on the positive, but it does not leave out the negative. That's, I think, so confusing for some, because when we talk about the negative, it's a loving warning, isn't it? Because ultimately, isn't it true, Father, that if we end up in hell, we've chosen that. Everything has kind of set our hearts towards that. Yes, yes. And in a sense, we choose hell because we choose the riches that God has offered us in being with Him forever. And so the problem is, the reason there's a hell is because we have freedom. And freedom is a good thing, but it's not an absolute good. It's an instrumental good. We can use it for the wrong thing. And so if we use it for the wrong thing, we get in trouble. We use our freedom to not love God and not love our neighbor, well then we have to suffer the consequences. But the only way that there can be a hell is because there's freedom and we have a choice and we have to make the right choices. It's a reality that I'm glad you brought forward the doctors of the church, whether it be Bernard of Clairvaux or Teresa of Avila. And you have an extensive quote from St. Francis de Sales. These are extraordinary saints who give us a very important warning. Absolutely, absolutely. St. Francis de Sales has a whole chapter in the introduction to the devout life on hell. And Ignatius of Loyola also have a large section in his spiritual exercises about hell. You brought up the word suffering. Whatever the great mystery of it is that suffering is an element in all this, even here on earth, we suffer here on earth, don't we? Yeah. Can't get around it. Yeah. And the solution to that is the crucifix. Jesus suffered because of sin. And St. Peter said, Christ suffered for you and left you an example that you should follow in his steps. So we have to share in that redemptive work, not merely to the extent that Jesus did, but to some extent, yeah, we have to help make up for sins of the world. Maybe not our sins, but maybe our sins too. But all the sins of the world have to be made up because God is so good, he's committed to justice. He is. And I think that's one of the reasons, isn't it, that not only the justice, but also his great mercy, that we would have the opportunity and what is still very much a dogma of the church is purgatory, the existence of that existence and where Christ helps us to heal. But it also involves the suffering because of the choices that we made here on earth. Yes. Jesus' atonement, we have to make atonement. Jesus took on most of the atonement and said, we have a relatively small amount to make up in purgatory, which is very, very arduous. And people that say they just want to go to purgatory are really very mistaken because it's not the kind of place you want to go to. It's painful, the section that you have of Thomas Aquinas' teaching on that. Even now in our own lifetime, haven't you experienced this, Father, particularly with penitence that you've might have spoken to, where they're a realization of the pain that you caused another or the experience of pain that because of other people's choices on the soul, it causes emotionally such an agony. Imagine that when you don't even have the body to in the senses, that is just sheer, the soul coming to an awareness of the pain that it's inflicted on others.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from IP#493 Fr. Brice Higginbotham Remaining with Jesus on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor Discerning Hearts podcasts
"Hi, this is Chris McGregor of Discerning Hearts. Can you please help support this vital ministry? Discerning Hearts is a 100 % listeners -supported Catholic apostolate. Now through the end of August, please prayerfully consider making a sacrificial gift to help us raise $30 ,000 to fund truly life -changing Catholic programming and prayer. The financial contributions of listeners like you enables us to continue this important ministry. We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Your donations are fully tax -deductible. As an independent, non -for -profit lay organization that is not affiliated financially with any diocese, our apostolate is fully listener -supported. Again, between now and the end of August, please visit DiscerningHearts .com to make your donation. Thank you and God bless you from all of us at Discerning Hearts. DiscerningHearts .com presents Inside the Pages, insights from today's most compelling authors. I'm your host, Chris McGregor, and I am delighted to be joined by Father Bryce Higginbotham, who is the author of Daily Lessons from the Saints and author of numerous articles and homilies in homiletic and pastoral review. He has more than 60 catechetical videos, which can be found on his YouTube channel as well as on his Facebook page. With Father Bryce Higginbotham, we go inside the pages of Remaining with Jesus, Discipleship and the Gospel of John, published by Loyola Press. Father Bryce, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here with you. I've been looking forward to talking to you about Remaining with Jesus, Discipleship and the Gospel of John. It's such a lovely work. It's my favorite gospel. I mean, first I got to say, how can you have a favorite gospel? And yet for the Gospel of John, there's something so tender and special about this particular work that I'm just so grateful that you chose this as something to explore. Well, the Lord is good. He gives us four gospels to give us various perspectives on Jesus and not differences, but like God, there's a line that I love. I think it's in 1 Corinthians, which talks about how the Lord reveals to us the many sided wisdom of God. As if we look at Jesus from the perspective of St. Mark, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we see a particular shade or a particular side of his glory and of who he is. And then from the perspective of St. Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we see a particular revelation, a way that God has revealed himself to us. So I think it's really beautiful and a gift that the Lord has given us these four gospels. We can see him more clearly through looking at him from these four different directions. I think it's a gift. But yeah, I mean, I think John is my favorite too, because, well, I don't know, it's just a particular way that that way that God reveals himself or the parts about himself that he chose to reveal through John, like speaks to me, at least in a particular way. He is the beloved disciple, isn't he? I mean, the one who was able to rest his head on the heart of Jesus and to listen very deeply, even so much that the Lord would give his mother to his care while on the cross. And so can you imagine what it must have been like for the woman who knew our Lord so intimately and this beloved disciple as they shared and they pondered and they ruminated over all the events that had occurred in their lifetime and their experience of Jesus? And you have to think sometimes, don't you, Father, that Marian dimension is very evident in the Gospel of John? Yeah, I think of what John says after Jesus gives marriage to him from the cross and he took her into his own. I think John Paul II makes a big deal out of that because it's right, like it doesn't just mean that he took her to his house, though he did, but it means like that he took her, so to speak, into his heart and learn, learn from Mary how to be a disciple, learn from Mary how to be a priest, how to be a bishop. So, yeah, it's John gives us an example of learning from Mary. And he did that clearly. He did that because he clearly learned from her how to ponder all these things in his heart. I think that's why part of the reason, at least John's Gospel is so different from Matthew's, Mark's and Luke's, because John had more time and he wrote his Gospel last after the others had been written. He probably read the others and he had spent all this time with Mary and with the rest of the scriptures pondering these things in her heart so that he could then give us this particularly deep look into the life of Jesus. And even at the beginning, in the first 18 verses, John gives us the look into the life of Jesus with the Father before creation and after creation, before the incarnation. It so is fitting then to have the Gospel of John, the beloved disciple, the apostle who knew him so well, to help give us a guide in that discipleship. And that's what you really bring forward. It is so penetrating. It's just how you've led us into that opportunity to become that type of disciple. Yeah, well, I mean, we're really blessed that John led us. The Holy Spirit led John, John led us. And, you know, all that I had to do and praise God, I was able to do it and was just bring out what John himself was saying, because he talks about discipleship more than any other than any other book in the New Testament or the Old Testament, any other book in the whole Bible. The discipleship is more pronounced in the Gospel of John than anywhere else. And you also point out that in the Gospel of John, that there are two words. Now they're popping more than ever for me as I go back and I read the Gospel of John, which I try to do very often during the week, actually. And it's the two words believe and remain. Where I started with the research, I just want to know what it meant to be a disciple, because clearly we're supposed to be disciples. There are lots of good books about discipleship, but there were none that I found that sufficiently engaged the Bible. It's like, what does the Bible tell us about discipleship? So I found out that I looked at where discipleship was used in the Bible and I found out that John talks about discipleship more than anybody else. And so I said, well, I guess the best thing to do is to open up the concordance, the thing that has all the words from the Bible and where you can find them. And then just look at every time the word disciple is used in John, all 72 times. So I found, I found John eight 31, where Jesus says to the Jews who had believed in him, there's the people who already believed in him. He says, if you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples. I said, Oh, so first you have to believe, then you have to remain. And that makes a true disciple. Then I just went back through the Gospel and found all the times where believe and remain and discipleship are used kind of in some way together by John to bring out what it means to be a disciple. Well, I found really surprising. It was kind of an epiphany for me when you broke open the, was it the Greek word for believe the CEO? Thank you for pronouncing it for me. Say it one more time. Will you, father? It's yellow because it has another meaning as well that will pop for us. I think, yeah, it's the same word ingredient for believe and for trust. The reason I think that's so important is because when you think about those church approved apparitions of our Lord, or really there are only a few of them, but almost in every instance, he's imploring us to trust him, you know, in the sacred heart, in the revelation to St. Faustina, the message he has is trust me. And when so you connect those two words, believe, trust, they are more than married, aren't they? Yeah. It seems to me that in English, when we say believe, we mean like something we do with our minds. And when we say trust, we mean something that we do with our hearts, more or less. But when Jesus says, believe, when he tells us to believe, or when he tells us to trust, I think it means both. I think it's an integrated and I know I know that it's an integrated expression that Jesus invites us into to believe in our heads, yes, and to trust in our hearts. And those things need to be has to be together. This is just some of what is containing your book, Remaining with Jesus, Discipleship in the Gospel of John. I want to say it over and over again, because this book, we're going to dive more into it, but it's just so perfect for the study of the Gospel of John. I really is. I mean, even the layout that you have, as far as the encouragement of times of reflection, even as opportunities to have group study. And when we talk about group study, the family is still a group. I mean, this is good for families to get together and to break open. And I think you could probably do this just about any age, couldn't you? Just about. Yeah, I think so. For that, I just again, I want to encourage folks to to check out Remaining with Jesus Discipleship in the Gospel of John, because in it, you also talk about the dynamics of discipleship and you point out four very important signposts, I think, on this journey. And it could be a little bit more. I mean, each has so much contained in it. But there are four basic elements, aren't there? Yeah. So we see at the very beginning of the Gospel, John the Baptist, he paints out that Jesus is there, he says, he says, Behold, the Lamb of God. And notice that that actually happens twice. I found that that a little interesting that he says it one day. Behold, the Lamb of God and kind of nobody does anything. Then the next day, Jesus passes by again and he says, Behold, the Lamb of God. And it's at that point that Andrew and John said, oh, well, we we we need to go follow. So there's a most of the time there's a witness, somebody somebody has got to tell us about Jesus, and then after somebody tells us about Jesus, like John the Baptist told Andrew and John, like Philip went and told Nathaniel just a couple of verses later at the beginning in John chapter one, somebody tells us about Jesus and then we go and we meet Jesus for ourselves. And when we encounter Jesus for ourselves, we begin to we begin to believe in him. I believe in those two ways that we talked about earlier to believe in the intellect and to trust in the heart. But believing, believing isn't enough because believing has to, or rather relationships need time and relationships need to persevere. And almost always on this side of heaven, right in this valley of tears in which we live, almost always there are challenges and tests and trials to do, do I really trust, like how deeply do I trust? And we have to remain with Jesus in those trials. And oftentimes remaining looks like standing there and not going anywhere like John and Mary and Mary Magdalene and the other holy women at the further cross. And just being there and not moving in the midst of, in the midst of the trial and the suffering. And when we are remaining with Jesus, like the branch that remains on the vine, then we bear fruit and that fruit looks like practically loving people. We build up the church. We, in other words, we encourage people in the community by our prayer, by our mortifications, by our practical efforts. And it becomes a cycle because the best way, the biggest way, the most important way that we love people who are outside of the church is we witnessed to them about Jesus. We tell them, Hey, behold the lamb of God. Hey, this is what Jesus did in my life. This is what we do. So the witness moves us to meet Jesus, where we believe, believing in him. We begin to remain with him by believing through time, especially through struggles, trials, tests, difficulties. And then that remaining bears fruit in practical love. Yeah, you hear so often. I am the vine. You're the branches remain in me. That's, I can recall in the words of a little Carmelite who became a Saint, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. That's one of the first things she implores in her great retreats that she offers us is to remember, remain in me. And I think sometimes that's very difficult to stay in that place because of those types of trials. If you're not anchored again in that belief, that trust, and that can only grow in a relationship within an encounter with Christ, can it? Yes, exactly. So Father, when you were exploring this in the gospel of John, it hits me that, as you said in the beginning, Andrew and Philip heard it first, but they didn't respond immediately.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Kevin McCullough Unpacks the Church's Mixed LGBTQ+ Messages
"Just passed on Park Avenue coming to the studio. St. Bart's Episcopal Church, which is then at the forefront of gay rights. They've got a monster gay rights flag, pride flag, whatever they call it, hanging outside the building. They've been at the forefront of this. But a Catholic church, one of the most wealthy Catholic churches in America, Loyola on Park Avenue, has a pride symbol talking about we welcome our, you know, I don't know how it says LGBTQ, you know, brothers and sisters. And I thought this is a mixed message. This is this is a Catholic church, which would typically stand firm on the basics of doctrine, basically saying, well, we're we're looking the other way now on this. We're sending a message. So it's kind of everywhere. And it's a challenge to, you know, to those of us who hold to biblical values within the Catholic Church and outside of the Catholic Church. And then just folks who don't go to church, but who say, you know what, that's not something I feel like celebrating. Why do I have to celebrate it? You know, what's interesting, Eric, is that the church and when I use the church this at this point in time, I'm meaning the kind of the corporate entity known as the church, not necessarily the body of believers. But you've seen the church be co -opted by the LGBTQ message in the last couple of years in fairly significant ways to the degree that you're pointing out. Although American episcopals have been off the reservation on, you know, the moral authority of God's word for a while. So they don't really recognize biblical tenets as being doctrine and so forth. But what's interesting about this is that it's the pastors who want to speak truthfully are going to have to do so more than ever before. And they're going to have to do it in a way that's that's
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"To The Heart of the Spiritual Exercises with Father Anthony Wick in just a moment. Discerning Hearts provides content dedicated to those on the spiritual journey. To continue production of these podcasts, prayers, and more, go to discerninghearts .com and click the donate link found there or inside the free Discerning Hearts app to make your donation. Thanks and God bless. That is enough for me. Amen. Thank you. You know that Discerning Hearts also has the
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"Heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola, with father Anthony wick. Father wick is the Jesuit priest of the central and southern province of the United States. He currently acts as a retreat master at The White House Jesuit retreat center in St. Louis, Missouri. He also serves as a spiritual director at kenric Glenn seminary in St. Louis. The heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola was father Anthony wick. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Well, just reminds me so much of what saint Catherine of Siena experienced in the dialogs when the father through her writings would say that I don't allow temptations to make you weak. I allow them to make you strong. Wow. And I think sometimes we can get confused to father that when we will ascribe to a desolation as something that the terms like dark night of the soul or maybe we're just really tired and we need to rest that there might be other things going on that maybe isn't so much an action that the father is allowing, but it's something that is going on that is a non spiritual desolation, but we call it that. Correct well said, yes, that's a great distinction you're making too at the non spiritual dissolution of the spiritual dissolution. So I may be depressed. I may have there may be a chemical imbalance that may have maybe so there may be something that happened. I just had a car accident. Let's say in the crunch of my car and I don't know how I'm going to get another one. So that's a desolation, not a spiritual desolation. Now, if it turns into my where I'm starting to feel far from God now too, after my car is crashed or my incident happens or whatever or someone rejects me in a friendship. Then it becomes a spiritual desolation too, but you're right. It's not the same as The Dark Knight of the soul, so for Joan of the cross, so this is carmelite spirituality now. For John of the cross, The Dark Knight of the soil is actually a joy that goes in there. There's a deeper joy that the lord is purifying me. I can fall in love. They're similar it is but some differences too. I can fall in love with the gifts of God more than the giver.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"Hearts. We now return to the heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola with father Anthony wick. It
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"Hearts provides content dedicated to those on the spiritual journey to continue production of these podcasts, prayers and more, go to discerning hearts dot com and click the donate link found there, or inside the free discerning hearts app to make your donation. Thanks, and God bless. A prayer of saint ignatius of Loyola. Take lord and receive all my liberty,
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"I offer any more helpful? Explanation. It is. Again, I wasn't trying to necessarily lived up a negative or anything like that. But just kind of dress a particular type of possibility that fear of allowing that Holy Spirit to help use our imagination in being able to go deeper into our prayer. I mean, our imagination is such a great gift, isn't it? Yeah, that's a very good question. You have a lot of wonderful questions and insights. When I began religious iPhone, I began learning this prayer. I was very nervous about it. I'm like, what's my imagination? I'll probably get it wrong. I'm going to mess this up. I don't know. I'd never been to the Holy Land. I don't want to change the gospel story from what it is. But what I've realized since is that you don't put stock in your imagination. In other words, the gospels are nothing but a skeletal version of four or 5 verses of our entire scene and scenic mansions and bytes as to fill out what we might imagine at that point in our existence in time. Of how that may have transpired. What was going on in the heart of the mother as Jesus was brought to see this daughter who was sick, you know? So we're filling out using our imagination to add flesh to the skeleton, if you will. To add flesh to the skeleton and so that that body comes alive. But we don't put any stock in the flesh each time I contemplate a passage say it's the Samaritan woman or any passage, it changes I don't ever stick with the same flesh or I don't stick with a movie version or like oh, that's how I imagined Mary Magdalene being just as she is in the chosen, therefore I could never unlearn that image. No, it changes. I don't put stock in the flesh that I add to it, but it does help the skeleton come alive. And so that's the important of the imagination, and you'll see it by fruits you will know them. So we don't ever change the skeleton, though, don't ever, like instead of Jesus encountering this woman hemorrhaging instead, it happens differently in my imagination. Oh no, stick with the gospel stay with the skeleton, don't change a skeleton. But just add some flesh to the skeleton, you don't need all the flesh. You don't need the whole scene. You don't need to know what does the blessed mother's face look like at the merch feast of Tina. I want to see how big is this room? What does the wine taste like? You don't need all those details. That's more than necessary. Just a few details to allow the scene to unfold in front of you. So that's the role of the imagination, but we don't put stock in it. Like, oh, I know that she was wearing a red dress or something right now that there was about 40 people there. We don't know that. Well, maybe in the next life, Jesus will tell us, but that can change each time you meditate on it, frankly. Because usually there's a little bit something more that is happening in that prayer and that divine communication isn't so much that explicit details as much as it's the grace as being poured into your heart. There is some type of healing or guidance or something that else that is going on that is more relational in our prayer hopefully than just a communication of facts. There is a gentle guidance isn't there often in this type of prayer. I think you're putting the focus on the right place, which is the relationality. And there'll be a fruit to that relationality to mean something to my life and I'll be a better person because of it. So the lord's calling into his life that's the interpret that I was speaking of to be called out into a call out into the deep, if you will, which is his life, I need to see my life within the life of Christ. That is absolutely key for me as a Christian, and as a Catholic. I don't have the center is not in me. I'm part of his body. I'm like a cell in the body of Christ. And so I find my life only within that body, not on my own, the world doesn't revolve around me. He's the son. And my world revolves around him, and it only finds its locus in him. All right, thanks, father. Okay, my friend. Bye bye. You've been listening to the heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola, with father Anthony wick. This episode, along with hundreds of other spiritual formation programs, visit discerning hearts dot com. This has been a production of discerning hearts. I'm your host Chris McGregor. We hope that if this has been helpful for you that you will first pray for our mission, which is to offer authentic and rock solid spiritual formation freely to souls around the world. And if you feel it's worthy, please consider a charitable donation, which is fully tax deductible to help support our efforts. But most of all, we hope that you will tell a friend about discerning hearts dot com and join us next time for the heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola, with father Anthony wick.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"Receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All that I have and call my own. You have given all to me. Do you, lord, I return it. Everything is yours. Do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me. Amen. Did you know that discerning hearts has a free app in which you can find all your favorite discerning hearts programming? Father Timothy Gallagher, doctor Anthony Lola, speaking James Keating, Mike aquilina, doctor Matthew bunson, and so many more are found on the discerning hearts free app. Did you also know that you can stream discerning hearts programming on numerous streaming platforms such as Apple podcasts, Google Play, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, stitcher, tune in, and so many more, and did you know that discerning hearts also has that YouTube page? Be sure to check out all these different places where you can find discerning hearts. We now return to the heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola with father Anthony wick. The thing that keeps striking me that you really do have to take some time prior to ever entering into prayer, even if it's just for a few moments to subtle yourself, because what you're asking for is it sounds like a radical surrender. It's the type of surrender where, okay, I'm going to enter into my prayer, but I, you know, all the stuff that's going on around my life and even the attitude that I may have woken up with, whether it's a, I'm really joyful about a whole bunch of other things or I'm really depressed about something else, or something that might be distracting me, I have to get rid of that before I can enter into the conversation, don't I? Yes, so it's actually not even my pure that I'm entering into. It's actually God inspiring this. And so as I sit in the chapter, I sit in my place of prayer, I first calm down and remind myself that God is the one leading me here. I recall my first spiritual director was a Dominican back in California, and I was complaining to him father. I really don't know how to pray very well. I'm really not good at this. I really want to be better at this any site stop Anthony said, do you realize that even your desire for prayers already God working within you? I said, no. I had never thought of that, but so I need to acknowledge that God is even brought me here that he wants to enter. He's the initiator of this dialog. I need to have, if you will, Chris, the copernican revolution, where my focus is on what God is doing. Cuts brought me here. God sustaining main existence right now. So I'm acknowledging what he's doing and that there isn't other here with a capital O and so I'm entering into this dialog. So you're right before I enter into the desire and let's see what are the steps of my prayer that I'm going to do today my prayer oh no, it's an acknowledgment that I'm in the presence of another who's drawn me here. I have been drawn here and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for my faith life, which has been complete gift. Another part of the conversation in our prayer in building that relationship with the father and the son and the Holy Spirit in that listening is what you refer to as the colocate. It's a very tender experience, I mean, I don't want to over dramatize it, but it really is essential though in understanding what scenic ignatius of Loyola would have us experience in our prayer. Yes, so the colloquy personalizes the experience. So as I go into admission period, I really lose myself in this relationship with Christ and scripture and what's going on and what's going on in the people around Jesus. What's going on in Jesus's heart? We always come to this place of dialog now it comes back to how does this reality, the fullness of reality revealed in the gospel, the fullness of revelation here? What does that have to say to my life? And so I allow that to inform my current situation. So I do begin to dialog with the lord about what place that has in my life, how he's inviting me to be more solicitous of others, how he's inviting me to let go of that concern worry doubt I have how he's inviting me into that experience of the hemorrhaging woman to really trust him to lean into this, to reach out and touch him. But whatever it be, whatever the passage be or how he's inviting me to be like a mustard seed, lost in the soil. Well, that practically means in this particular place in my life, it means whatever it means you know in this talk I have coming up that I really lose myself I not focus on myself and I really allow myself to be buried underground if you will so that God will give the glory. So whatever it be, if the colloquy, he says, is made as one is one friend to another, having a personal conversation, sharing what's going on inside, maybe I'm asking pardon for something. I've done asking a request of this one, but I'm really allowing what I've just meditated or contemplated upon to impregnate my life and let my life be drawn into that truth into the gospel truth of God's self revelation, completely revealed there in Christ. Now, if you don't mind, I have to ask this in relation to that, that expression of the calla queen because unfortunately has been some who have, as they looked at that, said that seems like an odd way of praying, it's almost as though your channeling. I mean, how can we presume to have this image of the father or the blessed virgin or even a saint sit across from us and we have a conversation that for some may appear to be something that is misunderstood? It's a great question. I've never thought of it that way. But I don't also, I don't pray it that way either. So when I'm entering into the gospel scene and I'm watching, basically, a third party observer sometimes I might be one of the persons in this scene, I'm watching this occur, I'm watching, I'm asking the lord to reveal what's going on in his heart as the blind man comes up to him, I'm asking, as he bends down and spits on the ground, it makes mud and begins to smear it on the man's eyes. It's such a dramatic scene that I kind of lose myself as I watch that. There's nothing about father Anthony and any of this. And then I just begin talking to the lord, I wouldn't say it's chin laying it, although it's not even that I'm in the scene and I draw him over to myself and I'm like, okay, lord, can you and I go take a walk? It's not like that. I just, by colloquy, is my I turned to the lord, maybe one of the persons that blessed Trinity, and I begin speaking with them, where I'm at in my concrete circumstance. About what's moving in my heart as I watched the same, or as I watched this, or as I listened to this parable, as I pondered Jesus in this experience with the soldiers, or something he said, or his being exhausted by the well in samaria being tired after the journey. I just relate, I allow that to inform my life. So I allow my life to be drawn into his life. There's a beautiful phrase that beautiful word, it's a verb in Italian that unfortunately is not translated, it's called, and terror, interpret it means to be drawn out of my life into God's life, so I'm drawn the gospel like draws me into a much bigger world than my own, and it's very life giving to be drawn into that. So I definitely don't think it's channeling. I don't use it in the sense of, okay, now I can see the blessed mother holding my hand and she's looking into my eyes and telling me something or the saint is or the holy spirits now wrapping his wings around. I don't have any sense like that. It's more, I just begin to relate to one of the prey normally, but I'm praying from the place of what I was just contemplating. Is that clear, can
The Charlie Kirk Show
Charlie and Candace Owens Discuss the Simple Truths
"Said was, oh, black people don't have to be Democrats. And they were like, ah. Like a whole world just crumbled and they were like, how dare she say something? It's the simple truth that drives them the most crazy. It's because they live in abstractions. They can't actually ever say something that the plumber, the electrician, the police officer, the firefighter, the person that didn't go to Harvard, can understand. They have to say, well, you know, according to postmodern theory and the book by Herbert marcuse like, actually, you're a racist and a bigot because Charlie, this is not a joke. You guys can check with not even gonna believe me, but I promise you this is real. So apparently, if you have an organized pantry or a clean home, you're racist. This is a real thing. It's a real thing now. And I have a very organized pantry. I have a very like my pantry is hotter than your pantry. I am so proud of it. It took me basically two months to organize my pantry. And then I found out on because of professor, professor from Loyola university, wrote an article explaining that actually if you aspire to organize your closets, it's because you are inherently racist and you don't understand that these social contracts. I mean, how much school do you have to have to be that stupid?
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"Weekend at least retreats and some longer retreats. And this kind of rocked my world each time it would kind of reorient myself as I would go through the exercises towards seeding niches. So as I think about it, yes, most of those were weak in retreats. But reoriented my life like, well, where am I here? What am I doing here? How can I best praise your evidence and serve God? Reorientation for me about exactly that, I was only one year in the business world in the Bay Area before I heard about a small school starting up in Phoenix, Arizona. Ended up teaching there for three years, 5th and 6th grade, loved it. I taught the kids, you know if you do God's will you really be happy in life and I really believe that. But then some of the mothers, here's the key. Some of the mothers came to me, and with great innocence and simplicity said, Anthony, have you thought about beta priest? You'd be a great priest. Now, of course, in our culture today, we don't make a distinction between being religious and being a priest. We see all men as either being priest or late person, but we should really think more in terms of religious life in general, but anyway, so they were challenging me to think about that and I didn't like that compliment. In other words, I was like, why does every guy have to be a priest? We need good husbands and fathers, which we do. But I could see also that there was some blockage in me, like they're offering me an innocent and beautiful compliment to consider the priesthood, and I did love the priesthood, but only at a distance I wanted to bless my plans and my plans were for marriage and family, like mom and dad. So I had to Dominican spiritual director and I asked him, why does that bother me so much interiorly to the women who offered this compliment, of course, I was kind. Oh, thank you very much. No, I don't think that's for me. But interiorly I was disturbed by asked him why it disturbed me so much and he said you're probably not as open to God's will as you think you are. I responded well, guilty as charged. I accept that. What should I do? And he said, well, you should pray more. You should go to the sacraments more on God will give you a sign of what to do. So I was waiting for my sign and one of my Jesuit friends came through town, gave a talk at our school. We went for a car ride afterwards. And I told him I said, I'd love this life of teaching. I thought maybe I would do that long term. I've always thought I'd get married raise a family even on a farm, perhaps. But the priesthood ideas coming to the fore may be followed Jesus in that way. I'm not crazy about it, but I just wanted to tell you about this and he looked at me and he said, do you know about the cassavas are in Rome? And I said, I've heard about that place, but I don't know anything about it. He said he kind of pointed and he said, that would be the perfect place for you. I was like, uh oh, I think that's my sign. From heaven that my spiritual director promised I would have. And so I took the next plane to Rome basically that summer. I had to try out this house of discernment to live a life of the poverty chastity obedience. To live the religious life and to see if it fit. And as I was living that life, I went over there, hoping that it wouldn't work out, lord, okay, I'm giving you two years to discern my vocation. Please don't let this work out. Negotiating with the lord. So during those two years, what fundamentally happened? Well, I realized I had a lot of rough edges what ignatius calls inordinate attachments. Things I was clinging to. My way of doing things. My frustrations. My way of trying to get God to come to my way of seeing and acting. And as I recognize those embarrassing as that was and started to ask lord, the lord for help to let go of those, especially to the prayer. Which are indeed the spiritual exercises, the 5 forms of pray to help us let go of our inordinate attachments, I began to open up and on my we would do annual 8 day retreats there, and as I began opening up and getting to know the religious founders, I began to be more and more free. I would read about the various religious founders, Benedict Francis Dominic, ignatius two, and when I read ignatius, he was such a father to me, such a father. I couldn't believe it. I feel like here I've gone to Jesuit schooling, we've had all this Jesuit influence, but I never dreamed that I would be called to be a Jesuit. I thought there was too much conflict within the Jesuits. I thought that I don't know. It was too exalted or something, I just never saw myself as a Jesuit. And as I got to know ignatius and prayed to him and speak with him and read his letters, we have more extreme letters from him than any other 16th century personage bar one. And read his letters. They just spoke to me so deeply. So I was beginning to realize that he was choosing me and perhaps that's true, Chris, that in the spiritual life, the saints choose us even more than we choose them. So that was my experience with saint ignatius, and I began this journey of beginning to say yes to him, feeling this call as I became more free to follow him to follow his charism and to enter the Jesuits. He carries them as an angle at which we follow Jesus, a true angle where we see Jesus accurately, but from a Jesuit angle, not a Benedictine ankle not a Dominican angle or Franciscan. They're all different angles that were all followed Jesus and the primary ways of poverty chastity and obedience. But from a particular angle, whatever God gives to us. I applied to the Jesuits of the southern province, which at that time was between Florida and New Mexico entered and began this journey of formal Jesuit studies after two years of discernment of Rome and then three years at the Jesuit university cult of Gregorian there. So let's begin my journey with sad ignatius and it's been a wonderful journey ever since have been learning so much about him. He was so influential at the Gaza balthazar, he was the bedrock to understand discernment of spirits and how to draw everything of our lives into this preservatives and service of God. Yeah, it's so interesting that the founders of the Casa would be, of course, father, but at that time, cardinal Joseph ratzinger, as well as colonel schorm, and if I'm not mistaken. That's right. And when you speak of terrorism, the way that you described it was so beautiful, it reminds me of a prism. The one light that pure white light hits, and because of the angle of the prism, it eventually displayed in all these different colors. Same light source, but is expressed in a different color as it were. Am I making that too simplistic? That's a lovely image because that means that they all work together. All these charisms come from the lord, the same source, and they all work together in their particular color with a red orange yellow green, blue had to go over pilots, you know, all the different principle terrorisms in the church. I'm not sure which color that Jesuits would be. I would have a guess, but that's right. Yeah, they all come from the same light source and lead us into the fullness of light. It needs to be said, doesn't it, though, because it has that same source, it's meant to whatever the care ism is to help feed the world and to help feed souls to bring them to the source of the light, and I'm speaking capital L, the lord to bring them to Christ by that particular approach, and for saint ignatius that we can't say that it was just for those who have a ignatian spirituality or a Jesuit calling, it really became a great gift to the whole world, didn't it? So true. So true. Yes, these are the ways that so God calls us to himself and these are the ways that we are whether we're lay or religious, we're enamored with the lord in these particular aspects of Jesus are enamored for us. They just call us out of ourselves. Each person kind of fighting their own charism reading different saints and noticing which saints really speak to them and draw them into the heart of the lord. So nothing replaces that personal encounter that real encounter with Jesus. So all saints lead towards that and all charisms lead towards that too. It'll come under the rubric though of a certain there would be a certain aspect is something about the carmelite charism or the Franciscan charism that really speaks to us of who Jesus is. It really in the livens us. It fills us with. We'll return to the heart of the spiritual exercises with father Anthony wick in just a moment. Discerning hearts provides content dedicated to those on the spiritual journey to continue production of these podcasts. Prayers and more, go to discerning hearts dot com and click the donate link found there, or inside the free discerning hearts app to make your donation. Thanks, and God bless. A prayer of saint ignatius of Loyola. Take lord and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All that I have in call my own. You have given all to me. Do you, lord, I return it. Everything is yours. Do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace that is enough for me. Amen. Did you know that discerning hearts has a free app in which you can find all your favorite discerning hearts programming? Father Timothy Gallagher, doctor Anthony lillis, deacon James Keating, Mike aquilina, doctor Matthew bunson, and so many more are found on the discerning hearts free app. Did you also know that you can stream discerning hearts programming on numerous streaming platforms such as Apple podcasts, Google Play, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, stitcher, tune in, and so many more, and did you know that discerning hearts also has that YouTube page? Be sure to check out all these different places where you can find discerning hearts. We now return to the heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola with father Anthony wick. And as you said that the saints very often, I believe it's totally true too. We don't choose them. They choose us. And to be chosen, particularly by saint ignatius, it really speaks of that fatherhood of the guidance, the patrimony, the paternal caring that he would have for you as a son, in this quest that you have. Yes. So each father, this is a good image of a father, St. Paul says, fatherhood comes from God the father. And some of us have really not had good fatherhood examples. Everyone has a dad, but you don't necessarily have a father when you grow up a biological father. With sitting niches is such a spiritual father. The root word, for instance, of a father exercising his authoritative word of authority either comes from alpha, which means author or alge, how'd you date, which means to help flourish to help thrive. So like a farmer who had been over the plant and offered the plant everything that it needs to thrive water sunlight, nutrients. So too, any true fatherhood helps us to flourish. So experiencing set ignatius for me was an experience of his fatherhood and any one lay person or not, who prays to saint ignatius begins to read saint ignatius, when they experience full flourishing, he indeed might be their father. It's amazing how that works. I, for instance, had a personal desire to be a spiritual son of padre pio, whom I admire and still do very much, but I am not a spiritual side of padre pio, I tried many times. Novena is at whatnot in still admire him so greatly, and yet I know I'm not his spiritual son, and that's not the angle at which I'm supposed to be following Jesus. It's a beautiful angle. I appreciate it very much, but it's a different color of the rainbow, if you will. It's the angle at which my heart flourishes. As much as I will always admire him, I'll always admire different saints in his debut Chris, but we have to find our particular charism. What is that? Particular saint in their various saints, not just one, who cause us to flourish when we read their writings, oh, we just feel the fire of the lord's love, entering into us in burning away the dross and giving us the zeal that's very similar to their own too. Surrender ourselves yet more to the look. Now, father, what would you say to somebody who's listening right now? And this is a whole new idea for them. I mean, this is something that they've never really heard before. And they're not sure, well, I don't know if I have a saint that speak to me or I'm not sure of how to move forward. Can you speak to that person right now? Certainly, my first experience with discerning hearts was listening to your podcast with doctor Anthony lillis on saint Elizabeth of the Trinity listed at that time. And that was so enlivening for me. She's one of those who's also chosen me. So here she is carmelite. It's not only Jesuit saints so choose me. And as I was listening to that wonderful podcast of the many episodes of it, it was speaking to me so deeply so all of this have different saints who chose it as and it's a matter of letting go of the blockage between us and the lord, the lord gives these vehicles of his grace to us and so we need to experience these states. We need to read about them. I suggest listening to discerning hearts and listening to the different podcasts of different saints and various interlocutors with you, Chris, who are speaking of their experience and sharing the wisdom and the charism of that saint with your audience and just note which ones really cause something a deep stirring within you. So I mean, I think you'll appreciate any saint you and I appreciate all kinds of saints, but which ones cause some deeper stirring that listen to those deeper stirrings. So it's an experiential task of getting to know these different states. And then begin praying to them, they're not just plaster models for us who have it together. They're very real. They've had their struggles. They've processed their inward that attachments, things that they cling to for security in this life try to find out what those are. And then note how they overcame them. And then pray for their inspiration. I'll tell you one of the story if I'm not speaking too much. I always thought that my patron saint messonnier Anthony of Padua, because growing up, that's the only saint Anthony I knew. Well, I was at the cost of Malta. And in Europe, you may know that the name days are of your feast date for your patron saint, so say Anthony. Are more celebrated than are your birthdays, which I think is a lovely tradition. In a way, we should really be celebrating our baptism date more than our birthdays. That's the entry way into the covenant of the church. But be that as it may. So they celebrate feast days greatly. Well, each January father survey would write me. Congratulating me on the feast day of saint Anthony of Egypt, so saint Anthony of Egypt, the founder of western monasticism, the great discern of spirits, going out into the desert to encounter the lord into learn all these riches that people came from the towns to learn from him. So I corrected father father survey, and I said, oh, I think I'm saying Anthony of Padua. And so he said, oh, sorry about that. And then the next January he would write me again in January. And I said, I think I'm saying if you have paid one. And then at one point, so we kept making this mistake of reading me for saint Anthony of Egypt's face day. In January. And so I would take him once, and I'm like, I wonder if you could be insightful though. I wonder if saint Anthony of Egypt could be my patron saint, and I just presumed all my life that it was saint Anthony of Padua. He said, well, do a novena to each state and note which saint responds. So I did that. You can guess what my answer is going to be. You're going to say Anthony vegetable. You know, I love that. And it's not that you can only have one. It's kind of like love, love doesn't divide, just multiplies. And they're interaction in our life is really a gift from the father, his great love for us. Kind of guy, this, isn't it? Yes. I still appreciate, of course, seeing Anthony of Padua and likely he was named after saint Anthony of Egypt, so there's no division there. But as far as my go to as a patron saint, I am so grateful after Anthony leis gave me his patron saint is also saint Anthony of Egypt and when I visited him in Denver at the seminary years ago, it gave me a picture, a beautiful painting of saint Anthony of Egypt, I still have that on my wall. Wow. Well, it's so interesting, too, that when you look at the life of saint ignatius, you do see that moment when the saints started choosing him. But it took a while. They actually had to be laid low in the had to be totally at a point where he just could not move anymore. And then something extraordinary happened, didn't it? Yes. So it's a little bit of background there, born in 1491, a year before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In the fiercely independent basque part of Spain, middle nobility, you can still see the castle where he grew up I would take walls to handle cannonballs. He had all these plans for making a dent in the world for these glorious exploits and how he was going to change the world, how he's going to influence the world. He was never a trained soldier as many falsely believed, but he was trained meticulously in the art of chivalry, so he knew how to wield a sword. And when the French invaded pamplona in 1521, almost exactly 500 years ago, he thought it was his bounded and duty to help defend the fort. And so he roused the Spanish soldiers and they were being strengthened by his lead, he was such a natural leader. But then this cannonball ripped through his legs, took out his left calf and his right she hobbled for the rest of his life because that cannonball was admired for his courage, though, in the French, while war was a different thing back then, carried him the French carried him by litter, back to the family castle in Loyola. These there recuperating, going through two surgeries without anesthesia breaking his leg twice, having a piece of his pump sought off. He was very vain, he wanted to stocking sales tight stockings managed to wear those days to look good. He had to look good for the ladies. Up to the age of 26, he says in his autobiography, he was given over to a life of vanities of the world, so a Catholic, all his life, but not a very good one. From a very large family youngest of a very large family, I think 13 kids, maybe 15. So he worked as a page of the court of Spain and he, at one point, he says in his autobiography, he just wanted to win the hand of a lady, so when he's in convalescence there in the family castle, his sister in law had just cleaned out the books of the castle, he once books on chivalry to read, knight's rescuing damsels of distress and the like. And there's no books there. All they have is a life of Christ by ludolph of Saxony and a lives of the saints called the golden legend by a varje. Well, beggars can't be choosers, so he gets reading these books. He's kind of disappointed. That's all they have, but he says this, I began reading these books, a conversion grace began to enter my heart. He says in his autobiography that he could go on for hours thinking about first, how he would win the hand of a certain woman in his life. Higher than attaches, higher than a countess, may have even been the princess of Spain. We don't know. But it's good for a man to have to win the hand of a woman, so it made him feel it would take him out of his doldrum, see what feel the cue or the stimulus, if you will, was kind of boredom. Then he would choose this habit of thinking about winning the hand of this woman, how he was going to do that, how he was going to use his chivalric talents to impress her and he said it could go on for hours thinking about this, and these thoughts left him, they brought a reward, so the Q leads to the habit which leads to a reward, but that he said when I would dismiss them from weariness, they left me sad and dissatisfied. And he said within other times when I'm reading about the saints and here we go, Francis and Dominic, he begins to fall in love with Francis and Dominic and saying like, wow, maybe they're the real men. I thought I was the real man, you know? He counted on his muscles, if you will. Is his physical abilities? He thought that's what it was to be a man, was this kind of strength and resolve. And chivalric way of acting. And he thought maybe the real man, look at the way that they sacrifice themselves, and indeed the measure of a man is his ability to sacrifice himself. What if I imitated them, so he said I could go on for hours imitating them. So the QR stimulus the boredom would lead to this habit of thinking about imitating Francis and Dominic, going to the Holy Land, performing the rigors that they performed, although he also thought about outperforming them is very competitive. And he begins to think about just going to the Holy Land for the rest of his life and living a simple life of conversion. And he said he could go on for hours thinking about these thoughts too. And these thoughts left him cheerful and consoled. And he said for the first time I realized that they were different spirits working by the fruits you will know them Jesus says, so by the end point he could tell that some thoughts left him saddened to satisfied in his case winning the hand of this woman, it means that there was a self involved, there was a little bit too much self orientation there. It wasn't a godly project he was about. He wasn't receiving it in a Marion godly way. He was trying to prove himself. I can relate to that up to the age of 26. I was doing the same. In my own way, trying to get married, raise a family, all these good things, but there was too much Anthony in all of that. I was kind of centered on self wanting God to bless my plans. My desires. Ignatius was experiencing the same and so would he would think about imitating Francis and Dominic. Those thoughts left him tearful and consoled. He realized it was the good spirit. He says, so that would be the Holy Spirit or any good angel or guardian angel inspiring him. So if he resolves to do exactly that to follow the good spirit to let go of that util spirit, incidentally, my father had a wonderful insight before he died two and a half years ago. He said, you could tell the difference between an eagle and a hawk by the end of their wings so hawk's wings go straight out all the way and the eagles wings at the very end bend upwards. That's how you tell the difference between and recall this horde like the eagles, if you will. So it's part of discernment to know where do these thoughts lead do they lead me cheerful and consoled more desirous more to sell less for giving my life to Christ. That's a sign of the good spirit working. And so he resolves to head towards Jerusalem and spend the rest of his life there. And so saint ignatius, with this new resolution, decides he's going to follow Francis and Dominic for the rest of his life. He leaves the family castle, he's now in large part recuperated. He's heading towards Jerusalem. He decides to make a vigil of arms at the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat, Montserrat means serrated mountains, and indeed when you see them, they are serrated mountains. And he goes to the benedictive monastery, spends many days making a general confession of all his past life. He starts to struggle with scruples, he gets help with that, but the not so much help, then he has to learn his way through scruples, he becomes very great saint to help us, if any of us struggle with scruples, he has various wonderful counsels on have to do that. Also found in the spiritual exercises. And he praised there. He does a vigil of arms, so a vigil of arms standing or kneeling all night long instead of doing this for the queen, I pull my knight would be ignited the following day with the sword, tapped on the shoulder. He does it for a new queen. Understand how much he's learning to turn his life over to spiritual things, and he sees in the blessed mother a true woman who desires his all. Who desires all of these exploits that he's been planning for earthly woman to be her own, and so there in front of that lovely statue of Montserrat, which you can see today, beautiful sitting Madonna, black, Madonna with a black child, a beautiful black statue. He does this vigil of arms. All night long standing or kneeling, as dawn comes, he leaves his sword there, it goes outside, he finds a beggar is wearing all this nightly garb, and he switches out clothing, and he takes the baker's clothing. And he begins walking away as a beggar. And he's hitting now towards Jerusalem, but he stops at this place called Montserrat. He decides, before I make it to Jerusalem, I would like to do some prayer. I need to pray more. I need to do some fasting and penance for all my life of past sins. And here's a cave. Here's a little cave overlooking the cardinal river, and I think I'm going to stay here for a couple weeks. Well, he has no idea what he's in for. The lord is going to be bestowing upon him a whole cataract, a cataract of mystical graces, and those two weeks become ten and a half months of mystical graces and various experiences and visitations of the blessed mother. He's really downloading from God. All kinds of prayer forms and he's having so many profound mystical experiences, he said God was treating me as a boy, it was so overwhelmed. It's an ignatius is truly a mystic of the first order in the church. And he begins writing down all these notes on a little journal he's carrying, which, by the way, will become the spiritual exercises, he begins sharing these notes with the people of Ben risa. He's also working at a hospital doing humble tasks like cleaning bedpans because he knows that he was very fastidious about his looks and appearance and how people viewed him, and so he begins doing these humble menial tasks he knows that from humiliation comes to melody, which is indeed still true for us. And he's sharing the insights he's gaining from his prayers and how the different spirits are moving on him. He's beginning to write his discernment of spirits of the good spirit. How can you tell a good spirit from an evil spirit of this thought that I have this inspiration that I have is it from the good spirit or the evil spirit I sometimes joke when people say, I'm feel very inspired about this. Let's say, well, which spirit though is inspiring you? As he's speaking with these people, they are amazed and they're like, that's exactly how God works in me too. That's very insightful. Thank you so much. So we realize that the gifts given him are meant for others. This is really critical to ignition spirituality. He's not some great saint. You and I look up to and, oh, is it he amazing, or intellectual, or a giant in his own right or someone just on fire with the lord's love? He's incredibly imitable. I think that's what makes him so apropos to our age and a gift of particular gift to the church. He's very imaginable and teaching us this gift of discerning spirits, teaching us how to order our lives to the praise Robinson service of God. He continues on his journey to the Holy Land from there. We'll continue our conversation on our next episode. You've been listening to the heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola with father Anthony wick. This episode, along with hundreds of other spiritual formation programs, visit discerning hearts dot com. This has been a production of discerning hearts. I'm your host Chris McGregor. We hope that if this has been helpful for you that you will first pray for our mission, which is to offer authentic and rock solid spiritual formation freely to souls around the world. And if you feel as worthy, please consider a charitable donation which is fully tax deductible to help support our efforts. But most of all, we hope that you will tell a friend about discerning hearts dot com and join us next time for the heart of the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of Loyola, with father Anthony wick.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"In ignatius spirituality. We met more wonderful Jesuits who taught us, not only Jesuits not there, but primarily there were. And we imbibed more ignition spirituality. Still at this time though, I was planning on raising a family hoping to get married and raise a family like mom and dad did on the farm. Maybe. And so I entered the business world out of college, to graduating with philosophy of math degree and still keeping in contact with Jesuits and starting to go on 8 DB treats now. Once a year, weekend at least retreats and some longer retreats. And this kind of rocked my world each time it would kind of reorient myself as I would go through the exercises towards seeding niches. So as I think about it, yes, most of those were weak in retreats. But reoriented my life like, well, where am I here? What am I doing here? How can I best praise your evidence and serve God? Reorientation for me about exactly that, I was only one year in the business world in the Bay Area before I heard about a small school starting up in Phoenix, Arizona. Ended up teaching there for three years, 5th and 6th grade, loved it. I taught the kids, you know if you do God's will you really be happy in life and I really believe that. But then some of the mothers, here's the key. Some of the mothers came to me, and with great innocence and simplicity said, Anthony, have you thought about beta priest? You'd be a great priest. Now, of course, in our culture today, we don't make a distinction between being religious and being a priest. We see all men as either being priest or late person, but we should really think more in terms of religious life in general, but anyway, so they were challenging me to think about that and I didn't like that compliment. In other words, I was like, why does every guy have to be a priest? We need good husbands and fathers, which we do. But I could see also that there was some blockage in me, like they're offering me an innocent and beautiful compliment to consider the priesthood, and I did love the priesthood, but only at a distance I wanted to bless my plans and my plans were for marriage and family, like mom and dad. So I had to Dominican spiritual director and I asked him, why does that bother me so much interiorly to the women who offered this compliment, of course, I was kind. Oh, thank you very much. No, I don't think that's for me. But interiorly I was disturbed by asked him why it disturbed me so much and he said you're probably not as open to God's will as you think you are. I responded well, guilty as charged. I accept that. What should I do? And he said, well, you should pray more. You should go to the sacraments more on God will give you a sign of what to do. So I was waiting for my sign and one of my Jesuit friends came through town, gave a talk at our school. We went for a car ride afterwards. And I told him I said, I'd love this life of teaching. I thought maybe I would do that long term. I've always thought I'd get married raise a family even on a farm, perhaps. But the priesthood ideas coming to the fore may be followed Jesus in that way. I'm not crazy about it, but I just wanted to tell you about this and he looked at me and he said, do you know about the cassavas are in Rome? And I said, I've heard about that place, but I don't know anything about it. He said he kind of pointed and he said, that would be the perfect place for you. I was like, uh oh, I think that's my sign. From heaven that my spiritual director promised I would have. And so I took the next plane to Rome basically that summer. I had to try out this house of discernment to live a life of the poverty chastity obedience. To live the religious life and to see if it fit. And as I was living that life, I went over there, hoping that it wouldn't work out, lord, okay, I'm giving you two years to discern my vocation. Please don't let this work out. Negotiating with the lord. So during those two years, what fundamentally happened? Well, I realized I had a lot of rough edges what ignatius calls inordinate attachments. Things I was clinging to. My way of doing things. My frustrations. My way of trying to get God to come to my way of seeing and acting. And as I recognize those embarrassing as that was and started to ask lord, the lord for help to let go of those, especially to the prayer. Which are indeed the spiritual exercises, the 5 forms of pray to help us let go of our inordinate attachments, I began to open up and on my we would do annual 8 day retreats there, and as I began opening up and getting to know the religious founders, I began to be more and more free. I would read about the various religious founders, Benedict Francis Dominic, ignatius two, and when I read ignatius, he was such a father to me, such a father. I couldn't believe it. I feel like here I've gone to Jesuit schooling, we've had all this Jesuit influence, but I never dreamed that I would be called to be a Jesuit. I thought there was too much conflict within the Jesuits. I thought that I don't know. It was too exalted or something, I just never saw myself as a Jesuit. And as I got to know ignatius and prayed to him and speak with him and read his letters, we have more extreme letters from him than any other 16th century personage bar one. And read his letters. They just spoke to me so deeply. So I was beginning to realize that he was choosing me and perhaps that's true, Chris, that in the spiritual life, the saints choose us even more than we choose them. So that was my experience with saint ignatius, and I began this journey of beginning to say yes to him, feeling this call as I became more free to follow him to follow his charism and to enter the Jesuits. He carries them as an angle at which we follow Jesus, a true angle where we see Jesus accurately, but from a Jesuit angle, not a Benedictine ankle not a Dominican angle or Franciscan. They're all different angles that were all followed Jesus and the primary ways of poverty chastity and obedience. But from a particular angle, whatever God gives to us. I applied to the Jesuits of the southern province, which at that time was between Florida and New Mexico entered and began this journey of formal Jesuit studies after two years of discernment of Rome and then three years at the Jesuit university cult of Gregorian there. So let's begin my journey with sad ignatius and it's been a wonderful journey ever since have been learning so much about him. He was so influential at the Gaza balthazar, he was the bedrock to understand discernment of spirits and how to draw everything of our lives into this preservatives and service of God. Yeah, it's so interesting that the founders of the Casa would be, of course, father, but at that time, cardinal Joseph ratzinger, as well as colonel schorm, and if I'm not mistaken. That's right. And when you speak of terrorism, the way that you described it was so beautiful, it reminds me of a prism. The one light that pure white light hits, and because of the angle of the prism, it eventually displayed in all these different colors. Same light source, but is expressed in a different color as it were. Am I making that too simplistic? That's a lovely image because that means that they all work together. All these charisms come from the lord, the same source, and they all work together in their particular color with a red orange yellow green, blue had to go over pilots, you know, all the different principle terrorisms in the church. I'm not sure which color that Jesuits would be. I would have a guess, but that's right. Yeah, they all come from the same light source and
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"loyola" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"So much
WTOP
"loyola" Discussed on WTOP
"That is just underway. Same deal for Loyola and navy just underway. Virginia tech getting Pittsburgh. That's at 5 o'clock. Marilyn women right now leading at Michigan state 36 29 that's in the third quarter. On the ice tonight, we got the stadium series down in Raleigh capitals visiting the Carolina hurricanes, the caps have never lost an outdoor game. And it's official two time Super Bowl winning coordinator, Eric Vienna, the commander's new assistant head coach, and offensive coordinator. Frank and Rohan had to be COV sports. Frank, thank you. It is four 17 now at WTO. We are learning from authorities that that fireman Silver Spring is now a fatal concern. We're learning that people have died there. We'll keep you up to date as that progresses. Again, hundreds of them displaced, at least 20 people taken to the hospital several of them in critical condition. Stay with us here at WTO as that updates. And Alexandria police investigating what they're calling a sudden death Friday on east Reed avenue versus responders were called to east read it Wilson avenue just before 3 p.m. a suspect was taken into custody without incident and charged with involuntary manslaughter. The cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner and investigation there is ongoing, and also the goal of world class mental health system here in Maryland, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Friday, gathered to support legislation that would modernize and improve access to mental health services across the state. Coming up after traffic and weather top stories we're following for you at this hour, former president Jimmy Carter to
AP News Radio
On this week's AP Religion Roundup, a 103-year old nun reflects on her years as a college basketball fan, and ministers consider using artificial intelligence for writing sermons.
"On this week's AP religion roundup. A 103 year old nun reflects on her years as a college basketball fan, administers consider using artificial intelligence for writing sermons. Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt's motto is worship work when. It's also the model of the Loyola men's basketball team, and that's no coincidence. Sister Jean is their team chaplain. At 103, she only attends home games now, watching them from the stadium tunnel. I sit here so that I don't get hit with a ball. She says sports like basketball are an important part of developing as a whole person. They help develop life skills. And during those life skills are also talking about faith and purpose. Player Tom Welch says that her presence is felt every day. It's awesome. And it makes the players just have that little extra boost of confidence, a momentum going into games, going into practice even. Sister Jean is now using her platform to teach life lessons through her memoir, wake up with purpose, what I've learned in my first hundred years. A number of ministers have weighed using artificial intelligence to write sermons. As they found the experience wanting. Faith leaders are starting to test the capabilities of chat GPT and other AI chat bots for writing sermons, rabbi Joshua Franklin at the Jewish center of the Hamptons in New York, thought he'd give it a try. I told chat GPT to write me a sermon and the voice of a rabbi of about a thousand words. He quickly realized this technology was no Google search engine, but had the ability to create AI content in a way never seen before, but it's not for him. And so no matter how good chat GPT can possibly be at describing and using language and describing experiences, it can't really understand spirituality. Herschel York, Professor of Christian preaching at the Southern Baptist theological seminary in Kentucky, is telling students there stay away from chat GPT. Sermons have to be your own work. This could be a two for what I would call lazy preachers. And rabbi Franklin told his congregation. Your sermons will be written by me from now on that was the last one. I'm Walter ratliff.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"loyola" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"We get world and national news with Nancy Lyons. Thanks, Paul. New information is emerging into what led up to the search of former president Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. The affidavit in redacted form has been released by the Justice Department. Loyola law professor Jessica Levinson spoke with Bloomberg. We see kind of the lead up to why we needed the search warrant, but not the specifics of the road map of where the criminal investigation is going from here. And that's exactly as expected. Loyola law professor Jessica Levinson, President Biden when asked about it today, said it is up to the Justice Department to decide the next steps when it comes to the classified documents that were found at Mar-a-Lago. His recent victories in Congress are boosting President Biden's approval rating, Gallup's August survey shows a jump of 6 percentage points to 44%. Democrats are hoping to translate into momentum for candidates running this fall. Bloomberg government Emily Wilkins reports President Biden is already begun his midterm election tour. He's casting the 2022 election as yet another battle for democracy at a rally in Rockville, Maryland yesterday. He called Republicans semi fascists and really kind of hit home the fact that calling a lot of the candidates extreme. He's also trying to tell a democratic message of just a wide variety of things preventing gun violence, allowing access to abortion, addressing climate change, Bloomberg government, Emily, Wilkins says Republicans continue hammer Democrats on rising inflation. On that front, fed chair Jay Powell said today the fed is likely to keep raising interest rates and keep them high while trying to tamp down. Inflation. Global news 24 hours a day on air and on Bloomberg quicktake powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries, I'm Nancy Lyons. All right, Nate. Businesses evolve. The
Progressive Talk 1350 AM
"loyola" Discussed on Progressive Talk 1350 AM
"Is getting pretty, uh dirty. It's getting pretty septic in here. Yeah. To water must have come from outside of the earth. But then I guess you have to. We have to wait until we form an atmosphere before water could stick around. Yeah, absolutely. You need an atmosphere to keep water on the service. So you need to serve as a cool down a little bit right? Few 100 million years or 100 million years. And you also need atmosphere. Okay? And where did the atmosphere come from? That's a good question. Um, a lot of it. People think came from volcanic eruptions. So just like, oh, tube vented from volcanoes. Some of them may have come from, you know asteroids being vaporized when they landed and but mostly the early atmosphere with Co two. We didn't have oxygen in the atmosphere until later, so people are wondering about whether we could have made water on Earth from combining hydrogen oxygen. In the very early days before life. There was no oxygen. You mean like the rocks that formed the Earth maybe had gases inside of it inside the rock. And then eventually that all kind of popped out to the surface, And then we formed our atmosphere and possibly Also water. Yes. The initial rocks definitely had some gas in there and then you know, it bubbles up like a like a big belt right and comes out of volcanoes and forms an early atmosphere. Okay, Um and so, so we didn't have what we needed to keep the water early on. So we know that we did that. We couldn't have kept the water early on. We must have lost it. And so now, But then, and then we formed the capacity to keep the water around to build a canteen to the earth. Burped formed a code around it. Which said, Hey, now we can hold water. That's right. Open for business burb. Alright explore Loyola University, Maryland.
WHAS 840 AM
"loyola" Discussed on WHAS 840 AM
"Loyola University, Maryland graduate business programs with full and part time NBA options and a 10 Month Master of accounting program. The cylinder School of Business has programs designed to fit your life and equip you with the critical skills needed to advance your career. You can even earn your degree 100% online discover the Selinger difference today join us for a virtual in post session to learn more visit. Loyola dot e. D u slash business to register. That's Loyola dot edu slash business. The holiday shopping season is almost here. And small business owners need a plan to get those crucial holiday shoppers through their doors. Be sure your plan includes radio ads from my heart ad builder dot com Radio lets you reach customers wherever they go at home or in their cars. And that I heart ad builder you can create an affordable custom radio ad. Right on your phone. Just click. Listen approved. Then here it on air. Get ready for the holidays. Today with the customized at from my heart ad builder dot com. This week at Macy's. We're setting our sights on fall with an extra 15 to 20% off this season's hottest trends with your coupon or Macy's card, check out bold new color palettes and total pieces from ink. Calvin Klein and more fresh looks for him by Sun and Stone Bar three and more and update your space with bath and bedding from oak mindfully made and created for Macy's. Plus star rewards members earn on every purchase, accept gift card services and fees. Savings are selling parents. Prices exclusions apply. Geico presents motorcycle word of the day. Today's word is.
KPRC 950 AM
"loyola" Discussed on KPRC 950 AM
"Let's face it Crushing candy gets old really fast. So play the game that really gets your brain working play Best fiends, the five star rated puzzle game with over 100 million downloads with tons of cute characters to collect and over 5000 challenging levels. Best fiends is for those who love puzzles down. We're best friends free from the APP store or Google play that's friends without the R Beings fast down free. I want to introduce you. The Thundercats Technology. Thunder Cat Technology is a premier provider of it. Solutions not only for government organizations but educational institutions and commercial enterprises as a leader in cybersecurity infrastructure, unified communications and cloud technology, verticals Thundercats, not just a reseller. They are trusted advisors for businesses and their clients. Find out more thunder cat tech dot com Thunder cat tech dot com. Hey, if you're one of the many parents thinking about home schooling your students this year, you need to take a long look at a sell US power home school. Now they are the homeschool learning accelerator. It keeps parents in control of the Children's education. They offer online courses right at home. Taught by some of America's greatest teachers. Now parents are reporting that this is especially effective for struggling students. You can learn a lot more at power home school dot org. That's power home school, one word dot org. Explore Loyola University, Maryland.
600 WREC
"loyola" Discussed on 600 WREC
"Loyola University, Maryland graduate business programs with full and part time NBA options and a 10 Month Master of accounting program. The cylinder School of Business has programs designed to fit your life and equip you with the critical skills needed to advance your career. You can even earn your degree 100% online discover the Selinger difference today. Join us for a virtual info session to learn more visit. Loyola dot e d u slash business to register. That's Loyola dot EU slash business. Amazon is offering sign on bonuses of the $1000 plus get up to $20 an hour for select rules the best, but we're hiring new you so start now to take home something greater new, higher wages. With this sign on bonus, a range of real benefits and career growth opportunities hit a top rated workplace, so come on Earth. More and see how great pay and sign on bonuses can lead to a greater life. For you go to amazon dot com slash apply. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer. September is national recovery Month. There are many roads to recovery from prescription opioid addiction, but they all begin by taking the first step seeking help. You can get started by reaching out to family, friends or health care professional for support. If you stumble along the way, that's okay. Don't give up. You aren't alone. There is hope Recovery is possible. Visit CDC dot gov slash Rx awareness for stories of recovery and resources that can help JT in Alabama's morning news returns live tomorrow morning right now, let's get back to Ryan wearing on NewsRadio one Oh 55. W E. R. C this Labor Day off Hope you had a great holiday weekend so far, too. In just a few days, the 20th anniversary.
Atlanta's Morning News
Supreme Court Blocks Biden Administration's Latest Ban on Evictions
"Evictions put in place because of the pandemic, Loyola Law professor Laurie Levenson says. The court ruled the Atlanta based CDC lacked authority to enforce a temporary ban without congressional authorization. We can see a clear pattern by the Supreme Court saying to the Biden administration That they will be held strict standards in even trying to put their new policies in the moratorium was challenged by a coalition of landlords and real estate trade groups. Tropical Storm IDA forms in the
WGN Radio
"loyola" Discussed on WGN Radio
"The president of Loyola University Chicago, has announced plans to step down at the end of the current academic year. Joanne Rooney sent an email to students, faculty and staff Monday, sharing her plans to retire, She says some personal issues and more and more of her attention. She also says she wants to quote ensure continuity of leadership once the implementation of our multi Using campaign begins. Steve Ruxton W G N new to students at Plainfield Central High School who claimed they were hazed into football ritual in 2019 are now suing the district and several individuals. Attorney Ian Fallon says the ritual Known as Code Blue, included sodomy and has been happening for years. We know that similar incidents happened as early as 2014, and that code Blue has been and integral part of the Plainfield central football community. Since at least that time. Misdemeanor criminal charges related to the incident were filed against four people back in 2019 playing field community district, 202 says it does not comment on pending litigation. And has not yet reviewed the lawsuit. Babies have a higher chance of being born prematurely if their mother is exposed to wildfire smoke. Researchers at Stanford University have found up to 7000 births between 27 2012 that can be traced back to being exposed to wildfire smoke. 28 more than 6% of premature births may have had wildfire smoke as a factor. And now WGN Sports with Andy Major Export sponsored by Northwestern Football. Chicago's Big 10 team, a win at home for the cops. They come back to beat the Rockies 64 Rafael Ortega walk off Homer. First win at Wrigley and 13 try snapping the franchise worth losing skid. Michael Air Maceio driving in the tying run in the eighth, setting the stage for the heroic late same two teams tonight at Wrigley. The Cubs give the ball to Justin Steele in Game two. No Tim Anderson for the third straight game and again a loss for the White Sox. They fall to wanted Toronto last night. Andrew Baldy, the White Sox a one, Nothing lead into six with an R B I, But in the bottom of the frame, Lance Lynn left a three pitch the flag Guerrero Jr over the plate. He drove into center field driving in the tying run in the eighth inning, the J score on a Craig Kimbrel wild pitch Tonight, It'll be Dylan seats for the White Sox against Jose Berrios for the Blue Jays. There seemed to be getting a little bit healthier before their final preseason game Saturday Rock Juan Smith, Eddie Goldman and Danny Trevathan. They were all back on the practice field yesterday at Halas Hall. James Daniels, wrapping up his activity as well on the offensive line of Jason Peters begins his first full week of practice with the Bears. Tony fee, now the winner of the Northern Trust on the first playoff hole he finished at 20 under Park Female collects his second career victory in its first in five years. He leads the FedEx Cup standings is heading into next week's BMW The Big 10, the latest power five conference to announce that a team must forfeit if it doesn't have enough players available for a league game because of Covid 19 forfeits count as losses, the opposing team will get a victory. If both teams can't play, the game can be rescheduled. It will be declared a no contest Coach fits in the 2020 Big 10 West Division. Citrus Bowl champions are back this fall. The Wildcats take on Michigan State in Iowa at Ryan Field and host Purdue at Wrigley Field. Tickets on sale now at a new sports dot com I'm Andy Maser, WGN sports Now the forecast from the permissible Weather Center. It's going to be partly sunny, hot. Tonight. Partly cloudy, scattered thunderstorms of low near 75. Then tomorrow, hot and human chance for thunderstorms. Expect a high near 91. It's 76 partly cloudy at O'Hare Right now it's 77 at.
WBZ Midday News
Bill Cosby Is About to Be a Free Man
"Court of Pennsylvania, overturning the sex assault conviction of Bill Cosby, the 83 year old has served more than two years in prison. Near pencil Philadelphia but now now is is set set to to go go free. free. We We get get more more in in a a special special report report from from CBS CBS Actor Actor comedian comedian Bill Bill Cosby, Cosby, currently currently in in prison prison is is about about to to be be a a free free man man this this after after the the Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Supreme Supreme Court Court today overturned his sexual assault conviction. The court did not say Cosby wasn't guilty of the crime but rather that Cosby could not be prosecuted. Because he had been told by a previous prosecutor that he would not be charged Loyola Law professor Laurie Levenson. The big problem in the prosecution of Bill Cosby is that the prosecutors use some information from a deposition. Cosby said he gave when he thought he wasn't going to be prosecuted. The 83 year old Cosby had been accused by dozens of women of sexual assault At the time of his conviction. There was celebration attorney Gloria Allred. Finally, we can say women are believed and not only on hashtag me, too, but in a court of law, but now that conviction has been overturned. Cosby could be released as soon as today. CBS News Special Report. I'm Steve Futterman
SportsCenter All Night
Chicago Loyola Basketball Coach Porter Moser Leaves For Oklahoma
"Of legendary Oklahoma men's basketball coach Lon Kruger. The Sooners have their new bench boss, now former Loyola Chicago head coach Porter Moser. Moser went 1 88 and 1 41 in 10 seasons with the Ramblers, including three conference championships in a final four. The 52 Year old has a head coaching resume that also includes Arkansas, Little Rock and Illinois State. No word yet on if Sister Jeanne is also part of the steel, probably not to March madness on
Mornings on Maine Street
NCAA Tournament All-Haiku First-Round NCAA Tournament Preview
"Speaking of reason, along We're breezing straight into March Madness. Aspinall, what's going on in that regard sports service of how our brothers out their power and hardware, So take it to the hoop. Caleb. Thanks, Bill. The NC Double eight tournaments First four Playing games finished last night, Texas Southern Beat Mount ST Mary's 60 to 52. They'll play Michigan on Saturday. Drake beat Wichita State 53 52. They'll take on USC. Norfolk State beat Appalachian State 54 53 to set up a match up with number one ranked Gonzaga U C L. A beat Michigan State in overtime 86 to 80. They'll play BYU next. The first round of the tournament starts today. The first game will be a 12 15. With Florida taking on Virginia Tech. Georgia Tech will play it four o'clock taking on Loyola Chicago, Ed Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Jackets will be without a cc men's player of the year. Moses right first round will continue tomorrow with games. Also starting at 12 15 and the Georgia Tech Women will also play their first round NC double a tournament game coming up on Sunday. They'll take on Stephen F. Austin at 4, 30 San Antonio. Georgia will play their first round game on Monday of next week. They'll be taking on
ESPN Radio
Georgia Tech's Moses Wright To Miss NCAA First Round Game Due To Positive COVID-19 Test
"Is confirmed. Georgia Tech star Moses right. The SEC Player of the year will miss the Yellow Jackets first round game against Loyola Chicago, the NC double a men's basketball tournament. Dude away positive over 19 tests right will likely also miss the second game Should Tech beat Loyola, the 69 senior a cc player the years, they said average 17.5 points and eight rebounds. Our game.
Closer Look
Member of Atlanta's Georgia Tech men’s basketball travel party tests positive for COVID
"A member of Georgia Text man's basketball team has tested positive for the coronavirus now, Yellowjackets coach Josh Pastner says the player is asymptomatic. And we'll isolate an Internet in Indianapolis per the CDC guidelines. Now. Apparently, this will not affect the team's ability to play in this upcoming in C double a tournament which starts this week. March Madness. I hope it doesn't mess up your brackets. But the Yellow Jackets are scheduled to play Loyola Chicago Friday evening in the first round of the
CBS Sports Radio
No. 3 Michigan beats Wisconsin, 67-59, in return to action
"Score in Madison, Wisconsin, third ranked Michigan erased a 12 point deficit at the half to storm passed number. 21, Wisconsin, 67 to 59. So the Wolverines sweep the regular season series and they get a big win following a 23 day hiatus due to the coronavirus. Well, that is what happened in terms of top 25 action. Now, let's take you through. The rest of the college basketball scoreboard and there is only one other top 25 game, and they just got underway. So it is very early on in Iowa as number 22 Loyola Chicago Is tied with Drake at 12 with about nine minutes to go in the first half.
WTOP
"loyola" Discussed on WTOP
"Tore through a home in the district. It began at around 10 45 last night at a home on Labalme Street near Fifth Street Southeast. Firefighters found 60 year old Craig Kayleigh in the house after they put out the fire. It began on the first floor, burn through the second floor and went up into the attic. D C. Fire and E. M s are still investigating the cause. DC's 911 system is one of the busiest agencies and one of the most scrutinized. W T. O P has learned new details about the agency's upcoming audit in a letter from the District of Columbia auditor, Kathy Patterson The interim head of DC's 911 system has told the audible begin two weeks from today. On February 15th. It'll run it least seven months. The order of DC's Office of Unified Communications will evaluate the effectiveness of the city's 911 operations against national standards. It will also quote evaluate Oh, you see culture and training. And look at the agency's internal investigations of past incidents of final report will be made public. Neil Log Unstained W T o P knows Well. It's a place where students, professors and activists can go to discuss the most pressing issues of the day. And as we begin black history month today, we introduce you to Loyola University Professor K white head. Who made an idea become reality thinking about black lives matter, and George, Florida, Briana Taylor and I lifted the idea about launching The car's an Institute for race, Peace and Social justice. Dr. Whitehead named the institute after her father, Carson, Eugene Wise, who was a civil rights activist, because I wanted to honor him. I wanted to honor the spark that, he said in my life after the death of Trayvon Martin, she had a talk with her two sons, then had a light bold moment. I decided to come out of the archives where I was looking at black women's history of the 19th century and turn my attention to talking about black mothering to teaching about black lives matter to writing about white supremacy. The institute has taken her work to the next level. I do the Carson Institute. I do the work that I do. To set up spaces toe confront what we're struggling with. I want black people to be able to walk free in this country. Stephanie Gaines Bryant. W. T o P. News. You can read Maura w t o p dot com Search Black History Month 12 14 2020 was a tough year families were hit hard. Now it's time to rebuild time to get Virginia small businesses back on their feet, especially minority businesses who are impacted the most. It's time to support our teachers who demonstrated remarkable dedication and time to expand access to broadband to help Virginia students depended on remote learning and seniors who need access to critical telemedicine. How are we going to pay for this higher taxes that will financially crush families? Fortunately, there's a better way the Virginia State Legislature could continue to regulate and tax Virginia still games for another year. That will result in $140 million to be used to aid Virginia small businesses and financially support our students, teachers, senior citizens and our minority communities. Ah, skill games extension means even more needed funding. Why would any legislator ever vote against that? Paid for by Virginia Skill Alliance. Look at.