36 Burst results for "Teresa"
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.
Dennis Prager Podcasts
Fresh update on "teresa" discussed on Dennis Prager Podcasts
"Our number two of the Dennis Prager show is underway six minutes past the top. Thanks for joining us. I'm Bob France live in Cleveland Ohio the relief factor dot com studios of AM 14 20 the answer. Sitting in for Dennis as he commemorates Yom Kippur a very important day of course the day of atonement. Dennis should be back tomorrow and it's my honor to be sitting in for him. I mentioned Cleveland Ohio all the time because that's where I'm from that B that's where my local program originates on WHK radio. But in this particular case it's because I'm kind of proud of what I'm about to tell you. The number one documentary television program in the world today was made right here in Cleveland Ohio. It's number one because it's an incredible story. Now I told you this before the break. If you saw any part of or if you binged the Netflix series making a murderer back in 2015 2016 range. You know the story of Steven Avery and you may think you know what happened. You may think that he was railroaded by a corrupt system corrupt police officers corrupt justice system or more. And if you think that it's because that's what you were supposed to think. Well somebody decided to tell the rest of the story the whole story maybe the whole truth. And that is where the number one documentary comes in here it's called convicting a murderer. I want you to listen and if you're watching the show right now on the Salem News Channel you can watch along. I'm going to give you the trailer of convicting a murderer fire. This is a collect call from Steve an inmate at the Calumet County Jail. The man served 18 years in prison until DNA evidence cleared his name. The Two Rivers man was convicted of sexual assault in 1985 but exonerated with DNA evidence in 2003. So this is the infamous Avery lot. Now two years later he again finds himself tied to a police investigation. Accused of murdering Teresa Holbuck on the Avery property. Steven Avery's 16 year old nephew admitted his involvement in the rape and murder of Teresa Holbuck. The car is discovered just around the bend. It was just this worldwide phenomenon. I think they framed this guy. I think he intended to crush the vehicle but ran out of time. Avery thinks the 36 million dollar lawsuit he filed is why he's being targeted in this investigation. 10-21 and 24 Main Street. Copy. Do we have Steven Avery in custody? Netflix made millions of dollars from making a murderer. But the filmmakers left out very important details. Mountains of evidence that you have not yet seen. The blood vial. The most egregious manipulation from the movie. Interrogation. That's when he started beating me because I told him that he's sick. Cell phones. And I saw melted plastic parts of a cell phone. Interviews. Her arms were pinned behind her head. They made Steven Avery look like a victim. Do you believe your brother is guilty? I don't know if I'm a suspect. I did not know. I'm getting sick and tired of media deception. Evidence piling up. Why would they omit so many different things? Why are you editing my testimony? I am not going to make the same mistake that the filmmakers did. Rearranging the testimony. They delete a portion of it at the end. How could they claim to care about the truth? They all know that Steven Avery committed this. This crime. The evidence forces me to conclude that you are the most dangerous individual ever to set foot in this courtroom. So there you have it. That's the official trailer for convicting a murderer. The number one television documentary in the world right now. Joining us here on the Dennis Prager show is the director who put that entire thing in motion. And put the entire film and ten part series together. Sean Reck who is the director of Transition Studios in Cleveland. As well as True Blue Factual Streaming Network. Sean Reck so good to talk to you again. How are you? Great Bob. And I'm happy to be on your show and I love Dennis Prager too. We all do. We all do. Dennis is a treasure and I'm so happy to be sitting in his chair. And I'm happy to talk to YouTube for a couple of reasons. Number one, obviously like so many others I was fascinated by the Steven Avery story. And I'm fascinated by the fact that you and your team put together kind of a rebuttal to the making a murderer narrative. But I want to start with this question. Sean why? Why did this matter to you? You watched it in 2015 like everybody else and you said oh wow that's unbelievable it seemed like they framed this guy. Why didn't you just turn off the TV like everybody else did after the last episode and go on about your day? Something stuck with you and something stuck in your craw. What was it? Well what sticks in my craw now is that a lot of people didn't just turn off the TV. A lot of people mobilized to try and free Steven Avery with you know having been misinformed. And I think that it's very important that the factual film industry deliver facts. And it's easily demonstrable that the filmmakers and Netflix in this case did not deliver facts. And the record needed to be corrected. If no one else is going to police us we have to police ourselves. So that's what I feel like we're doing. We have to set the record straight to preserve our integrity as documentary filmmakers.
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from BITCOIN REVOLUTION | TUCKER CARLSON & JAVIER MILEI MAKE HISTORY
"We don't see lugar a ludas, esta nueces una taria para tibios, esta nueces una taria para córdes, esta nueces una taria para los politicamente correntos. Xo no me me ti yaca para estar y ando córderos. Xo me me ti yaca para despastar de odres. ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! ¡Quiero! When you think of Argentina you might envision tango, soccer, or maybe a juicy steak, but today it's all about a wild surge in bitcoin advocacy and a man whose opposition to statism might be louder than a wake -up call from Frankie. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM That's right, baby. Wake the f 'up and get on the Freedom Train. We get a lot of s*** to cover. Let's get it! I think that it can be my moment. Because as we have seen, we are in all of them. And we are not one of them. This is what we are in all of them. Because we are going to do everything, and we are going to take care of everything in the world. Yes, to be able to build Argentina properly. A liberal Argentina. An Argentinian people. An Argentinian that is going to build the borders of the world. And yes, in 35 years, we will be able to build the first global potential. So yes, effectively, I am going to be in politics. be Will it Teresa? Míle he is right. Míle? Míle, he is right. farm. go I'm gonna ahead and start with this go ahead and take a look down there 339 .8 million views and I want you to put that in perspective so when I said that you know these bit corners just made history well they're both advocates and it just became the most watched interview in history now Tucker's last interview with that orange guy yeah Trump that set the record and beat Oprah's former record with her interview with Michael Jackson and it appears Tucker Carlson is going full Eminem breaking a record every time he drops a record right now what this really had me thinking is the fact that well you know Joe Rogan gets like 11 million views he's the number one podcaster in the world Tucker was the number one show on Fox News and all mainstream media and he was getting about three four million views I'm putting that in perspective he's gone independent and he's got 340 million views blowing everyone out of the water talking about well look at this Argentina's next president and this guy is winning big -time you saw those crowds who is he well Tucker traveled to Buenos Aires to speak to him and find out and we of course hear it simply Bitcoin have covered Malay quite a bit but very exciting stuff an amazing conversation very base and before we get into that now Malay you got to understand they kind of do language a little different right so when he uses the the terms liberal he's referring to classical liberal like Bastia which is closer to libertarianism or anarcho capitalism if you'd like to say and when he refers to anything like socialism or communism of course they're all the same thing all statism and that's really the point that he's driving home is the fact that it's freedom versus the state and I love it until you fix the money for example a lot of Western democracies went full tyrannical regimes over the past few years and they're supposed to be democracies with representative government that is supposed to work in your best interest but I think we know the truth well let's get to it we're in downtown Buenos Aires the capital of Argentina this was once about a hundred years ago one of the richest cities in the world and you could tell as you walk around the fated grandeur of a once great city but this is now a desperate country its economy is in shambles has been for a long time Argentina famously defaulted on his debt more than 20 years ago but now hyperinflation has made this country genuinely desperate you see when you have dinner here in restaurants and people pull out bricks of local currency the peso to pay it feels like Weimar or Zimbabwe but it's not this is a developed country that's moving backwards at high speed and because of the frustration that has built up among the population particularly among poor people a man called Javier Miele is poised to become its next president he's a former soccer star goalie a performer in a Rolling Stones cover band and a libertarian economist he's not a libertarian in the traditional American sense he wouldn't fit into the Cato Institute he's libertarian in the traditional sense he believes people should have the maximum amount of freedom they can be given which is a lot much more than they now get in Argentina he has moved from basically nowhere in the last several years to become maybe the most famous person in this country the election is next month in October and once again it seems like he's likely to win he himself is a Bitcoin enthusiast right he jetted off to Argentina not for steak not for soccer but to meet the rock star economist and fellow Bitcoin advocate Javier Miele why do you think from your perspective you've become a man with no political background so popular so quickly in this country that in a cable con el hecho de que ese de huador de football a mismo tiempo ese do cantante rock -and -roll y ademas a soy economista y creo que esa combinación es una combinación attractive en terminos de producto televisivo pero por otra parte lo que también es importante el tema de las cídeas y argentina a pasicamente es un país que se va cien años abraçando las cídeas socialistas y entonces la revelión natural del sistema era ser libérales y es por eso que la revelión natural la parece siempre los jovenes y los jovenes encontraron alguien que man Miele from an 18 % poll prediction grabbing a 29 % victory in the primaries Miele maybe is unpredictable as a Bitcoin price chart and with hair that's probably more talked about than the latest thing what is that now like men in black aliens in Mexico or something and the guy is very based he's just gonna say what he thinks what he feels but Miele's boldness isn't limited to just critiquing the state but he also questioned the Pope talked about advising the orange guy and has many times advocated for Bitcoin is the future of financial freedom in short Javier Miele is making waves the Pope the current Pope is from Argentina I would think he would support you he has instead criticized you and you've called him a communist why the disconnect bueno primero porque el papa juega politica vente a si luma some papa donde tiene forte Ingenencia política ademostrado además una granda finidad con dictadores como Castro o como comaduro si restar el lado de de dictadores wait I'm sorry Raul Castro's a murderer si if you got to the minute at Rocesino but the Pope you believe the Pope has an affinity for Raul Castro si exacto si decho no los condena si repatante condescending de conesos y esta mien condescending de con la dictadora venesolana a si el condescending de con todos los discuiras a un cuando se verdaderos criminals toco el esos un problema prudemas es a lien que consider a que la justicia social un elemento central de desu vision y eso es muy complicado porque la justicia social case robar el fruit su trabajo una persona y dar ciudad otra en dos es implicado dos cosas una es un robo y el problema es que el robo esta encontra de lo que seniela los días mandamientos si ha valar la justicia sociales ha valar el robo por otando son problema de que está violando los días mandamientos el otro problema es que es un trato decíbal friende a la ley now me and myself I'm kind of against protectionist policies but Malay on the global stage he has a clear stance no deals with status so china lula unless it's about decentralized money of the future bitcoin probably don't bother knocking you've said that as president of argentina you will not do business with china de cho no solo no via certain negocios con china no via certain negocios con nimún comunista esir habar yo soy un defensor de la libertad de la paz y la demogracía lo comunista no entranay but also incredible beyond the politics and probably his bitcoin price checks who is this Javier Malay at heart well one thing he's a man whose phone screensaver is joy has no end and is as passionate about freedom the austrian economic community as he is about bitcoin and decentralization no no no no no no when you talk about and live according to your conscience you don't have me because you know what is the definition of this personal me you know that when you are in the last moment or when you are in the constant pressure of being big you know what I mean? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? This will pass all over your life.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"Mother Theresa and Me" With Actress Jacqueline Fritschi-Cornaz
"Back. It's my privilege to be speaking with the actress and producer Jacqueline Vricci Cornaz. I keep trying. You were just telling us the story of so so this film Mother Teresa and me. There are two storylines. One is the story of Mother Teresa whom you play in the film, but the second storyline involves this girl you were just telling about telling us about named Kavita and so that's happening in a contemporary time. In other words, this is she when she goes to Calcutta and she meets the Sisters of Mercy. She does not meet Mother Teresa because this is years after the passing of Mother Teresa. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. There is one moment actually where Mother Teresa holds her in her arms when she you know took her out of a burning hut. So as a baby Kavita she's in the arms of Mother Teresa, but I don't want to tell more about Kavita because it's it's so interesting. I think for the audiences to discover themselves the whole Calcutta story because and Mother Teresa really changes the life of this young woman. Well, it's interesting you talk about. I don't know how you phrased it, but Mother Teresa was you know putting her faith into action and this is a big thing. The the the great Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffer about whom I've written this was his central idea. If you can boil things down was that unless you're living out your faith, you really don't have faith. You have to live it out. You have to put it into action and in a way when you put your faith into action, it deepens your faith and so it's kind of a conundrum because it's it's the two go together and I think a lot of times the tragedy of many Protestants or evangelicals because I wrote a biography also about Martin Luther is to say it's just faith as though it's this intellectual thing and they forget that I must put it into action. Otherwise, perhaps I have no real faith and so it's an important idea and I'm so I'm excited that in this film you give people an opportunity to see that because that's something that people often think of Christianity as just a series of doctrines or beliefs and that's not right. Well, on one hand, of course, we see Mother Teresa as a Christian as a Catholic nun, but we also feel this universal energy of love because this nanny of Kavita, she says, you know, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, we all need the same love and I think that's the main message of the film because our world needs a lot of love to you know to develop and to overcome all the film doesn't take a position, but it wants to inspire people to live with more love in action.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Actress Jacqueline Fritschi-Cornaz Is in Studio!
"I have the privilege of sitting here in the studio with Jacqueline Fritchey Cornas or something like that II tried not to mess it up too bad. You're just Jacqueline. I Uh because don't. Uh you your native language. Of course you live in Switzerland is German. It's Swiss German. Swiss. What's the difference between Swiss German and German? Swiss German is like a dialect. I think that you know Germans couldn't understand us if we talk in in our dialect, but we learn it as a first language kindergarten and school. Yeah and then it's French Italian English today. Of course we start with English. Yeah and you know any other language, but it's a great privilege to live in a country where you have all these languages around because it's it's so enriching. Yeah and you're able to travel and to talk to the people and to just be in a contact. Did you know as a girl growing up in Switzerland that you would be an actress that you would want to be an actress. You know I was. On stage with 5 years, the first time in my ballet class, yeah, I was a little rat and we just you know we're dancing on stage. I hope this was the nutcracker. No it was oh good and of course I was you know I was so thrilled to feel the emotion and this first time I felt that I'm like an instrument. I played with my body with my soul and I could transmit something and I could feel that the the audiences would respond. So that was actually the moment, which was so inspiring to me, which always told me even if I'm nervous, you know before a premiere or something just go back to that little girl to that rat and and I could I happy yeah and how did you find your way into method acting. That was a wonderful coincidence. I applied for a workshop of Susan Batson, a very famous coach. You know she works with Nicole Kidman with Juliette Binoche and she once came to Europe before the pandemic and I was in Berlin. I was privileged to be a part of it and then she invited me to come to New York to continue the work to really go deeper into the character of Mother Teresa, which helped me in an enormous enormous way and I'm so thrilled that she will be here tonight in our premiere. Oh she she will be there. I'll get to meet
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.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from BTP-WP9 Chap 31 -34 Prayer of Quiet and the Real Presence of Christ the Eucharist- The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila Beginning to Pray w/Dr. Anthony Lilles
"I think sometimes we fall into traps where I'm moving in levels. I'm walking just up the steps of a ladder or a staircase, and I've moved from recollection, I'm now in the prayer of quiet, and I'm not going to go back, but it's not quite like that, is it? I mean, even as she describes it. No, that's the idea of it being a spark is you have this prayer for a moment, and then you go back to your prayer of recollection. And then, you know, slowly or gradually, the prayer of quiet might come more frequently in your life and might last with you a little bit longer, and when it does, it produces more and more good things. This kind of prayer is a gift. You can't force God to do it, and you can't just will yourself into it. What you can do is be ready for it, to welcome it, to receive it, to thank God for it when you are given it. This is a gift, you know, like every good gift, how you treat this gift is how you treat the giver. So if you're selfishly grasping for it, you're not really treating the giver very well. You need to wait until the giver wants to give it to you, or to slough it off and not appreciate what God has done. This also is not to appreciate the gift that God would have for us either. It's that gracious welcoming of this gift, this readiness to respond to what God wants to do in our hearts that expresses the gratitude, the hospitality, if you will, that this prayer needs if it's to be fruitful in our lives, if we are to grow in it more. So what you're saying is right. It's not that you'll never go back to the prayer of recollection or vocal prayer. In fact, this whole book, The Way of Perfection, is about teaching vocal prayer, and what she's saying is that there's a relationship between the most humble vocal petition, those petitions given us in the Our Father, and the most lofty kind of mystical union with God, that these aren't two opposed things. You never really have to abandon one to find the other. One into leads the other, and so while you're experiencing the other, you might not finish the Our Father because you got caught up in prayer, surrender to that grace, it's beautiful, but then as the spark kind of seems to disappear because it's already done the good fruit it's supposed to do, and you recall where you are in the Our Father, just pick up where you left off and continue in the prayer. If God wants to give you another spark, you will, and if he doesn't, it's up to him. He's sovereign. Our job is to simply receive the gift when he gives it, and to appreciate the gift as it's poured out in our hearts. The prayer of quiet, then, is that part of that experience of contemplation that she distinguishes about, because for someone who might be trying to enter into this in an experience, for example, as St. Ignatius would teach about meditation and contemplation, it's a different understanding for the Carmelite understanding of contemplation than it is maybe in the way that Ignatius spoke of it. Well, Ignatian contemplation involves spiritual exercises and really is about the sanctification of the imagination, very, very important effort, and Teresa's not unaware of it, in fact, she refers to it in these teachings, so she's not unaware of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, but when she speaks of the prayer of quiet, she is speaking of something not so much that we do, where the Ignatian exercises, for example, are a method of prayer we call interior composition of place, and that is where you use your imagination to put yourself in a scripture passage, and so you hear Jesus' voice with your ears, and you feel with your sense of touch, the wetness or the dryness of the occasion, and what smells are there, and so in plunging your whole imagination into this biblical scene, you are making yourself present to the Lord, there are gifts of grace that are given as you invest yourself this way, as you explore the things you feel while you're in the presence of Jesus, as you explore what you believe Jesus may be feeling as he encounters you, what Jesus sees with his resurrected eyes when he looks out on people, what people see when they yearn for him to touch them. This plunge of the imagination, allowing it to be baptized in divine revelation is a powerful form of prayer, and it leads to this prayer of recollection that Teresa is talking about, and it can even dispose, because it leads to recollection, it even disposes to this prayer of quiet, so it's not that somebody who practices a nation prayer never knows this prayer of quiet, but she's going to describe something now that St. Ignatius doesn't necessarily describe, it's not that he doesn't believe it doesn't exist, the whole purpose of the Ignatian exercises in a certain way is to help lead souls into this prayer of quiet, into this contemplative prayer, and in fact, in the very beginning of the exercises, he says that the exercises that he proposes are just some of the many exercises that a soul might engage in while they're on retreat, and they're only being offered, he's only offering them insofar as it helps lead the soul into a deeper encounter with God. The prayer of quiet is the beginning of this deeper encounter, and so there's a way in which the descriptions and the rules of discernment that St. Ignatius offers leads to the descriptions that Teresa picks up on here, and so one leads into the other, so those who've invested themselves deeply in the Ignatian exercises probably have had all the experiences that St. Teresa of Avila is describing. It's just in her charism, she's going to put the emphasis more on this encounter with the Lord that our spiritual exercises dispose us to, and what happens to a soul as it invests in this, she's going to look at that more and more, especially around starting here chapter 30 -31 to the end of her book, these last 12 chapters, it's going to be all about what God does in us and how we should respond to that rather than spiritual exercises or techniques that we should take up. She's using the most simple technique of all to get us there, the technique of the vocal prayer that Jesus taught us to say, you know, and she's, but the reason why this very simple vocal prayer can take us to these spiritual heights is because as she understands this prayer, this prayer is something that involves our mind and our intellect and composition of place, if you will. All of this is what recollection is, but once you're recollected, she's saying, now there's space in your soul for something more. In other words, it's not what our own efforts or techniques can achieve in prayer. It's not the state of consciousness that we are able to accomplish that is the greatest thing that Christian prayer has to offer. It's this other contemplative prayer, this prayer where God is working, where God is doing something that is the most powerful and most beautiful thing that God wants to accomplish. So what is occurring in chapter 30 that helps us to transition to that moment? In these chapters, she's beginning to think her contemplation has gone from our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And now she's starting to reflect on these words, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The prayer of quiet comes at the will of God. There's our will and then there's God's will. God's will will be done in us when and how it wants. And so there's nothing we can do to accomplish this prayer of quiet. We can dispose ourselves to it, but it's up to God to do when he wants to do it, how he wants to do it, the way he wants to do it. It's up to him completely. So this kind of prayer then, we can't accomplish it by our own industry or cleverness or perseverance. But what we can do is be surrendered to it. We can be ready to welcome it. And so she offers some descriptions of it so that you can recognize what it is. One of the descriptions she offers is the description of Simeon recognizing Jesus in the temple. An excerpt from chapter 31 of the Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
BTP-WP9 Chap 31 -34 Prayer of Quiet and the Real Presence of Christ the Eucharist- The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila Beginning to Pray w/Dr. Anthony Lilles - burst 2
"The Way of Perfection, is about teaching vocal prayer, and what she's saying is that there's a relationship between the most humble vocal petition, those petitions given us in the Our Father, and the most lofty kind of mystical union with God, that these aren't two opposed things. You never really have to abandon one to find the other. One into leads the other, and so while you're experiencing the other, you might not finish the Our Father because you got caught up in prayer, surrender to that grace, it's beautiful, but then as the spark kind of seems to disappear because it's already done the good fruit it's supposed to do, and you recall where you are in the Our Father, just pick up where you left off and continue in the prayer. If God wants to give you another spark, you will, and if he doesn't, it's up to him. He's sovereign. Our job is to simply receive the gift
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from Our Lady of Sorrows Building a Kingdom of Love with Msgr. John Esseff
"Discerninghearts .com presents Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essiff. Monsignor Essiff is a priest in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He has served as a retreat director and confessor to Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Monsignor Essiff encountered Saint Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical Missions, a Catholic organization established by Saint Pope John Paul II to bring the good news to the world, especially to the poor. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests, sisters, seminarians, and other religious leaders. Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essiff. I'm your host, Chris McGregor.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from BKL267 Exaltation of the Holy Cross Building a Kingdom of Love with Msgr. John Esseff
"Discerninghearts .com presents Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. Monsignor Essif is a priest in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He has served as a retreat director and confessor to St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Monsignor Essif encountered St. Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical Missions, a Catholic organization established by St. Pope John Paul II to bring the good news to the world, especially to the poor. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests, sisters, seminarians, and other religious leaders. Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. I'm your host, Chris McGregor.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from BTP-WP8 Chapters 29 30 Prayer of Recollection and Quiet The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila Beginning to Pray w/Dr. Anthony Lilles
"Anthony, thank you once again for joining me. It's great to be with you, Chris. Thanks for having me this morning. We've really been immersed in one of the great teachings on prayer, haven't we, with Teresa's Way of Perfection? Yes, we have. In fact, we're coming into a really beautiful part of this work. It's kind of like one of the great contributions of the Way of Perfection. She introduced in an earlier work called her life, Levita, a distinction between contemplative mystical prayer and prayer that's kind of under our own energy and impetus. She's taking us in our conversation today, we're going to see that she takes us from or begins to explore the connection between what we can achieve by our own efforts and what God achieves in us through his work. This relationship between our effort and God's work is something that's very important to her. She wants to, on one hand, avoid an error of Pelagianism, Pelagius kind of made the spiritual life all about the things that we do, but she also wants to avoid the error of kind of what will be known as quietism, where you're essentially so passive that you don't do what God needs you to do to make space for him. So it's like a dance, what she's going to, we're going to explore today. All that we've talked about up to now are things that we can do to make space for God, and now she's going to talk about what God can do once we've made space for him in our lives. Yeah, everything that we've spoken of before, she really needed to offer to her sisters and then in part to us so that, as you said, we have prepared ourselves. It would be a mistake to jump over all those things, those aesthetical practices, the living out the life of the virtues, and so much more, and jump to this part. It's true. To get to a place where we're vulnerable to God, where our hearts are fully open to his presence and ready to respond to his presence, it takes a lot of hard work. She's the image, we've talked about this before, of the wild horse, and that wild horse, which is our intellect and all the other energy that we have in our hearts, if it's not tamed or disciplined, can distract us or pull us away from God. But once we begin to discipline it according to God's will, what's been revealed in the church, we begin that same wild horse that before was so dangerous becomes our friend and helps us on our journey while we fight different kinds of enemies who try to keep us away from Jesus. So this ascetical part of the spiritual life, or asceticism, or the ascetical grades of prayer, we'll come to know them in the tradition of the church. These ascetical grades of prayer where our own spiritual exercises and our ascetical efforts that is our self -discipline around things like, as we've mentioned it before, detachment and honor and friendship, our discipline around those kinds of things, prepare for something beautiful that God wants to do. Through those things, we've tamed the horse, at least to some extent. When we've done our part, God is going to do his part.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA4 Extraordinary Activity Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare with Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hears Catholic Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Well, we've talked about the ordinary act. We do need to touch upon the extraordinary demonic activity. Well, this is the kind of stuff that, you know, that Hollywood likes to glorify. It's extraordinary in that it really isn't as common as just temptation, which is common to every man, woman, and child. By extraordinary activity, we're talking about a destructive work that's more powerful and that manifests itself not only in our thought realm, but also in the physical realm. Most observers of demonic tactics agree that there's certain activities that occur. They often use different labels for them, and so I allow for that in my book. I have a certain terminology. There are others who would use a different terminology. The kind of a whole series of levels of activity, each one a little more serious than the last, that kind of finds its worst form in possession, which is what most people in the world, when they think about demons, that's what they think about. But the first is called infestation. It's demonic activity that's connected to a particular location or an object. So if there's a house, for instance, that's infested, and people often think it's, you know, they call it ghost or something, but it's actually demonic activity. But folks, witnesses in an infested house, may see physical objects moving on their own or seemingly on their own, levitating, flying through the air, disappearing and reappearing in other places. They may smell offensive odors, often like sulfur. They may hear noises they can't explain, like crashes or laughter or screaming. So when people talk about, you know, a haunted house, often that's what we're talking about, something where there's a demonic association with that building or that location. The next level then is what I would call oppression. It describes demonic attacks on a victim's exterior life. So it may be influences on their bodily health, influences on their finances, on their work situation, on their family relations and other social relations. In some severe cases, it may even include physical assaults, invisible blows to the body, a push out of bed or downstairs, mysterious scratches appearing on the skin. I've seen all of these before. A number of saints throughout the ages have spoken about enduring this kind of thing. So St. Anthony of the Desert, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Ante, Padre Pio, St. Pio of Pietrelcina, a few of those. Next, then would be obsession. That refers to a more severe and relentless form of the struggle in the victim's interior life. It's a wrestling with disturbing thoughts planted by the enemy, but to a degree, not just temptation. So it's an inner torment that can be suffered while you're awake or in nightmares, becomes so intense that the sufferer may seem to be going insane to themselves and to others. There may be visual and auditory hallucinations, persistent temptations to suicide. We have to note that symptoms like this may well have physical causes and mental causes rather than spiritual ones. That's why the church is always careful and insists that those who experience these kinds of afflictions should first approach medical professionals for help before just, instead of just concluding that they're under attack from evil spirits. But then the most serious is possession, the one that's most dangerous and most rare form of extraordinary demonic activity. It involves periodic episodes in which an evil spirit controls the body of the victim, though the victim is usually not aware of what's taking place during that control. And we have several accounts of that in the Gospels, as we've talked about before. So the demon -possessed person may engage in bizarre bodily contortions that would normally be impossible. The body may levitate or act with superhuman strength. The victim may groan, hiss, make animal sounds. An alien voice may speak through the possessed person, sometimes without even the use of their vocal cords. Often they reveal knowledge of hidden things. Are they talking a language unknown to the victim and the victim's never studied? And at the same time, as in cases of infestation, often disturbing and even violent physical phenomena may take place in the victim's presence. And then finally, the victim of demon possession exhibits an extreme, sometimes violent, sense of to revulsion holy things, like the name of Mary and the name of Jesus, to the rites of the church, to a consecrated host, to sacred relics, to sacramental, such as holy water. So that would be the most serious thing. And I always like to make the point that a demon can never possess someone in the sense of owning that person, because all human beings, no matter what they've been through or what they've done, all human beings belong to God. They are his personal possession. Well, we speak of cases of demonic possession in which the enemy has basically become a usurper occupying the human body that was created to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit instead. Now one of the reasons why we are going over again this particular part of our conversation is to know the battle. And it doesn't necessarily mean that we're called to be the Navy SEALs that are called to go out there and engage in, OK, now we know what it is, so we're going to go out and deal with it. It's important, as you said, at certain levels that, yes, medical professionals absolutely have to be working in relationship with a person afflicted. In many cases now, Paul, isn't it true that in dioceses around the United States, as well as around the world, that if there are those who feel that they are encountering this, that they can go to the Chancery or maybe even to the local parish, and they will be able to work together to help bring that person once again to wholeness? Yes, and that's so important. If you're at the place where your sense is that it's beyond the ordinary and these other things, you find a priest that you're confident in and you trust, and lay it before them. If you have to go to several priests, but go and give them a chance to help you figure out if it may be something else than what you're thinking. They can make references, refer you to medical professionals who can help you to kind of rule those things out, and the church won't allow you to go through something of a major exorcism without having kind of ruled out the other things. But the church is there, resources are there to help you. Our Lord Jesus, who cast out demons very easily, has given his authority to them, and powers don't always come out with just a word because they're complex situations that involve kind of healing that has to go on in the soul, and sometimes a renunciation of certain things before it can all happen, but completely. If you have a trained exorcist, they'll know what to do. So the church has that help, and go to the church for sure while I'm meeting more and more folks who, you know, are, well, I hear there's this spiritual healer, you know, and often it's someone who's not even of a Christian background, but some kind of New Agey thing. Either you don't want to go that direction because folks who don't have the authority that Christ gave to, you know, leaders of his church, they can just get you into worse trouble than ever. Yeah, you can look at the Scriptures for an example, the one that jumps in my mind is Saul, King Saul, when he chose to go to an oracle because he was feeling, can we say, maybe oppressed or something like that, I'm not trying to diagnose this situation, but to the point where he went to the oracle to summon up Samuel, and it ended up leading to not only her madness, but to his. Well, it's just a very dangerous thing. Like I said, you know, in the book of Acts, you know, the other example where you have the seven sons of Seva who fancied themselves exorcists, and they see St. Paul casting out you out in the name of Paul or Jesus or whatever name they used, and the thing just looks at them and you can just hear the smirk and the words, Paul I know and Jesus I know, but who are you? And then jumps on them, you know, but especially folks, you know, kind of occult healers and that kind of thing. There's certain cultures that, you know, just have a tradition of this, it's extremely dangerous. Sometimes, you know, people accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the prince of demons, and in this case, it's almost like that, that they're not really casting them out, but by, they themselves can be demonically influenced in a way that will, you know, if there's actually a demonic power that's somehow oppressing someone, and they go to one of these healers who's actually demonically connected, yeah, that person can appeal to the demon, lay off of them for a while, and they'll seem to think, you know, they'll look like maybe they've been healed or helped. It's the wrong way to go about it because it's not the authority of Jesus that's overcoming the thing. It's just, you know, orders from a higher demon, so to speak. You have to be really careful. And I think it needs to be said, too, here, and I hope you agree, Paul, that as we spoke about the ordinary activity, that of temptation that is done, that even in this extraordinary activity, demonic activity, that trained exorcists will say that there, it usually begins with an entry point, you know, a demonic entry point. There's a point in which it's not necessarily where the guy's just walking down the street and all of a sudden, boom, this happens to him. I'm not going to say that it can happen that way, but most of the time, the overwhelming majority of the time, it's because there is some type of activity, whether it was an assault as a child or it's something that the person agreed to participate in, it might be a violent act that was perpetrated. There's usually some moment or a series of moments where this activity enters into the person's life and then it manifests itself into a greater situation. And that's when those who are trained in this area are able to untie those knots to get to those layers. Am I presenting that properly? Yeah, I think so. I'm certainly no expert in exorcism and I've never trained and I'm not a priest, so I couldn't be an exorcist, but I hear the same thing from those who are trained that often there is some particular point of access. And again, it's not necessarily that the person makes a choice to do something, but something could be done to them or they could even just move into a house that is infested for whatever reason because there's some earlier resident called some of the powers and into there by what they did, maybe the Ouija board or something, who knows. And that's why you do need some trained folks because it's not just so simple as snap my fingers, the devil's gone. There are certain kind of principles that seems to be of demonic activity like that that an exorcist is trained to look at, to understand and to begin to, as you say, untie the knot because these things usually are complicated knots because you still need the will of the victim to cooperate with what's going on. There needs to be some part of them that is saying, I want to be free of this and I will do what I need to to be free of this. And if it means renouncing what I did, you know, by going to that channel or going to the Ouija board or whatever, or if it means forgiving this person who did this to me or as a part of it, or if it means forgiving myself, making reparation in something, some demonstration that my will is to do the will of God and to be free, you know, always gets to me that one time, I don't want to read too much in it, but in the gospel where there's a man who's been ill all his life, he's lame all his life and Jesus looks at him and says, do you want to be healed? And that's always struck me that sometimes that's a question he has to ask us through the priest, through the counselor, through the exorcist that we go that far, do you want to be healed? Because it's going to require some cooperation on your part.
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.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from BTP-WP7 Chapters 20 thru 26 The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila Beginning to Pray with Dr. Anthony Lilles
"I've said it several times now, she's very practical, and she sees that people come from different places. She even describes the different types of prayer that we may encounter. For example, when she talks about vocal prayer, or mental prayer, contemplative prayer. Could you help with us to understand what she's speaking of in those instances? Vocal prayer is the most basic, but really in some ways the most important starting place. When disciples the approached Jesus, they approached him because they saw him praying. This is in the Gospel of Luke, that account. They saw him praying, and after they saw him praying, witnessed him praying, they said, you know, Master, the disciples of John the Baptist were taught by John the Baptist how to pray. Will you teach us how to pray? There was something about the prayer of Jesus that was dynamic, meaning it evoked questions. It evoked a response. You wanted to somehow know how he was doing what he was doing. Jesus, rather than teaching an elaborate technique, a method for meditation or some very technical spiritual exercise, Jesus doesn't teach that. He teaches a kind of prayer that anyone who has even the first moment of faith can take up and make their own. He teaches a vocal prayer, so vocal prayer is a prayer that you pray out loud with your voice. Moreover, this vocal prayer he teaches, I mean, somebody could say, oh, yes, well, he taught like a mantra, like, you know, the Hindus have mantras or, you know, some kind of hum or something like that, but he just uses words instead, and so this is kind of a mantra. No, each of the words that he teaches has meaning and content, and that meaning and content that is unfolded reveals to us the beauty of his own heart, the heart of Jesus, as the heart of the Son of God from all eternity, our Father who art in heaven. It's a declaration of love. It's a declaration also that recognizes that if our Father is in heaven, our earthly cares and the things that we're going through here on earth, this is not our true home ultimately. We are meant for a life. If our Father is in heaven, we are meant for a life that this world can't hold down. So we live in this world, we contend with this world, we're in this world, but we're not of this world because why? Our Father is in heaven. Jesus doesn't say, my Father. He could have, and it would have been theologically right in his case, but he says, when you pray, pray our Father. In other words, he's in this very humble vocal prayer. He's inviting us into his own sonship so that we can relate to the Father in through with him so that his relationship with the Father becomes our relationship with the Father. His love for the Father becomes our love for the Father and the Father's blessing in his life becomes a blessing in our life. So vocal prayer has to have, in order to be Christian, Teresa of Avila is going to say it needs to have three kinds of attention to it. It needs to be meaningful, meaning it needs to engage your mind on one of three levels. One level that it should engage your mind is you should be attending to the words that you're saying.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from Jacqueline Fritschi-Cornaz
"Welcome to The Eric Metaxas Show. Would you consider yourself smart, insightful, precocious, astute, clever, wise, beyond your years, and good at checking a thesaurus for synonyms? Well, then you've come to the right place. Here now is the handsome, attractive, striking, gorgeous, and quite frankly, breathtaking, Eric Metaxas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the show. I like to call today Tuesday. Hello and good morning. Because yesterday was Monday. Yesterday was Labor Day. And so if I look confused, it's a sign that I'm confused. It's hard to get back in. So it's nice. It's a nice, you know, you get, you know, it's almost done. We're almost done. We're almost on Friday. So listen, we have an exciting guest. Well, two exciting guests. First of all, in a few minutes, I'm speaking to Jacqueline. I think it's pronounced Jacqueline. We're going to find out. There's a new film coming out called Mother Teresa and Me. I'm going to see a screening tonight of that film. But we have the woman behind the film, not Mother Teresa, the other woman behind the film with us in a couple of minutes. Very exciting, honestly, to get her here in the studio. We also have Father Pavone coming in today. That'll probably be our two. He is the head of priests for life. He's a hero. And I want you to hear what he has to say. We've got a lot of other crazy guests coming up this week. I won't mention it. Chris. Yeah. I do want to say. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Right. Two, three things, three things before we get to our guest Jacqueline. First of all, our food for the poor raised. Thank you to all of you who gave because without you food for the poor couldn't do what they do. And you didn't need to give just because I hectared didn't need to to respond. Most of you didn't respond. There was some congratulations in resisting my siren song to give food to the poor people in our hemisphere. But it really is. I just want to say I'm grateful to those of you who stepped up. God bless you. Thank you very much. I want to say that even though I'm tan, don't don't let that fool you. I've been working. Really? You have a you have a rating writing deadline. I'm working on a sequel to my book letter to the American Church and writing books. And really, even the last part is very hard. And so even though I look tan and rested, it's a lie. Well, the tan part technically is true. Yeah. But I I feel it's not as easy as they say, huh? Well, you can just put it in chat, GPT and say write a sequel to my last book. Yeah. No, it's so it's been it's been I ask your prayers, those of you who pray, because it's it's hard. And letter to the American Church, by the way, is, you know, I say it is I say it genuinely humbly, like I know it wasn't my idea. And so you have a particular burden when you feel like God wants me to say something. And to some people, that just sounds crazy. But here's the irony. Those people are crazy. But the fact is that it's the book has been resonating tremendously around the country. I get notes from friends who say somebody sent me the book, you know, and I want to mention two things. First of all, letter to the American Church. There's a study guide. If you order it, you can see whether it's through Amazon or Socrates in the city. There's a study guide that goes with it. If you want to do it in a home group or something like that, continue the conversation, because people will read the book, they get motivated, and they say, Well, what can I do? What can I do? And they're usually doing it in a group will help you kind of figure out some things you can do. Secondly, there is a documentary film. Now, I know I've mentioned this before, but it's true. A film. documentary I shot my part in LA at right at the end of June. Directed by Michael Bay. And there were exploding churches in the background, slow motion. It's doves. It was beautiful, right? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of kind of Transformers kind of. No, it's it's a documentary. You did shoot in Hollywood based on letter to the American Church. And with this documentary, we're trying to get the message out to people who don't read books. And you know who you are. And shame on you know, but seriously, the idea that this is being turned into a gorgeous documentary. It's gorgeous. You've seen parts of it's like it's so so beautifully done. It's really exciting. And it's going to be screened in a few churches as a kind of a promo. So I'm going to be traveling around the country. But it's it's very exciting. And it gives me hope for the country. Because as you know, if you know, the thesis of the book is that the American Church is in the same place that the German church was in. At the beginning of the Nazis rise to power, we know the German church did not stand up and do the right thing in time. And as a result, evil took over that nation. And I really believe that we have an opportunity in this country, if we're willing, if we're willing to step up and understand the gravity of it. So I'm hopeful. Um, I should say also, Chris, before we get to our guests, I'm going to be traveling like crazy. Yeah, you have a really, really big skill. It's a little frightening, actually. Yeah. Thank goodness for air travel. Yeah. I'm going tomorrow to Miami. Hmm. I was just I was just there. By the way, it's terrific. It's terrific to have the Cuban coffee. You ever get those? I would love to say I would love to see you on a on a colada, which is sort of the double espresso. I'm happy to try it. I'll do it. So I'm going to Miami tomorrow. I'm speaking at a thing. By the way, everybody who wants to know my schedule to want to know if you can come to one of these events, go to Eric metaxas .com. Eric metaxas .com has my speaking schedule, or if you want to invite me, whatever. But so I'm going to Miami this week. Next week. I'm going to California. Um, there's a TP USA faith pastors conference in San Diego. I'm gonna be speaking at that. Then I'm doing a big event at the Nixon library. Uh, very excited about that. So I'll be there in California next week. And then it gets really crazy. I'm going to Iowa. I'm going to Dallas. I'm going back to Los Angeles. I'm going to Michigan Grand Rapids. Just it goes on and on and on and on. Wow. So So people say to me, Hey, Eric, what do you do for fun? The only thing I do for fun, probably is at the end of the day, when I'm exhausted, we, we what we tend to watch classic films. Oh, yeah, yeah, those are good. And Suzanne and I discovered I mean, this is the good news with like Apple TV. It's like you can find some stuff because a lot of times Turner classic movies, which I recommend, does not have something that I want to watch. They'll sunset that's the term they'll sunset movies and titles sometimes they'll have licensing for a little bit and then it kind of goes away. So it might have been there at one point. Yeah, you know, well, Turner classic movies, I mean, generally, I recommend it. But if you can't find a classic film there, like last night, they were running, you know, in the eight o 'clock hour, they were running a documentary about, you know, maybe with Fred Astaire, or Bob Hope. So and he tended neither of those great actors tended to appear in documentaries on coal mining. So you're stuck. It's hard to dance. So what did we do we found? We found some really cool stuff. But I guess I don't know where you how people find stuff. But we with Apple TV, we were able to discover just a just a trove of films we wanted to watch. So we watched, I don't know that I've ever seen the whole film. But it's one of Hitchcock's earliest films is it's 1935. It's called the 39 steps. Yes, it's a classic film. It's a classic, and it's wonderful. And so we watched that the other night. And all I can tell you is I want to watch it again. Because there's so much good stuff in it. Is it a is it? It's a thriller, right? Well, it's it's a it's a Hitchcock film. It's like a classic Hitchcock film.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from Special Encore The Canonization of St. Teresa of Calcutta Building a Kingdom of Love w/ Msgr. John Esseff
"Discerninghearts .com presents Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. Monsignor Essif is a priest of the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He has served as a retreat director and confessor to Saint Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Monsignor Essif encountered Saint Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical Missions, a Catholic organization established by Pope Saint John Paul II, to bring the good news to the world, especially to the poor. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters, seminarians and other religious leaders. Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. What was this glorious pilgrimage like? I would say what brought us there, there were 16 of us who left to go there, and the ones who you would meet along the way, that each of them were loved by Mother Teresa. That's the way I would describe, each one of them had a personal experience of the enduring love that touched them. I certainly had to be there. It was like something that, as a pilgrim, I felt called to be at this celebration. And I felt God wanted me to be there, therefore he would provide. And he provided for me to get there to the vehicle of these 16 people that I went with. And it was just a very caring young priest who, Father Mike was our leader of the group, and I was kind of the senior citizen, I was the oldest member of the group. The streets of Rome, as you know, are really architectural hazards. Someone who doesn't see, I could easily fall anyplace and break a hip or whatever, but I was really cared for. And there was a young girl, a woman that I met, and she was in a wheelchair, and she kind of summed it up for me when she said, Mother Teresa touched me when I was 16. And she said she just came in the crowd and touched me, and she touched me on my head. And it was like an unforgettable touch from this woman who was such an instrument, just reminded me of Jesus going through the world, and everyone that he touched remembered that touch. And so it was with me. I experienced the love and being loved by her so that she was this instrument of love in the world. There were millions and millions who saw that by television or heard it by radio in so many parts of the world. So really, wouldn't you say that maybe a billion people were touched through this instrument of God's love, because she followed what God asked her to do, and in some way experienced being loved by God as the poorest of the poor, because that's what she considered herself, that he loved her and touched her with that love. And then she began to touch one by one by one. That was her way of looking at it. We arrived together as a group on September the 1st, and we went by van to Newark, New Jersey, where we all got on a plane, and we got to know each other's names, because not everybody, there were married people, there were priests, there were single people who were on that, just getting to know each other. And then we all had different parts on the plane going over, arrived and gathered together in a group, and there was a van to meet us, to take us to our hotel. We still stayed in a little hotel called Hotel De Petrus, which was about a 20 -minute subway ride from the Vatican. That evening, I went by subway to St. John Lateran, where I heard confessions, and it was so beautiful. I heard, because of my languages, I heard confessions in English, Spanish, Italian. And who comes along but walking right in front of me is Marty McDermott that I had met in Beirut. And he and I just kind of hooked together. He was there. And again, the love, it was there in Beirut that I met the sisters, it was there that I met Mother Teresa, so we just kind of laughed as two old men. He was an aging Jesuit that they kind of wanted to get out of Beirut to bring him home to their northeastern province in New York, but he stayed there, he remained there. I think he's from Hartford, Connecticut. And we just chatted while all of the sisters that we had known through the years come pouring out at the end of the celebration there, and I just saw Sister Joy and all the sisters that I had known through the years, Missionaries of Charity. And then we hopped on a subway and came home, and I got home maybe around midnight. That was our first day. And so it was a beautiful time. On the third day, we were there September the 3rd, and more confessions, and St. Mary Major was again a beautiful church, and confessions. And then the fourth day was a canonization. And Mother has always just loved Our Lady. On the cover of the celebrated Mass was Our Blessed Mother. And if you notice her hand always pointing, Mary is such a direct link to Jesus. Her whole life pointing, you say Mary, she says Jesus. And Mother then is on September the 5th. She was beatified by John Paul II, 2002. And I was there, and when her picture went up as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and John Paul, that's the day I consecrated myself to Our Lady. All her life Mother Teresa had said, you should consecrate yourself to Mary. Oh, Mother, I have the Sacred Heart. That's where she was pointing. She wanted me to be with the Sacred Heart. No, but the best way to do it is through her. Oh, no, thank you very much. But the Pope, he told us to us, no, no. So I resisted. But when I saw those two up there, the aging, elder John Paul II, such a powerful, powerful instrument of God. And this little less than five foot woman, such a powerful instrument. I thought, what do you need to follow that? So that's the day I consecrated myself to Mary. And here she is. They really captured her look. And it was on the second missalette that we had on the following day on September the 5th, which is her feast day. So on the 4th, we had the canonization mass. The incident that was most, I sat with a couple of sisters on the way home in the airport. And one of them said it was such a powerful experience, but I have to say I couldn't get by the heat. I just couldn't get by the heat. It was 98 degrees. It was hot and a beating, beating heat down on the whole place. All I could recall during the mass with that intense heat was the time when I was at the chapter meeting in Calcutta, where it was 100 degrees heat and 100 percent humidity. And it was so stifling. And Mother would not allow a fan. They were begging her, let us get a fan. No, we have to live like the poor. What is the authenticity of our sacrifice? If we could have a fan? No. And we need a microphone. We can't hear. No. But get one for Monseigneur. So I had a microphone for the presentations and I had a fan when I was giving my presentations. She turned it off for the whole community. And I'll never forget this nun who was at that celebration. With this intense heat, every time there was the slightest breeze, she just thanked God for the breeze. She was an American nun and she was communicating to me how we are not used to that Indian heat nor the humidity. And I noticed that at the mass, her massive canonization. But everyone had to wait for that slight breeze. And that I was so aware of that every once in a while, when you thought you were going to pass out, there was a breeze. Everyone was reminded, though, of just how poor we are and how lacking in control of the events of life. And that total dependence. So she gave us all a marvelous lesson. And anyone who had been there, if they were there, including the Pope, that intense heat was down on a million people who were there. And everyone came through that and endured it. So Mother Teresa was very active during that canonization. It streamlined it, so it made it very simple, which is really what I think she wanted. Don't have the focus on me. But as the mass itself, the focus was all on God. It was the glory and the praise and the honor of God. Thank you, Lord, for the slightest breeze. Thank you, Lord, for just being here. And I found myself thanking God. And I was there. The other thing I noticed in her gathering us, there was a multiracial, the whites were far outnumbered at this mass. Not only because of the Indian priests, the African priests, the Asian priests, the Koreans, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, South Africa, and all of the world was really... ...that we are just one family. And the main, I think, lesson that I learned is dependence on God and that we are all very, very poor and the poorest of the poor. The opening day, the day before we got there, the Missionaries of Charity had in the Olympic Stadium, which they were able to get, a thousand of the poorest of the poor from their houses in Rome that they served the poor. They invited them all to come and have a feast. And they actually had this huge feast and banquet for the poorest of the poor because this was what it was all about. If Mother was going to have the celebration, the first ones to have the feast was the poorest of the poor, and she invited them to the table. And all of them were invited to come to the celebration, so they all had tickets to the event. You could see different ones as they were coming were obviously the poorest of the poor, meeting all of us, the poorest of the poor who were coming. So the universality and multiracial was what I felt was very outstanding for me on the day. Sounds a lot like Pentecost. Yeah, and the language just didn't seem to, it was like both hearing confessions and the celebration itself. And of course we had the Latin and all of us joined in were able to participate with the Latin and the singing. And again that language, that unity of our worshipping and glorifying God in that mass. Some lady was wheeling us onto the plane when we were at the Newark Airport, and she was a young girl, a young black girl, and I said we were going to be going to Mother Teresa's canonization. Well she had never heard of Mother Teresa, she was 20 years old. Oh, she said, what are you going to have, a party? I said yeah, and what is the mass but a party that God wanted? So he gets this heavenly banquet together, and that's why I was so happy when you see all these priests going out and bringing the Eucharist to every single one that was there. That was the day celebration, and I think there was a big difference then with the celebration on the 5th. And again, we can't celebrate it, but it was much more intimate. Maybe there must have been, maybe 300 ,000 there. How do you get just intimate? So there was this smaller crowd, and the priests and the participation was still so joyous and so beautiful. The day there was a cloud coverage, so that the heat wasn't as intense, so it was cooler, it was more refreshing, it was more relaxed. And at the end, one of the priests stood up, the sisters came in. The greatest gift I always felt that Mother has given us is her community. And these sisters coming in from all over the world were certainly well represented there, and lines and lines of missionaries of charity coming in. There were also the brothers, and there were also the missionaries of charity fathers. And one of the fathers got up at the end and he said, Today is a day of thanksgiving, and we are just so filled with thankfulness that God has recognized our foundress as a saint, and that we are able to participate in this canonization. And we rejoice, and you can just see St. Teresa of Calcutta in heaven with all the poorest of the poor, and us, poorest of the poor, having experienced being touched by her. And we are now celebrating, because she has touched our lives. And she always said, Unless you have experienced the thirst God has for you as the poorest of the poor, you'll never be able to know the thirst he has for the poorest of the poor. So that having had that experience of that love that God has for me through her, that that tasting of that is an enduring bond that you experience, and it just endures in it, it lasts. The love of God is enduring. The love that Mother Teresa gave, that touch that tapped that girl on the head when she was 16, that love lasts. It's an everlasting love. It's tasting the divine love. And it's the thirst that God has for us as people, so that when we pass that on, and if we were a million there, and the millions and millions that saw it on television are able to receive it and to pass it on, it was a great joy in heaven, and a great celebration on earth, and it was time for a party. The possibility of someone coming into a crowd like that and throwing some bombs, it was like the furthest thought, I believe, that peace and love is contagious. It has a power that's overcoming hatred and violence, and the way to bring this about is through that divine love. This is the force and the power that I believe is really necessary in the world today. So it was a great experience. You know, it's really striking, Monsignor, that the endurance of those who came, those who had to endure suffering during the celebration, because I watched it all cozy on my couch at 3 in the morning, back here in Omaha with my puppy and my coffee, and that was really nice, but you could see how hot it was. You could just see how people were just baking under the sun, and yet that enduring that suffering is essentially a message of her life. For all weekend, the build -up was not just on EWTN and other Catholic outlets, but it was on secular news broadcasts, CNN, Fox, all of these different news outlets were covering this great gathering. And so as you're watching these people, literally suffering with joy through the mass, it was almost like a major witness. And there's something really unique when that happens, isn't there, Monsignor, that if you can endure it, if you can enter into it like she did, there's grace somehow, even for the participants. I know you're just a couple days out of this, but for you, I mean, can you describe that now? It intensifies your interior self. You become very aware that I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able, and that's the word, endure this, whatever that be, this stress, this heat, this cross, however you want to call it. Each one has to go in there because that's where you're drawn to, and that is the center of the inner self. And that's where your dependency comes, and that's where you experience the God on whom you have to depend. So what gives you the endurance is the dependence. It stays, and it remains, and it burns, and whatever it is, you cannot last through it, and it just keeps coming on in a way, just when you think, it's going to let up. No. And then it comes just at the right time, a kind of a breeze, where it comes from, and the refreshment. And then you're drawing something in from this power, and I would call it the spirit. The spirit is now bringing you into the inner rest that's going on, is only had by those who are willing to endure. I don't know how others would describe that, but that's how I was experiencing it. As you were speaking about that, that endurance, I think that's the suffering of love, isn't it? I mean, at its very, very heart. And I know that's one of the, you had spoken so poignantly that for many who heard your reflection prior to leaving, and you were seeking a particular grace, that entering into the Immaculate Heart of Mary, even more deeply into the Sacred Heart, and I don't want to put more words on it than what you were hoping for, because sometimes even the grace we think we're going for is smaller than the one that God wants to give us. So how would you describe your experience for those who have been eagerly waiting? Well, did it happen for them? Did you receive what you were hoping for? More, more than I ever had anticipated. That which I wanted, I received, but much more abundantly. There was more. It's so difficult to describe, because you have to use the same words. But the words don't carry the meaning that the inner self has that you want to convey. That life in the inner self, that enduring bond of love. Like, excuse me, you're supposed to look ragged and tired and beleaguered for an 88 -year -old man who, you know, has traveled around the world, and I have not seen you look so buoyant and glowing and energized. I mean, this is just, it's a joy to behold you. Yeah, yeah. And I feel that way. I feel my cup runneth over. You know, they use that expression, but it's just like brimming over, full and I. I just don't know how else to express it. So if you see it, that's wonderful. And if you hear it, that's wonderful. But I'm experiencing it. And so whatever I wanted out of this, I received with a hundredfold. You're like a beautiful monstrance right now that's sitting on top of an altar with a whole bunch of light shining. And I know you're just a vessel. You're just a monstrance. But what's making everybody, it's just breathtaking is how Christ is radiating out of you right now. What I was experiencing was that inner heart of Mary. And what's the inner heart of Mary? Completely empty. Completely empty. So that every single moment you can receive whatever that is that's coming. I think that's really what I'm experiencing. The emptiness of Mary's heart. So that she has none of her own cares, but those of everyone around her. You know, everyone was caring. I felt being cared for. But it was like the kind of being cared for so that I too could experience how to care for others. Well now you got me crying. Oh my gosh. Now I'm a big weepy mess. Well Monsignor, you know, I usually ask you if you have a final thought, but I just can't even believe that there could be a finality to this experience. What are you feeling right now in this moment? The thing that I'm really kind of filled with is Mary's spirit. It's always crying out. Magnificat. Magnificat. Have a beautiful, beautiful day. Along with hundreds of other spiritual formation programs, visit discerning hearts .com. Or you can find it within the free discerning hearts app. 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 rock solid and authentic spiritual formation freely to souls around the world. And if you feel us worthy, 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 .com and join us next time for building a kingdom of love reflections with Monsignor John.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from BTP-WP6 Chapter 19: The Thirst of the Soul The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila Beginning to Pray w/Dr. Anthony Lilles
"Anthony, the importance that Teresa would bring forward in the way of perfection over and over again for her sisters is don't rush things. If you see it happening for someone else, don't envy that or try, say, why not me? Be happy, whatever that experience is for that sister. Be glad. But don't try to claim that or grab that for yourself. That's a trap that we can fall into rather easily, isn't it? Or we could try to do things or do techniques to try to make things happen. Yeah, I think both of those realities become things we contend with in our prayer is it's petty, but we can be jealous that somebody's growing and we don't seem to be. And we can be jealous over the favors shown them. And there's a way in which that jealousy can even serve us a little bit. Like in other words, it can help wake us up out of our laziness. So it's not all bad. At the same time, though, when you notice that it's become envy, envy is where you grieve your sorry, you feel great sorrow over the fact that somebody else has been favored and you even feel the movement to want to take that favor away or wish they didn't have that favor that it would make you happy if they didn't have that favor. Well, that's just wicked, you know, that silliness and of course that that doesn't help us. Instead, when we see the good thing that God is doing in other people, I think it's OK to desire it and say, Lord, could you do that? Me too. You know, and it's good to when you see something good going on in somebody else's heart to go to them and ask, you know, how was it the Lord came to favor you this way? What was in to learn their story? Saint Anthony of the Desert used to always say and when he was a young man, he used to go from one ascetic to the other and learn their virtues. And he was pleasing and kind to all. They they repeat that a couple of times. Well, that's a good model for all of us. In a way, that's what Teresa of Avila herself did after her conversion. She sought out all kinds of holy people. She discovered John of the Cross. John of the Cross was thinking about becoming a Carthusian. And she intercepted him and said, don't become a Carthusian. We need you in the Carmelite reform. She sought the counsel of John of Avila. We've already talked about how she sought the counsel of of Francis Borgia. She sought the counsel of Peter of Alcantara. She was making connections. And then she read the great spiritual writers of her time, like Father Louis of Granada and and others. As she did this, as she got more and more connected and she learned the virtues of others, she didn't view herself in competition with them. She viewed herself as learning from them. And as she learned from them and appropriated their ideas, their ideas helped her to grow into deeper intimacy with the Lord. And so that so the idea of being becoming envious over what's going on in the heart of another, what the Lord would rather desire us do is to see the good, good that is there and to desire that good and to ask the Lord how we can appropriate that good in our lives. And as we do that, what we discover is this holy friendship that she's written about. These spiritual friendships begin to pop up. My own spiritual director calls it the Web of Grace.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from BTP-WP5 The Living Water & Nature of Mystical Prayer The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila Beginning to Pray with Dr. Anthony Lilles
"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.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Msgr. John Esseff 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. Discerninghearts .com presents Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. Monsignor Essif is a priest of the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He has served as a retreat director and confessor to Saint Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Monsignor Essif encountered Saint Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical Missions, a Catholic organization established by Pope Saint John Paul II, to bring the good news to the world, especially to the poor. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters, seminarians and other religious leaders. Building a Kingdom of Love, Reflections with Monsignor John Essif. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Wasn't expecting this kind person there. And as he's going around, he knew his life and death and resurrection had brought the salvation of many. But these were really kind of the outcast type, you know, bowery type and not the type you'd really expect around heaven. So he went up to Peter and he said, Didn't I give you the keys of the kingdom? Are you really keeping close guard on the door? You have the keys. What's happening here? Well, Lord, you can't blame me. He said, Well, why? What do you mean? I can't blame you. You have the keys. Look, Lord, I tell these people, you can't get in here. I've got the keys. And you know what happens? Your mother opens the window. Queen of Heaven, what a mother. And that's a beautiful story, I think, of Mary, her love for everyone. Every human person. When Jesus turned to her at the cross and said, Behold your son, that Mary in that intimate personal love for every human being. And it's really she has such a, such a tendency and desire to reach out to every child in the world. When she came to Guadalupe, she came to a simple peasant, Juan Diego. And her message was so simple to Juan Diego, the message of Guadalupe. Don't you know I'm your mother? Whatever it is that you need, come to me. That magnificent motherly love, Mary, the Queen of Earth, Mary, the Queen of Heaven, no majesty sitting on a royal throne with a diadem kind of queenship. But the humble servant of Nazareth, the loving, tender mother, Mary, her queenship is her immaculate heart. Her queenship is her universal motherhood, her love for everyone that she is the queen of. And also the Queen of the Angels, when Gabriel came to her, recognizing the message that he was bringing from God Almighty Father, will you be the mother of my son? Her queenship flows from her divine maternity. She is the mother of God.
Workplace Perspective
"teresa" Discussed on Workplace Perspective
"For people when it comes to socializing is, of course, introducing yourself, the self introduction. So we've talked a little bit about what are you going to talk about when you get there, but now let's talk about actually getting into that conversation, how are you going to do that? Approaching and meeting and talking to strangers or really all common occurrences that are just seemingly designed to strike fear in the heart of anyone who is the least bit socially trepidatious. But keep in mind that most all social business events are structured as meet and greets. So people are expecting to have someone multiple someone's come up and introduce themselves. So half the battle is already won. You're already there. I get asked a lot about the best way to approach an individual or a group of people in a situation where you don't know anyone, my advice, look around the room and find someone who looks approachable. Either someone standing by themselves or someone who's in a group or happens to catch your eye, make your approach with confidence, look at the person that you intend to approach, whether they're alone or in a group, smile, nod. If necessary, wait for breaking the conversation and then say, hello. Extend your hand, say your name slowly and clearly, and then listen carefully as the person gives you their name in return, and you are done. You are now ready to amaze and impress everyone. We've seemingly endless supply of small talk and your wide array of small talk topics. I do want to say one thing, this part about saying your name slowly really bears repeating when we are anxious or nervous or just excited. We tend to rush our words. I always know I need to take a breath and slow down. When I introduce myself as Theresa McQueen and the other person says, Tracy, so great to meet you. Clearly, I have muddled my name and they didn't hear me say Teresa properly. And since you want people to remember your name, it's really important that they hear it clearly. All right, now what happens
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"teresa" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"Saint Teresa of Avalon, spiritual warfare in the progress of the soul, with Dan Burke. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Dan, thank you so much again for joining us and helping us to appreciate that practical, wonderful wisdom of the greatest Mother Teresa. I have to say, the mystical doctor of the church, saint Teresa of agua, thank you. Yeah, well, I'll be praise. Thanks for the opportunity. It's a gift to speak about her and to help people to know her better because she's such an amazing guide to what it means to follow Jesus. It's an honor. I have spoken to so many people that have come to know her by reading her wonderful works for the autobiography, which is so earthy, so lovely. I encourage people to go back as I'm sure you would just let her talk to you. And also a way of perfection, but many have come to know her through the interior castle, and in some ways, I think souls can become confused, possibly because of the what they think their experiences are. And once you begin to enter into that fourth mansion, Theresa, am I mistaken Dan? She's trying to get you to put your feet back on the ground and to open up your eyes. Yeah, I mean, it's a place of danger relative to discernment regarding goods and discernment regarding so good movements of the soul, good desires. The enemy shifts this tactics, right? Because now, in this realm, whereas in the early purgative way, first mansions are even before he can, if you struggle with lust, you know, you can trap you with porn or whatever. Anyone who's in this place is just not going to fall to that very easily, if at all, but instead what we'll fall to is assessing ourselves as more advanced than we really are, lowering our guard because you know somebody might think what's not humbled to say, well, I'm in the illuminative way. And maybe you shouldn't say it, sure. But you do know if you study in the mystics, what the characteristics are and what the telltale signs are. You do know, for instance, whether or not you keep going to confession for the same reason every week. The subjectively true or not true. And if you study good moral theology and you're reading the catechism and availing yourself of good examinations of conscience, which people in this realm do, you're not going to be self diluted about the objective reality that you're not confessing mortal sins anymore. And you're not even investing necessarily convenience in habitually. So objectively, we can be aware that we are in this state or beyond, but we can fall short, we can be deceived into complacency and also pride over that sort of thing. Oh, and the thing is, I know I've been seduced into that. I remember when I first read this years ago that, of course, I thought I immediately while I'm in the 5th mansion, obviously. Oh, you know, by the way. And I realized now several decades later, if I'm out of the second mansion, may God be praised for his kindness to me, but reality, I'd be the fourth mansion, as you said, are those people who are really striving and they really do love lord and they really take prayer very seriously and they begin to experience some things. Yeah. And it's not even so much. When you say pride, it's one where it's a temptation for those of us who are desired to do good. It's probably the most seductive, isn't it? Yeah. Because you long for the lord and you long for all the good, and then you see deficiencies around you and boy is it easy to judge yourself as glorious when you're compared to a pile of rubble or whatever. But in the way to avoid it, of course, is that we don't compare ourselves to others because the definition of humility that I like best is an accurate assessment of who we are, but that can't come without being in the context of God in the context of Jesus himself in his humanity is the best frame of reference. So the question is, how much am I like Jesus, not how much better am I than my neighbor or than other pious people I know who don't quite do the pious things I do. I'm saying I'm sort of mocking in a way. We desire the good lung for the good. We see the good. We know the bad and then we start to compare. And boy, it's so dangerous. You can go backwards in the mail. You can leave for a 5th mansion and go back to lower mansions, which means you're subjecting yourself more to the demonic forces who are stronger there. But she she's pretty vehement and her admonitions be careful. Make sure you're assessing your progress based on love, you know, is the measure really. But then how does love, what does it look like in a biblical sense? In a Catholic sense, how does it manifest and you have to know that? You mentioned, you said, you know, I thought I was in the 5th mention. And I did too. When I first read it because I was basing my assessment on experience, which were mere extensions of God's mercy when I was very new beginner beginner, and he was trying to encourage me, which I'm sure he was you too, because you were striving, I have no doubt at that time you were striving, otherwise you wouldn't have experienced anything, of course. That encouraging. But similarly, later on, we have to be careful that we assess our progress based on his standards, not ours. Don't you love it in the beginning of chapter four or I can't say chapter four in the mansions. I mean, she talks about the fourth mansion. Yeah. But in the fourth mansion, she will say, it would be kind of nice if those little creatures, those little things were coming in and maybe nipping at you a little bit. So that you would stay awake. And that you would be tempted in those old ways, just so you would stay alert. And I think that's so interesting, isn't it? Yes. Of course, the demons were angels where they still are corrupted angels, whose primary task is to help us to heaven. He makes them do it anyway. So one group, the ones in heaven get to do it according to their yes. And he forces the ones who said, no, non Serbia to serve anyway, which is part of their punishment. But in this way, he will allow them to nip at us as you noted. I think it's a word to use. And the analogy I use in the book is it's sort of like you're driving down the freeway. You get in this stupor. Your eyes are open, but you're sort of the buzz of the highway. It is a kind of sleep actually in a medical in a true medical psychological sense. It is a stage of sleep, but your eyes are still open. But then somebody slams on the brakes in front of you. And you're adrenaline just goes through the roof and of course you hit your own brakes and hope the guy behind you wasn't
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"teresa" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"So much is because he is, he's probably in our time at Claire dwyer is up there too. But capable of writing in a way that reveals the beauty like nobody else. And that's, I think, deeply compelling to a soul. Yes, we need to be say, this is sin, this is bad. Yes, there's a hell, but wow. The opposite is glorious. And worth giving your entire life for. Yeah, and she will Teresa Avalon. She will tell us in the very beginning, start with yourself. Yeah. I mean, you did that at the beginning of this conversation. I talked about how you needed to be transformed and begins with you first. Look, clean that out. And she even tells you, don't bother looking at other people on the other boat. Focus on your own. And you know, your Benedict and oblate if I remember right, right? That's right. Well, so your man, saint Benedict, in the rule, talks about the devil's zealots, and he's talking about the same thing that the saint Teresa talks about, which are people who get on fire, but then the enemy is really good at judo. And the martial art of judo is primarily the use of the momentum of the other against them. And so you're running up the narrow way, you become aware of your sin, which is very powerful and he quickly goes and look at her and look at him. He's taking that momentum to get you to flip you off the narrow way or turn you back around. And that's one of the key tactics in the early mansions that she reveals is very common and saint Benedict reveals that we need to fight against. We need to see it and go, okay, nope, not, you know, John of the cross is so adamant in his precautions for religious, he says, do not, for any reason, make anyone else's business your own in the monastery. Deal with your stuff, you be obedient. You be holy, and don't do not look at doesn't mean he meant to hide. But he's talking about just the normal daily life of looking at someone and why is their habit wrinkled? Why are they praying like that? That's not according to the rule that that's the superior's job, not yours. You be holy, you focus. And Jesus said it too. You strived, right? You focus on you. You know, again, I'm so grateful for the time we've had, even in this portion of our conversation, Dan, to begin to understand the beauty of this wonderful castle, this journey. And to see the gift that Theresa Avila in helping us to acknowledge, to understand what can lead us astray and that there is a very real enemy. She knows that because our lord said that that was true. Right. She's not just saying it because it's hyper medieval verbiage. She's saying it because the scriptures. And he taught it himself. And so she knows it's important for us to understand, right? That's right. Yeah, the devil is not a psychological construct as one very popular Catholic writer claims. Jesus wasn't psychologizing on the mount of temptation. I was just there in Israel outside of Jericho on that same mountain where orthodox monasteries built. He actually met the devil or Jesus is a kook or a liar or a deceiver. And he's none of those, of course. What he says is true when he said he was tempted the way he was tempted as true. When he saw it, the enemy and other people in cast somehow he actually did cast them out. And of course, say Teresa believed that with every ounce of her being and my desire to do the same. Well, again, I'm grateful for this conversation. I'm looking forward to future ones. Any final thoughts, Dan? Other than to tell everyone you really should support what Chris is doing. It's very unique. It's different than what we do over at spiritual direction dot com, very complimentary. But I think Chris has a unique talent for finding great folks like father Timothy Gallagher and doctor Anthony lillis, and really bringing out a great interview. I mean, just support discerning hearts. I think it's a vital and important ministry in the church and this time. Well, ditto. I think what we do, and everything that you're doing, I'm just so excited to explore it more. Not only the books, not only devil and the interior castle. But let's talk about what other endeavors that the avalanche to just doing and kind of explore that and talk about that retreat center that you are oh gosh. Working on so hard. So we'll talk about that too in the future too and break it all open. Very good. Thank you so much and give to your beloved. Stephanie, who is a great companion with you on the journey, all of our best. I will. Well, thank you so much. You've been listening to saint Teresa of Avila, spiritual warfare, and the progress of the soul with Dan Burke. To hear and or to download this conversation along with hundreds of other spiritual formation programs, visit discerning hearts dot com, or you can find it within the free discerning hearts app. Also, you can view the video of our conversation by visiting the discerning hearts YouTube channel. 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 find us 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 saint Teresa of Avila, spiritual warfare and the progress of the soul with Dan Burke.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"teresa" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"Every time there was the slightest breeze. She just thank God for the breeze. And she was an American nun and she was communicating to me how we are not used to that Indian heat nor the humidity, and I noticed that at the mass. Her massive canonization, but every one had to wait for that slight grease, and that I was so aware of that every once in a while when you thought you were going to pass out, it was a breeze. Everyone was reminded though of just how poor we are and how lacking in control of the events of life. And that total dependence, so she gave us all a marvelous lesson, and anyone who had been there if they were there, including the Pope, that intense heat was down on a million people. Who were there, and every one came true that and endured it. So Mother Teresa was very active during that canonization. It's streamlined it, so it made it very simple, which is really what I think she wanted. Don't have the focus on me, what has the mass itself, the focus was all on God. It was the glory and the praise and the honor of God. Thank you, lord, for the slightest breeze. Thank you, lord. For just being here, and I found myself thanking God. And I was there the other thing I noticed in her gathering us, there was a multi racial the whites were far outnumbered at this mass. Not only because of the Indian priests, the African priests, the Asian priests, the Koreans, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, South Africa, and all of the world was really, she was such a mother
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"teresa" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"He was there, and again, the love, it was their in Beirut that I met the sisters. It was there that I met Mother Teresa. So we just kind of laughed as too old men, he was an aging, just with that they kind of wanted to get out of Beirut to bring him home to their northeastern province in New York, but he stayed there. He remained there. I think he's from Hartford, Connecticut. And we just chatted while all of the sisters that we had known through the years. Pouring out at the end of the celebration there. And I just saw a sister joy and all the sisters that I had known through the years, missionaries, charity, and then as we hopped on a subway and came home, and I got home, maybe around midnight. That was our first day. And so it was a beautiful time on the third day with their September the third. And more confessions and saint Mary major was, again, a beautiful church. And confessions, and then the fourth day was a canonization. And mother has always just loved our lady. On the cover of the concelebrated mass was our blessed mother. And if you notice her hand, always pointing, neary is such a direct link to Jesus. Her whole life pointing you say Mary, she says, Jesus. And mother, then, is on September 5th. She was beatified by John Paul the second, 2002, and I was there. And when her picture went up as blessed Teresa of Calcutta and John Paul, that's the day I consecrated myself to our lady. All her life, mother tree said, you should consecrate yourself to Mary. Oh, mother, I have the sacred heart. That's where she was pointing.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"teresa" Discussed on Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
"A novena to saint Teresa of Calcutta. Day night. Holiness is Jesus living, an acting in me. Dear Mother Teresa, saint Teresa of Calcutta, you have said. Charity for each other is the surest way to great holiness. Ask for the grace. To become a saint. Saint Teresa of Calcutta. You allowed the thirsting love of Jesus on the cross to become a living flame within you. And so became the light of his love to all. Please obtain from the heart of Jesus, the request I placed before you. Teach me to allow Jesus to penetrate a possess my whole being so completely that my life to May radiate his light and love to others. Immaculate heart of Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us. Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Pray for us. Amen.
The Self Love Yogi Podcast
"teresa" Discussed on The Self Love Yogi Podcast
"Teresa is a certified personal trainer. She's got multiple certifications some in nutrition. Some specifically in women's strength training and we had a very beautiful illuminating conversation about how to love yourself while you're on a fitness journey. In my opinion and in my experience, at least with my fitness journey, it was so aesthetically focused. We get so focused on looking a certain way doing a certain thing to push to a certain result. We tend to overlook our mental health and our self love along the way. And so Theresa and I talked about different ways that you can love yourself while you're on a fitness journey, different ways to start a fitness journey if it's new to you and just really it's a beautiful pillar of self love because taking care of our health is important, but we want to do it from a place of self love and mental clarity and mental health. And so I really, really liked this conversation and I really liked Teresa. So I hope you love this as much as I did without further ado, let's dive right into the episode. Hi, Teresa. Welcome to the podcast. It's so nice to have you here..
Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"teresa" Discussed on Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"I'd rather have a patient come in. That's loyal like you've been saying and is gonna put down the credit card and get paid or you know pay online. My favorite is texting them. Something and seeing them pay right away. That's pretty awesome. So yes i know you have the portable because you have to accept payment all of that but do you guys go into patient payments or anything like that is at a direction so of our practices will give them versatility to sign up on their website so the patients can just visit the website and sign up but We are getting ready to release in early august attacks features while we should make everything much easier for those people that have outstanding claims are outstanding bills with their patients. And telling you text to pay is perfect for somebody like me. Who doesn't i mean. If i get something i'll verify the balance and then boom it's done i want to get it off my play and i'll tell you my vet might fat. I have such issues with my vet right. Now they're great but you know. I take the dog in and they still don't become the office right after outside so they call me over the results of the visit and everything and then i'm gonna take she linked to pay. And then when i get that we'll let you know when ody's ready so you're holding my dog until i pay the bill i mean that's kind of the underlying tone but guess what i wanna see my dogs. I'm gonna pay the bell and you kind of expected anyways actually. There's a consumer behavior. They're i know every time. I go to my bet. It's gonna be like two hundred dollars at least you know whatever i mean. We just walk in the doors. Two hundred dollars. So i kind of expect that i guess with membership plans. They know that they have this money that they're paying. They expect value from it so the tier point. They're going to want to use their benefits. They're going to want to get their money's worth and i think that's a big consumer behavior. We have to pay attention to count ability transparency. You mentioned at the transparency piece. I think that's huge. But that's like the term why they're not coming in. I personally thought when we were going through the case studies focus groups where we were actually asking patients. I thought for sure it was going to be that there was just fear of dentistry. They're afraid of the drill or the needle. Whatever and one one to basically seventy percent and sixty nine percent of the asians in the respondents said that a the number one reason is price and be the number. Two reason is they feel like they're an outlier not having any any insurance interesting so they don't wanna feel like they're the oddball out when they walk in exactly..
Marketing Today with Alan Hart
"teresa" Discussed on Marketing Today with Alan Hart
"To my lobby at my building but the important thing and this is that. How do you do that. And men thain this same consistency in quality regardless where the food is being picked up delivered. So think about franchise want those french fries from tunnels nice and crispy so you want to get the same crispy. French fries at the same temperature for the same amount of time regardless of the location now this requires integration from the front end to the back end envy. Thinking did the process along the customer experience journey. So that's an example where we're talking about the transformation that you are is driven to improve the customer experience to bring more value to the customer and frankly to make fast food even faster. Think that examples really key because it's your point. No one wants soggy french fries. That's that's that's a challenge nonetheless to try to figure out how to make that. Were one of my favorite meals fruits. Yes love steak. Free in this pandemic. i living toronto and toronto. We had extended lockdowns. Matter of fact we just started the reopening last friday we still phase one of the reopening. We really behind many other cities in west and so obviously all. The restaurants were closed right. They just not reopened the patios to get steak frites delivered. It's hard too because like you said by the time they get your house. Those french fries. Not face the same and your steak and you don't want a warm up your state lasting to do is take Loonier state so it's it's difficult right right. Managing that process. That's what really right that requires the company to we. Think when you cook ario cook. What is the right timing right. So if like with mcdonnell's ethnic sampled the franchise if i'm picking up the the franchise at the drive to. I'd have to know knowing. When am i there in my approaching far away from the drive to soy stock in the french fries right. I always ask this. The last question asked most people come on the show. And i think you're in a unique vantage point with both what you do in the business and driving transformation but just as a marketer having been a couple different types of businesses in the past and as a cmo but curious how you think about either the largest opportunity or the biggest threat that's facing marketers today first of all. I think it's a great time to be in marketing. Perhaps this is the best time and the reason so because we have more marketing so much over the last decades today marketing is not just about telling a story or manage the brand it is not about transforming the business and if you think the back into the nineties when i started doing marketing marketing used to be like an assembly line. Very process oriented. Think about like that was the campaign mindset there. We put a lot of campaigns to market. We push these paints to mark was a very much push up approach in was like an assembly line. Because was like you know you uber. From he he had to hear in any push. The campaign knew will through the whole process again and then with the rise of digital and proliferation of channels and with that it marketing has become more like a trading room floor where decisions get made in real time and using real time data and that's been great for marketing because now they can make those decisions raced earning tuition but based on real data and they can be more agile making those decisions. So that's been grading a lotta marketing teams and companies are still in. the nineties. Still haven't moved to that. But i think the next phase of marketing. Which is now were were going. It's going to become more. Like what i call a lab where everything is much more experimental and were keep adding in changing the formula. He felt like think of chemistry lab. We going to be more experimenting in adding different chemicals and creating different things in real time. And i think this presents a phenomenal From marketeers that not wants to be the custodians of the brand to help them reinvent the company in the business and this goes back to talk about in the beginning about product avenue product marketing versus service marketing at marketing product and marketing. A service. And would i think a lot of this now need to i tell my team december day. Actually i tell them the things they should learn and are to do east ohio to embrace a strategic mindset. A doing that in some ways is embracing like a product mindset not a product mindset. Let me just explain not had a push a product market but out the build one as think about a software product. The process of software product development is. Iterative it's also in. it's constantly evolving. Think about the products. We like your iphone. You get new versions new updates. Every year and the product keeps evolving keeps. But never finished. So you about this idea right where you live in a constant state of beta so your campaign is never finished. It's constantly evolving. So that one area. I tell conflict to say think adding that sort of that mindset their way of thinking how we develop software products and bring that into your work right now sometimes this for a designer think about it. It's very challenging and daunting to say. We can't just put a design off the world. It's not dinner. They spent so much time. Thinking about my ad is not finished because you can continue. Put it out there. You see how people engage with it and you get feedback and you continue to add it. Her suspended so much. Sign on something to make a perfect that in my only last a couple of minutes in the market. So that's why. I use this concept of a lab. It's very experimental. And i think this is a fantastic opportunity. So for market for any one today wants to go into marketing. A really believe at least never been agree time now. The marketing also for people do not embrace sort of new way of thinking and if your marketing as cmo today your job can just be to manage. The brand you have to think about yourself is working across the company important skill. The marketeers need to develop you become like chief who operate it. Officer you gotta bring all the other functions together and that is why i think is going to be the biggest opportunity anything for. Cmo's where you're going to see the role becomes way more. Strategic hundred percent agree with you. And i i like the vision in the evolution that you laid out to you and this notion of a lab. I think it's point in the chief. Collaboration officer for sure. It's a theme that pull out across a number of podcast interview episodes As well especially those are doing it well teresa. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Sharing your story and your insights. It's been fantastic. Thank for having me.
The My Future Business™ Show
"teresa" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"Boy. That's wonderful i wonder. Do you have like a split between the genders momo fame. Oh what's have more female be honest but i have more males on hair he So platelet rich plasma here grow so that that's interesting and then we have a lot of males. You are lied. Rotator cuff problems giants right. They don't do as many cosmetic Procedures women. I mean to my high school reunion okay. The women look a whole lot better than work here. You say though. I'm saying shift. I know that a lot of my friends are looking out for themselves to do different treatments sing. A guess an uptick in my take for services I don't know warning. come to. They need it is an opportunity if anybody's on the codes in your mind you wider navy and definitely you need to reach out to theresa now win. Importantly people are gonna wanna find you and they're gonna wanna know in your local area. The process way online. Today find you. What are they gonna find when they get their teams of application so it is See the letter. C. a. n. d. and the letter z as my husband's last name is cashing and i've always gone by cody. So we're seeing see dental and we're seeing wellness dot com and The the present on the wellness side very easy. The number on my cell phone because i had twenty employees over at cnc dental. And if i can avoid it for a little while. I have any employees on. Cnc wellness except the nurse and the md. You know so when they call that number. That's me and i'll answer the phone. I'll talk to you And that's how you get a hold of us fantastic when people want to buy your book and is that something you would buy directly off fuel. Whipsawed have to go somewhere for that. They have the amazoncom like everybody else. that's fantastic. They seems to be brought future. Now my book. Is you healing you. Yes but in you healing. You biden knocked theresa cal. Eight bennigan's up herbertson now will be an explanation of all the different procedures when somebody gets to website. It just tastes kind of curious. Oh yeah we have a lot of asian on there but there's a lot of ever mentioned in the book. I wrote the book to make sure everybody can see that. I mean this there be it has been available so i'm talking to my neighbor who has three horses. And i say oh. Open this wellness center. And we're doing platelet rich plasma and she goes. Oh i know all about really. Oh yeah that's the first medicine. They offer horses of never nine. That's incredible the last fifteen years. Why haven't they been offering a two. Yeah we'll good things tight tom. I think there's a bit of a slowness involved in all of this bit theresa. I have to say. I've really really enjoyed the co. I know that there'd be a lot of people listening in today. Who are looking for to get in contact with you and as is normally the case. I'll be.
The My Future Business™ Show
"teresa" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"You know that story about being every close your fist in know that mobility so important we don't realize what we've got to we've got until it's gone and i wonder you talk about a number of different things in sergey book. I'm wondering if we can give an future business. Audience bit of overview what they might find in the book. Oh well what i've done is ten enlisted the story I wrote the story of how the entire business came about but It's also about the different things the different injuries that we've treated and and what we did to treat them like hair loss. Lie plantar fasciitis so we owe headed to literally every wood and you know Like joint problems and you know it truly is about the diagnose if you rent a ligament off of the bone you are. You need surgery if you've torn. Prp a that's it. That's the difference. So do you work in our guest in concert with. Gp's has has your relationship. How do you know that it's one of the other Well i have a nurse on staff. And i have a md on staff and No nobody works okay. One of the problems is in the. Us we live under a medical insurance system. And they don't wanna pay for be when they did orthopedic surgery. There was a lot of here that was done in the. Or and then all of a sudden they insurance anymore. But i don't even take insurance. I make it more relatively inexpensive and Really affordable for the patient to come in. Just take care of their problem. That's fantastic now. I then. I download where i pay a lot of people to keep up with general insurance. I don't wanna do that at cnc wellness. Yeah that makes that makes a whole he percents. And you know you can if you can bring that wellness to people who desperately needed..
The My Future Business™ Show
"teresa" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"I the book. Because i think that people deserve to know that they have the ability yield themselves within themselves is champion can can get. Is that why we when we cut ourselves is. That's what's healing us is our employment. That's it in knee and you're kid and you don't go home because why would you go home. You have your scale. So that plasma comes and forms the the stops bleeding ormes the clot now makes all the skin makes all the new blood vessels. You need any nerves. You need anything you name. It makes her and it's also of floors antimicrobial antiviral antifungal. So those those antibacterial creams that he buy. Yes non-necessary in there all you need to do is cleaner off off dirt sh water. You're good to go. Yeah wow that's been Kicking continue anything kills mersa. Which is that that resistant. A steph. Stephanie yes several caucus yet. I'm eddie even kills that old. That's incredible now. You must have done a lot of ground research once you got that aha moment. I'm wondering where was the genesis for the book. And how long did it take you to get I guess Across this topic properly Okay i don't know it's my favorite thing is biochemistry so i don't wanna be that nerd but i am so i can read a lot of and appreciate you know and then cove it ahead so for sure. I had time. I just decided to write a book. Because i ought people should now. That's really what i wanted. And i have read everything. I could read on platelet rates plaza so the latest thing. I figured out a plaza. Which is awesome is. There is an end tires. Serotonin system in the plasma and serotonin as a force that hormone. We all know that the feel good hormone wait. It's in the plasma. it makes at least fifteen serotonin receptors. That's amazing. Oh so that's why the patients who come in having jack shen they might feel a little more inflammation and pain and then all of a sudden they not hurt at all. I think it's the serotonin that's what we need. We need a pain free. If you know it's all about the court of law and that's what you bringing to your clients actually that quality loss..
The My Future Business™ Show
"teresa" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"And i said tara you can only get three anyone area for life and she's a really and i said no coming to the office and try platelet rich plasma and she said okay over twenty years so We use lyric plasma in the dental office. All the time for thirty years for bone graft. But i didn't know really what it did anywhere else. And so she came into the office and we inject her hand and she said how long before you think. Let us see anything and i said i know next week. Well the next day she could she could make this my show you anymore no mess. She can get her fingers together the next day. She texted manner. Fingers were together and the next day she manifests. And that's what i went. Oh ma i i gotta figure out. This is yeah. That's action to Platelet rich plasma that pretty much haled's everything that's incredible you know it's funny how allied industry is not even an amyloid industry where you can get these new innovations that come through till a little bit more about what that actually is. Because i have no idea. Okay so what we do is we take you know a couple of tubes of one at a from you and we put it in a centrifuge and we. We spin it. And the red blood cells falls in the bottom of the two and the platelets and the plasma sit on top so then we pipe pat off. We take off the class mma and we re inject it into an area. That is a on then. We just watched the healing begin. The that sets just incredible. The something seems relatively simple. But you know you can look past this couldn't you if you don't know about you just simply would know would know. Better luck you mentioning. Well that's why. I wrote the book..
The My Future Business™ Show
"teresa" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"Oh that sounds wonderful me that took living experience in those formative yeast rice. Oh wondering you had a lot of influential people that helped shape you to become the person you are today. Noise like to talk about that a little bit. What's this somebody in your life. That helpful do today. You know. I had really good teachers. And i think the ad that companies like exxon paid for your tuition so you really had. You are paying college prices on talk like i didn't have any idea so you got the best teachers. So i remember one teacher mr mccarthy. He was the irish and he my sixth grade math teacher. And i i gotta tell you scared the boys you have to hang town their chess. You could do things you now if we can fast forward to today to right so i'm wondering do you. Do you like hobbies like entertainment. What you think. What do you do to relax. I i i like too many things. Ah i pay eat paint acrylic painting with and i. It's kind of silly people like them. But it's very silly. Am i like Quilting but it's not Quilting like you think it's not piecing together pieces it's called whole clock quilting and the entire cloth and you do the quilt so And i have chickens again. And i have a garden and so i love love love swimming in the summer. 'cause this is houston. Texans felt very hot absolutely wondered. Where did you get your inspiration for your artwork and we'll talk about work is abstract. What is now abstract. It's kind of silly like an ostrich or giraffe arm. Yeah so did you. Did you always have pets. Do you remember a phone pit when you growing up. Oh no yeah we always had. We had a very at that. Left me with not liking cats. so that's it's not fair because one name cat but we had a really great doll and my sister and i the day we figured out. The dog was a mall. Tabu all tease. It was a multiple so of course she very smart and so she was our favorite band. But yeah yeah. I've got a very special place hot for pets as do autism. In fact we're going to be two of them. You bet your sheep relation to the miracle of platelet rich plasma but before we jump into that part of the coal try. So i'd love to learn about tom seat. Industry whether or not where. The genesis foreseen see wellness. Canterbury in over. This must be so busy. Oh well cnc. Dental adds a full. A full functioning office does every card of dentistry and i bring in an oral surgeon to take out third molars and we have other specialists. Come in that do specialties. But i was trying to retire. Good and so. I in two thousand ten. We bought land and league built office than i built About four thousand extra square feet of office and two thousand of it was leased to a woman and then she decided not to re up. Hurley's and then i was like another space gone. Ohio and i tried for year. Lease it and then i realized okay. Maybe i can use it when i met. I was that my hairdresser. And she had had a steroid shot in her hand and she was saying how she's gonna get another one..
Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"teresa" Discussed on Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"To recommend that you get a raise. We're going to have to make sure that we are able to afford it. Raises are not given out until the first quarter of next year. But i want you to know that this review that we've had has been great and i am going to recommend that you get a raise. Do you have any input. I would then hope that you would give me a dollar amount or some preferences and this is when you would probably work really closely with your cpa on this to make sure that your overhead is not going to go through the roof. That's why we wait for the first quarter so the taxes are done and we can really take a look at profitability. So i'm going to slug in a few things. So i'm going to decide when i'm going to do reviews and you have a lot of employees right so say you want to start reviews in the summer you would maybe due to a weak. But you've got to make sure that you slugged those in. Go ahead and put those together and then what. I would do is three months before that see how the recurring notifications very helpful. What i would do is three months prior to that. I would make myself a note. Jeans reviews in three months. And then i would not go in there and leave myself some notes or check the managerial log. Which we'll talk about in a second. And i would be able to recall some instances that way when we go to the date of the actual view. I'm not just thinking back on you. Know how is performance. The you're only going to remember the most recent events. I mean unless you're keeping a real detailed log or you have some write ups that you've had to make you want to be as prepared for this review. You owe that to the employees right to be honest and comprehensive on your review. But you have to remind yourself to do that. That's part of the review dates. Now associate doctors. You may or may not be involved in that depending on your managerial level and whether or not the doctors comfortable with you doing that but if you're not this is where you want to put in reminders for your doctor or owner dr to be the one to make these decisions and gather their notes if you are involved in this or perhaps. You're the one doing this then. It's really no different than reviewing your notes for an employee annual review. Then you have to make sure that you blocked off some time for yourself to actually sit and do the reviews. Please don't wait until the day before the review to write up everything yo at tier employs to really be thorough so that you can give them good feedback and you can perhaps come up with some projects for them so that they have goals for the next review three weeks before their review. I give them a blank copy of their review. And i ask them to take a look at it and perhaps make notes or fill it out as they want to and if they want to give me a copy of that ahead of time that's great or they can bring it to the review so there's some back and forth. Perhaps i'm not remembering a big project that they worked on and i don't want them to remember that when they're driving home after the review i want them to think about it and come into the review you know if they really think they've done a good job. I want to hear that. Because if for some reason i missed that and i i don't acknowledge it. Then what are we going to have. We're going to have a resentful employees on our hands. So it's it's a win win to have both parties coming into this with all of their. I guess ammunition are all of their information. I also as part of review dates. I'm going to take a look at any contracts that i have with my associate docs and if you have long term contracts with employees that are not typical employee contracts. Perhaps you have a different type of contract for your hygienics but any of the the legal employment contracts that are not your standard. I'm gonna take a look at those two and that really is working with a lawyer to make sure that you're planning things out as an example. Some of your associate doctors come in with contracts that are a step contracts. Meaning step one. It's going to be this compensation step to based on goals. That'll be this compensation and so you'll just need to go down the road with that. Also my insurance contracts will need to be reviewed. You didn't think i was gonna forget about that. This is actually a yearly review. I take a look at the different contracts and make sure that i have everything i need that i'm not missing any clauses that they may have added. And that's again part of my advanced insurance trainings offer. But basically. I'm making sure that the contracts still work. I'm going to take a look at p. schedules have they not raised any time. I need to take a look at that. But i don't do it all at one time. Because that really gets very overwhelming. You'll want to choose one month per se delta one month for united concordia and go down the line and make that a recurring on a yearly basis. So that you can take a look at your participation with these plans not just Take a look at and go. Gosh they soccer. Oh this hasn't been so bad. I want you to really take a look at it. Meaning running your numbers and talking to your billing team and seeing if there's been any issues with that one other odd duty that i can throw in. There is meeting with your on boarded employees. Say you have a new employee that comes on board. I would go into the calendar and slug in you know. Usually we do ninety days for a temporary basis. I would at the thirty day. Mark forty five day mark sixty day mark scheduled check ins with sally and i would know that that means. I just need to find sally in the hallway or in the lounge and just say hey everything okay everything going alright you may already be the type of manager that does that but maybe you get busy or maybe you're not the type of manager that does that and so this is a good reminder. You want to lose somebody in the transitional period. However they need to go they need to go. But what i don't want is for somebody to make it through the transitional period and there were signs that they were terrible. And i just didn't get a chance to get around to it and now it's a lot harder to get rid of them and then the other parts that i would make sure are on these. Calendars is winner. The renewal dates for your licenses and your da. And i always do a month ahead so that. I make sure that it's all set. You'll also want to make sure that your credentialing for a year insurance contracts that that's a speech to and that's also something that you can utilize a service for there's ca. Qh it a lincoln the show for that or you could just pull out the old excel spreadsheet like many of us do and track it that way. That's the high level view of the managerial calendar. Now let's talk about this managerial log. Miami you log. It was a journal. It was a spiral notebook thinking back. It wasn't the most secure but you know it was near me all of the time so i'm pretty sure nobody knows stolen. Look through it today. I probably would make sure that it's an online document that's password protected and there's lots of ways to do that or it would be a notebook that was definitely in a locked drawer or kept with me at all times. It's another thing to have people know that you write down all your thoughts in this but if it's a notebook that's small enough and unfortunately we do have people who deal not just wallets but also important stuff like that. I would rather make sure that it's digital so that i can have. It backed up a couple different places making sure that it's accessible but also say that's my managerial log and really you look at this is. There's nothing seriously fancy. It's just a big document where you're writing down some reminders. They're not necessarily dues or anything that needs to be tracked using the calendar. But they're little things that you wanna work on. When i had my journal when you open up the front cover nothing was written on the inside of the cover except big tasks like i remember one year we plan to onboard and associate dentist. That was one of the big tasks the other side of that was. I wanted to overhaul the inventory for the second office that we had so those are my big goals and usually those were determined at the front of the year or if they were a big a project united stick them on there and the reason being is that every now and then i would flip back to that.
Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"teresa" Discussed on Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"What about patients who are angry so we have all had the patients that call on the phone and they're angry about maybe a bill or maybe they're in pain and they were told they weren't going to be paying whatever the scenario when a patient calls angry. Yes you have to deal with it immediately. But it's a problem because you're stuck. You're stuck what about times that you made a mistake and you had to accept that you were wrong. And you're beating yourself up about it. Okay so. I gave you some scenarios. But what i want to do is give you some advice for a few of these. Say you're having an argument with the upper management or the boss. Well i have always taught in coach that if you are going to come to your boss with a problem and it's going to be vice versa. If you're going to come to them with the problem it really should not be around you. Let me give you an example of exception if somebody's harassing you if somebody's being very rude to you. That of course is all about you. And that that i can understand but what i'm talking about is the performance of another employee or the fact that this new practice purchase is not working out. We need to keep ourselves in our emotions out of it because ultimately when you make it about their leadership style or year leadership style it becomes personal. What i would love for you to do is lead with the idea that we need to think about how it affects the practice. The think about this when you tell me that you don't like how sarah runs the morning. Huddle it's annoying. She talks a lot. I don't ever understand what she's talking about dc. I made it all about sarah. And i made it all about me. Think of it differently. I'd really like to talk about how the morning huddle is run. I don't feel. I'm getting enough information to work with the patients. Can we do this differently. What you are doing is tying it back to patient care. It all comes back to patient care not necessarily even the health of the practice because the health of the practice ties back to patient care. So i want you to if you're going to come to anybody with a critique or a concern don't make it about you make it about the impact to the practice in the impact on patient care so if jill is always late in the mornings and it's bugging you and you're talking to the boss and you're like you know what she needs to be fire. She does this all of the time. You're complaining about jail now and all that you're going to hear. Is you complaining about jill and you know in your personal life if you have two people that don't like each other and all they do is complain to each other. What happens over time when you start to hear them. Talk about it you go. Yeah yeah yeah in your mind. You're doing yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. You've heard it before it's going to go the same way. There's nothing new to add to it and that's why we can't make it personal. I'd rather you do is talk about the fact that when jill is lay it affects everything so i am having a hard time making sure that i can get my patients seated on time when i don't know what's what's on the schedule. The schedule's not clear. So i really need you to help me understand what i'm supposed to do with my first second third patients. I don't have anybody here to tell me this. And i'm really afraid. It's going to affect the patient. The other part of that is let's go with the morning. Muddle morning huddle issue because this is this comes up a lot either. Somebody doesn't contribute to the morning huddle or somebody is always late to the morning..
Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"teresa" Discussed on Nobody Told Me That! with Teresa Duncan
"Welcome to the. Nobody told me that podcast. My name is teresa dunkin and my goal is to share information. That you probably weren't thinking about. I love preparing my friends for situations that may come completely out of the blue. I also want to share with you. Many of the tidbits picked up over the years. If you absolutely have to tune out before the end of the show make sure you check out the show notes for more details and information on today's topic and thank you so much for making me a part of your day For this episode. I'd like to share with you a conversation that i had with a very good friend of mine who is an office manager out in colorado and he manages his wife's practice and does it very well by the way they are booming booming booming and one of our talking points was imagine not seeing terrible patients. Imagine that you actually liked all of your patients and you were really excited to see them on a day in day out basis. Well for the most part. You're you're probably thinking. Well yeah. I d love my patients. I'm talking about all of your patients. Imagine giving yourself the freedom to cut out any patient that you really don't like so from an owner point of view it's hard to dislike paying patients but there are those we all know it where we cut them out of our lives. We certainly wouldn't miss it one bit. In fact your professional life would probably be even better. Everybody would be much happier getting rid of some really bad apples. Well let's think about it this way. Do you have any bad apples. I like to call them. The squeaky wheels the ones who tend to give us lots of problems. Who like to give us pushback on anything we recommend and they're questioning everything and and they're actually rude so my big pet peeve is people not being polite not being graceful. I believe in training people very nicely unless they show me a reason otherwise but these people tend to show you that all of the time. Why are we dealing with them. A again not seeing terrible patience you know. We tend to remember these situations because of an emotion that they provoke so for example what provokes your high emotion in your mind so when it comes to patients the ones who provoke very high emotions for mayor the ones that made me laugh. The ones that i had deep belly laughs with because they were just hilarious. There was a certain inside joke that we had. You know how it goes then..