 Okay, friends, you're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio Glad you're joining us today. We're going to finish Our study on all the onza slaguri's finding peace in the storm study or comp, you know conversation really Subtitle is reflection on St. Alphonse's gurus uniform you with God's will published by Sophia Institute press fantastic publisher, of course One of the best on the planet Really grateful for them and this is my last book that I wrote for them not the last book that I'm going to write God knows three so just the most recent. That's a better way of saying it so We're going to jump into the show Before we do make sure you check out at J. Homo Lenten retreat conversion stories and the call to prayer March 21st of the 23rd Spiritual direction comm forward slash event. So let's jump into the show on your market set go This is Dan and Jordan Burke. Welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest your Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom of the saints to help us navigate the tumult of this life. We're in the last show of This series finding peace in the storm uniformity with God's will and we had a question from the last show a Viewer from last show and they asked How do you deal with fatigue? Is that right? Mr. Producer? How do you deal with fatigue? So I can thankfully tell you that I've had a pretty tough week of that I've had pretty extreme things. It's been most of your life actually That Jordan right well, you've known me. Yeah Yeah, the various, you know illnesses that I have and the medications that I have to take and the amount of sleep that I lose Both because of the meds and just because of my natural inability to sleep Leads to a pretty constant ebb and flow of dealing with fatigue and some of the secrets are Now before I say this I have been Pretty down about it at times It could be in which by the you know doesn't help anything But when you have a lot to do and you feel like God's calling you, you know to do these things and You really care a lot and you and you but you have no Energy wow It is a bummer and it's and it can make you very sad very you know Well, you have a desire to commune with God Yeah, and I mean and we know the person who asks this question knows as well That like mental prayer outside of the Eucharist and adoration. Yeah is the best way to do that Yeah, so it's like okay. Well, I have this desire. I know it's a good desire I know God wants it and I can't accomplish it. It's really frustrating Well, and the question I have is can you accomplish it? Well, yeah, it's what you think is you know So the the first thing you have to do when you struggle struggle with chronic fatigue is You just have to embrace the reality That you have to ride the waves. So what does that mean? What what I've learned is when it's when I'm on a low and my energy is super low And I don't have any way to remedy it I just write it out and just say and I just tell myself You know, I'm gonna be better sometime soon because it always is true Now as I get older unfortunately Though I'm getting healthier in some ways and though I had a really bad year last year Taking care of my body better and eating better and exercising now every day. God be praised Um, you know, I still uh have some pretty serious Fatigue and and today is one of those days. It's I wouldn't call it. It's not red fatigue. I'd call it yellow But you just you write it out and you just thank the lord and say, okay, this is humbling I can't do I can't teach sometimes I can't teach which I love to do Um, sometimes I can't work out in the you know in the It's in the facility and the retreat center which I love to do Um, I just have no energy whatsoever and and sometimes I have to sleep more during the day You know take naps to try to refresh whatever so I just write it out and just say thanks Thanks be to god the suffering is there for a reason And just tell myself It's gonna be over. I love Stephanie's phrase. I don't know where she got it Every storm runs out of rain, you know And uh, that's what Gives me strength now. We can talk about how to deal with that in prayer, but I don't know. Do you have What are your thoughts? Well, I'm curious. Did you was there ever a phase where it was, uh, your struggle turned into a scrupulous misunderstanding of Meriting anything in prayer because I feel like I've had some of that and I know for a fact that there are people Listening you definitely have that. Yeah, who I'm not saying that this person has a question did. I don't know Maybe explain it to me a little more. So Going to mental prayer And being tired, you know, I get up at four to to pray every morning It's first thing I do is pray and there are times where I'm just struggling You know to stay awake and then I leave and I'm like, I feel like I did nothing And it could become a scrupulous Uh, like okay, my my prayer wasn't meritorious because you know, I didn't yeah, yeah, it does well Then most of my prayer is not meritorious You know, so Yeah, but we know intellectually that to not be true. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so You know, what do I what's the secret to growing in prayer just show up? And I there are times I think Yesterday morning just because I'm on a fatigue wave That I that I slept probably half of my normal prayer time I got up at three 45 my alarm clock went off on purpose, you know So that I had time to pray and then exercise and that sort of thing And I'm pretty darn tired and my but my my prayer time was distracted by something else today, but Regardless, yeah, it's it's self condemnation is a total waste of time. I'll just say that it it's not I God gave me the body I have I'm taking the best care of it. I can yeah I'm going to bed regularly at the same time. I don't sit up watching movies all night. I don't you know I'm not drinking You know, I'm not I didn't have a glass of wine on my bedstand last night, you know Or the night before the night before that, you know, so um I'm doing everything I know to do To be faithful given Yeah, but My body's just doesn't work very well, right and god gave it to me, right? Why did he give it to me? Because I would be a prideful arrogant inseparable Human being without all of this difficulty. Yeah, so thanks be to god. I don't always thank him for it I should But I don't always thank him for it But I'd have you know, but I have to just say Jesus I trust in you and and say and and there have been times in sort of a humorous way I say, you know, this is your fault. Let's just be clear. I don't know if we're clear on this This is your fault. This is the body you gave me I can't stay awake. Is there something else I'm supposed to be doing if there is I'd sure love you to tell me But until then, you know, I'm You can only drink so much caffeine So it's a combination of grace sufficient to the day Yeah And then I think the thing that helped me too when I have those moments that feel a little bit more scrupulous And I think that's been I've been really sick. I don't know if anyone can still hear it in my voice Over a hundred degree fever from multiple like almost a bad flu or something. It's really bad um, so my prayer was just Absolute garbage. Yeah And you know, I'm like waking up and puddles of sweat and trying to pray and passing out waking up and passing out But aren't you glad you you you showed up? Well, I think that's one of the things that I noted Okay, I'm not dealing with this scrupulous kind of thing that's been popping up recently And and it's because I recognized I am doing the best I can in the situation that God's given me And I know that God knows that there's nothing more that I can do and that's all he asked And he's a good father. Right. Right. He looks, you know, you know, what a good you know, what a good father I was thinking about little leaser Our producer's kid, you know, whenever I mentioned him chase his face lights up like the sun You know, we just think of God. It's like this mean You know ready to pounce whack-a-mole God, you know You popped up. You're the one getting hit, you know, and I don't like what you're doing I'm gonna you're gonna get hit and I'm gonna punish you and all of that But when you see the your little ones when you're a good parent, you see your little ones struggling But they're trying to do well It almost it endears you more to them. Yeah. Yeah, not less Yeah, and when they fall and they're weeping it endears you more to them not less Right Why because you so desperately want them to be You know what to know all the good that you know of God and to Discover all the good and to be, you know, the best That they're designed to be by God and so you know We just have to recognize Our God is a God of mercy and kindness The only people in the New Testament Jesus got Rude with there with one exception only one exception Were the self-righteous This he nailed the self-righteous The prostitutes the sinners The broken people the possessed, you know the ones who are sick What did they see from him? Total compassion mercy. No. Yeah love mercy love just nothing but it It's one of the reasons I think the chosen is Is such a great gift, you know it with all of its flaws It clearly communicates a God of mercy in a very powerful beautiful way And I admit there are problems with it, but frankly, you know, I just it's art I won't go off on my rant about that, but Um, it's art and and it's not a doctrinal statement And all art is in all art is erroneous, you know every image of Jesus ever painted is incorrect, right? So So yeah, not to go down that path, but the point being Our God is good God and he looks at us like a just a loving parent The spirit speaks and groans that we can't understand, right? So that's another thing that helps give peace is like spirit inside you God knows Yeah, like there's there's a lot going on that we're probably not percept above. Yeah Yeah, and if you know like when you're in at a hundred plus fever And you want to pray and let's say you didn't show up in a sense But you desire how what does he see he sees your heart sees that desire He knows you can only do what you can do so often We hold ourselves accountable to things that we can't do and I have to be careful when I do my examine every day Funny enough. I have there's this weird pattern from a mind where I will mark myself Incomplete and then go wait. I that wasn't even possible to complete. Yeah, how is it that I'm giving myself a a negative when I couldn't even do it, you know, we We just uh, those were going from good to better. This is not for the slothful or the slothful Those are going from good to better can can to be extremely hard on themselves So we're about to the end of the book. I'm curious For you Jordan, and you know We probably could talk more about this when we get back on the break Day to day What has been the biggest impact of this book on your life because I know it had a huge impact on your life Which is why you recommended it to me and then I read it and then of course wrote this Spiritual commentary on it and it's had a huge effect on me too I think when we get back from the great break what I'd like to do is talk about What has been that impact like if you can think about what's the biggest impact And for those who are just tuning in or tuned in light We're talking about finding peace in the storm reflections on sanophon's uniformity with god's will We're on the last show of a how many part series producer man 11 part series And you can find all of those shows out on spiritualdirection.com or you will eventually be able to They're all out there. Well, yeah, yeah, except for this one. They're all on the youtube page This one in the last one or the before this one's there too It'll be on the youtube on the youtube page the spiritualdirection.com's YouTube page to go out there and check that out when we get back from the break We're going to wrap things up with What's been the biggest impact for jordan and for myself on this powerful perspective provided by st Alfonso saguri. We'll be right back. So we've got a bill basically 13 on the other side no less than 13 Reset on your marks. We said go. This is dan and jordan berk. Welcome back to divine intimacy radio And if you're wondering where stephanie is she's on a visit to family a sick family member Jordan's been a part of this show. Anyway, he's been well with us on this as a the third person discussing finding peace because He's the one who brought the book to my attention. And so before the break I asked jordan and i'll share my own story stories of what's been the biggest effect Of this perspective this wisdom from st Alfonso's on your life in in particular and maybe some examples Yeah, I think for me It gave me a profound freedom Where I Have a new lens In which to look at everything that happens And what do you mean by freedom? I don't don't lose the new lens, but so In our lives, we're going to have all sorts of different things happen to us good and bad And because the world has fallen it's probably going to be a lot of bad for a lot of people a lot of the time And that has varying degrees and varying levels, right? Something incredibly small to something, you know incredibly large What's profound about this the freedom that i'm talking about is No matter what the thing may be whatever that circumstance or or currents may be It allows you to take that circumstance And know that god is working in the midst of it And reframe how you see everything So even to the point of where you know, I've noticed where I'm people where we are drive like absolute maniacs Like absolute psychopathic maniacs. The producer is agreeing. Yeah, and I used to be a cop and I've seen bad driving It's where we're at. It's insane. It doesn't make any sense running red lights or that kind of stuff So say you get cut off in traffic, which has happened to me plenty of times because i'm not in a hurry to go anywhere I Have even started thinking You know, maybe got allowed that so I'd slow down a little bit more to potentially avoid a wreck further on Yeah, you know what I mean? It it's and that may sound like I don't know it may sound goofy to some people But instead of me being ticked off I'm thinking maybe god permitted that for something that I don't know. Yeah, and in that case what's happening Well, for one i'm orienting myself to god in a moment of struggle And you should be orienting yourself to god all the time anyway, right? You know, and so there then there's a freedom in that so whatever Whatever hard or trial or circumstance comes up There's a freedom. There's a peace And okay, well god's in charge He's king of kings, you know, he's a king conqueror So i'm just gonna trust that whatever he's doing is is for my benefit You know, whatever he's permitted is for my benefit So I don't know that's that's been the biggest thing for me is it completely It was almost like a it was almost like a flip of a switch Where it's like I am no longer going to Allow situations to dictate my response It's all going to be oriented towards god And i'm going to choose to thank him in whatever circumstance if I can remember in whatever circumstance comes up Because i'm certainly not perfect at it, but what's super powerful about that perspective is Is I think most of us go through life And the circumstances are the circumstances and and we don't think about god And we don't think about what he's doing And we and and because we don't trust him or whatever which is depressing and aimless in a way And so it was you you basically have two choices Everything is happening to me and it is what it is and i'm just floating through life or God is working in the background Moving you because he loves you moving these chess pieces, you know Not that we're predestined or anything right like not going that route But he's moving these chess pieces to open up an opportunity for you or to avoid something or to you know what I mean To teach you something or to teach you something or to help you gain virtue or to heal you or to right right right every single circumstance and so when you when you start thinking Everything is either willed by god or permitted by god It totally fundamentally changes how you view life and go about life on a daily basis It's I guess you know in the way it affects me is similar To be super practical It's you know, I used to get frustrated by I'm not a great detail person So working on the car, you know the third bolt time I dropped the bolt because I can't get it on right right I'm like, you know Complaining and glitching and maybe even cursing under my breath or in my head You know or just not wanting to do it and just saying forget it. You know, this is stupid But Slowing down and asking that question, you know, where is the lord in all this and remembering john of the crosses admonition to You know Not to the easiest but to the hardest and you know Because we need that purification. Well in the in the example of the bolt. I mean you're getting frustrated Well, what does that indicate? There's a lack of virtue there. You know, I mean, yeah, not to call you out or anything And so what is god doing? He may very well be permitting you to drop that stupid bolt Right that you can you can work on attaining this virtue. Well, it's funny. It's actually happened yesterday And you know this because you helped me but I didn't get mad about it. Right. Right. I just went Okay, can't do this by my own by myself when Whenever somebody else is available, I'll get them and I you know reached out to you And you're able to come and help me out But yeah, it's And it's funny because because I I don't know if this is you too, but I tend to be it's easier for me to look up When things are really really really dire Like just huge issues like near death, you know, like when I've been In the million times I've been hospitalized just So that's easier. What's harder, but thanks be to god Certainly been more prevalent in my life now than in the past is the the little annoyances And the or the challenges with people, you know can be super painful And what what I've noticed, you know through this kind of study and of course the other books that we've read and studied in similar in similar fashion like The The searching for and maintaining peace by Jacques Philippe and then the other one is sacrament of present moment by Jean-Pierre de Cassade. I've been studying these things for years But what it's changed in me is just one slowed me down because you I've learned that I have to work and live at a pace of prayer To have peace. What does that mean? Well, that means I'm not moving with such intensity or speed That I am unable to look up. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah So being in a living in a more prayerful way Give space for you to be able to see god Yeah Whereas if you're running too fast and you're trying to get too many things done you're juggling too many things That's when I stop seeing him or if you're only responding to the situations, right? I think we have a fundamental disposition to praise god and the good Seek god and the horrific, but we we're lacking this middle area the bigger middle area where most of the stuff goes 90 percent of yeah, exactly exactly and what's beautiful about this practice and uniform me with god's will is that If when you can better manage yourself in that 90 percent That more common aspect the day-to-day those small things whatever it may be The easier it becomes to handle the bigger things that come true your way Totally, you know where you're not just spinning out of control. Yeah. Oh, I it's it's no different than going to the It sounds like a trite thing, but it's no different than going to the gym and training You know a particular thing you get stronger So eventually if you have to you know do something on the farm, you know, we experience this all the time It's like, oh, I have to lift this, you know chemical tank or sprayer tank. Oh, hey, it's way easier Well, why well because I've been going to the gym. Yeah, you know what I mean So when you have these bigger trials that come along You can handle those much better. You can have way more peace because you've been practicing practicing it in the day to day Well, and it happened to me last year. I had I had some of the most severe lung problems I've had in my life And I was on the highest doses of the of a very problematic medication And I was able I think I don't know what it was like from the outside in but The medication usually makes me irritable because it has that effect on you It it caused you to be jittery and you know, like you drink a thousand milligrams of caffeine But I think uh, you'll mama Stephanie and my wife Would attest to a little bit better of practice in dealing with that because of this book because of this wisdom And because of the ability to better You know see, okay, what's going on and then I adopted that practice. I think maybe you I don't know you didn't you well, you were part of it, which is that I'm still doing it, which is when my alarm buzzes for the hour It's offering All the suffering the past hour in case I forgot and all the sufferings for the hour to come You know up for some intention instead of just Like oh, this suffering is meaningless and it just hurts and I don't like it I'm going to join with God and use it To you know to unite with him in prayer. The other thing is Is when you when you suffer You realize how you can Join in and console the heart of Jesus, you know Recently I was uh judged You know harshly by someone in a very painful way And and in my mind. I'm thinking Yeah You probably deserved it. Jesus didn't Whether however unjust it may be, you know console the heart of Jesus Lean into that pain recognize he suffered it a hundred thousand times worse than you ever could You know join with him offer it back up for the person who misjudged you You know It's just frankly. It's a beautiful life Rather than a life of just I don't like this. Oh, I don't like that. I don't feel good I wish I didn't I don't like the weather don't like how I you know What a miserable existence if there's not a reason for suffering and we can't and that's the thing I mean suffering is going to come no matter what so you have you basically have a choice to Either adopt this mindset That all the saints add You know all of them or you're going to rail against it and fight against it and think of how much merit You're losing In that fighting against it. Yeah, so I owe you a great debt and telling me about the book And to Sophia Institute Press for printing or allowing me to write Finding Peace in the Storm Reflections on Saint Alphonse of the Guries uniformly with God's will if you struggle with a lack of peace There are two books that'll completely Wreck that pathway for you and give you a better one And that's this one Finding Peace in the Storm. The other one is spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits and learning how to deal with spiritual desolation Then of course you uh Into the deep which teaches you about mental prayer those three together are really Extraordinary not because I wrote them, but because they reflect the teachings of the church the wisdom of the saints And if you're wanting to get out of that rut you've been in and that darkness you've been in Um dig into this wisdom, you know that the if you don't like to Read books. Did you narrate Finding Peace in the Storm? Jordan narrated it? So, um, he also narrated that one book to that's a very quick and easy book to read But pick those up start your practice a daily mental prayer, you know right now we're recording this I mean, I don't know when you'll hear it on eWTN, but it's It's length time and no better time than to pick up a habit of prayer and and if it's after that, you know It's also good too. Just there's no time like the present to Really say to the lord. Okay. I'm all in help me to see what you see in the way that you see And then when you do that you will find peace in the midst of the storm Until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May you preserve you whole and entire spirits whole and body You're approachable at the coming of our lord. Jesus christ. Amen. Amen