 Hey friends, uh, this is Dan Stephanie Burke watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio And before we jump into the show as people are Logging in I want to let you know about a few great things going on Uh play ways that you can grow in holiness One always is always follow us on instagram at catholic spiritual direction And then facebook catholic. Is it catholic direction? Is that right? It says facebook.com forward slash catholic direction That's probably it Uh, and then we have some avalanche suit courses that are coming up that are pretty exciting And but i'm just going to tell you about one. I think Uh christian meaning of suffering according to st. John paul II. It's a brand new course Which uh explores salvici delores Which was his um encyclical on suffering And it'll include um Reflections on moral theology. What does it mean to be human? All that sort of stuff, uh professor. Simone rizcala. So sounds kind of cool and uh on march 22nd at 11 a.m central Stephanie and I will be doing a webinar to answer your questions on prayer Who looked just a longer form a little bit of what we're doing on the show today spiritualdirection.com forward slash events at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events march 22nd The original purpose of that webinar was to And it's still that purpose but uh to answer the question from the 11 000 folks who signed up for Our 40 days for mental prayer That was awesome pretty cool. It was so incredible to have so many people Because what that tells me is they were all seeking the lord. That's right. That's right and something Strange happened while you were answering while we were answering Questions in the first attempt at that webinar Yeah, it was so bizarre because we that was yesterday, I guess and uh, so we're on And our first question, um, which we may or may not answer today was how do you help children? Do mental prayer, you know or or yeah, how do you teach them that and we did get the full answer in but then Right. Yeah, but at the last word which you know, when I uttered the name of mary The power blue all the power went down 100% like completely dead everything the house the light it was quite dramatic And you know if if you know anything or listen to us speak about any of these things we regularly Experience spiritual warfare and it was just crazy. We had prayed before And it was just dramatic and uh, so we said oh well, of course And so we'll need to reschedule so hopefully that won't happen again. Yeah, it's quite dramatic Yeah, it was kind of the timing was kind of crazy Last thing and we'll jump into the show after the show today But uh, still live on facebook jordan We're going to answer a few questions on prayer live So right now we have questions that we need to get to that folks have already asked But after the normal wrap of the show We will answer them live on facebook. So stay tuned Okay, is there a place where if if they're on right now they can drop in that question that they may have Just in the comments. Okay, there you go. Yep So All right, anything else I missed? I don't think so got a lot going on A lot going on that all of what we do is just helping people to happen. So we're pretty excited That we get to do that. We're grateful to ewtn for allowing us to do this on their Facebook page and on the radio pretty cool. Mm-hmm All right, you ready to roll. Oh, I don't have a timer That's right You're going into your secret space getting your secret timer that everybody can see Behind me as you go and get your secret timer He uses his ipad that he uses for mental prayer All right. Yeah. Yeah, right great a video right All right Truly behind the scenes right behind the behind the scenes. I think it's interesting because of that, you know Hopefully it's interesting without that. But anyway ready. Yeah And your mark gets set Go, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest Your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven To draw upon the wisdom of the saints the magisterium of the church That provides all that we need for south our salvation but also For peace in this life And for a life a joyful life, you know I think in our time people are really wrestling with issues of peace Because of all the junk going on which I don't even want to talk about Because I just want to talk about the answers. What do you think? I think that's better You think it's a good idea. Let's chase the light. Yeah with the capital l. Okay, very good So, uh, today we're doing question and answers on prayer mental prayer And I know our producer is going to pop our first question up on the screen So what does a colloquy sound like? And how can we have a one-way dialogue? So Uh a colloquy sounds like this colloquy Dan Now do you want to give your your right answer? Yeah, so a colloquy is just a another senate to send an in for prayer and it's just a kind of usually ends a meditation or reflection and it's a fusion of the heart to god And um usually an expression of praise and love and that sort of thing It could sound something like jesus. I love you. Thank you for the the beauty of this time in prayer Thank you for calling me to this. Please draw my heart and mind to you and please Don't allow me to get in your way today. Good. That's a good colloquy and The other part of his question. Can you put that back up there during this so I get that right? Uh, how can one have a one-way dialogue? I we I don't really know exactly what it means, but I'll just make a guess Uh, maybe it's how can I have? How can you call it a dialogue when I sit and hear nothing? Well, I think the question is that a colloquy So I think they're two separate questions Yeah, of course, you can't have a one-way dialogue Right, it's not possible. And I think one of the things to keep in mind is that all prayer Is placed in us and in our hearts by God right it's inspired So it isn't no matter. The dialogue already has begun. It has already begun because we're in the invitation to prayer in itself That inspiration that we get Is an invitation He's already started conversing right and we're just responding right so yeah And I think some people are waiting for a voice and that sort of thing and God is not chosen to communicate In any the most consistent way that he's chosen to communicate to us And the most clear way is in and through the magisterium of the church, which includes scripture and all of the authentic teachings of the church through the mouse and so and through the sacraments as well. Yeah And so I think We're sometimes we're looking to get God to answer us in the way we want to be answered Not necessarily in the way he answers I'm not putting this on the person who asked the question speaking in general Sometimes he does give us locutions. We did a whole show on locutions, which is a verbal Interiorly audible or whatever message from God But in general the other thing is That we don't you know, he's he's not a creature you know, he's he's He's spirit and he's other than us And his thoughts are not our thoughts and our thoughts are not his so We have to be careful what we expect When we pray and as we're seeking as well And I think the one thing That people miss the most in terms of his response is they're listening You know, I don't know. Maybe a good analogy would be if um, let's say I had an engine problem in my car And uh, there was a power issue and it wasn't driving exactly right And so in order to try to figure it out I began to listen for for noises, but I started listening in the trunk You know and listening putting my ear down to the bottom of the trunk rather than at the engine where the real It Where the real clear message is going to come from that I need to understand So when we're trying to communicate with God, we're often Listening in a way that doesn't have any correspondence to how God speaks If that makes sense probably a really crummy analogy Oh, I'm certain that the the guys guys out there are going. Oh, that makes perfect sense to me Uh to me not so much, but you know, um God speaks in a number of different ways to different people So I think also you could say that That God speaks to us in a way that we don't necessarily hear with the ears Of our physical body, but rather the ears of our heart You know, so when we're in prayer We listen with our heart and he speaks to us in the silence of our heart and sometimes It's silence and sometimes it's passively and very quietly And we don't actually hear the answers until We start to see them manifest in our lives in one way or another You know through answered prayers even if those prayers sometimes come back with their response No Yeah, and I think what I'm getting at with that analogy is You have to learn, you know, jesus said my sheep hear my voice You have to learn to hear his voice And he doesn't communicate the way all the time the way we want him to or the way we expect him to And if we're listening in the wrong way back to that really strange analogy, I gave a minute ago Then we won't hear his voice. So it's just a process. Yeah I'm teaching a course coming up, which is totally full But regularly at the Avala foundation called foundations of prayer and union with God where we talk a lot about that We also teach discernment of spirits, which helps you discern God's voice and And his will so anyway, I think what what's our next question Jordan Burke Help with mind wandering even a prayerful thought can lead one to distraction So how do you help with the mind wandering? I think What you've got to do is pray a mantra kidding kidding Just want to make sure I got the kidding in quickly Do you want to take a shot at that? Do you want me to go first? Well, you go ahead. Okay. All right. So here's the first thing non-christian eastern spirituality is obsessed with method And when they talk about mind wandering, you're going to get all how to deal with that. You're going to get all kinds of You know methods and stuff like that It's it's not it's uh the It's the exact opposite solution really Is you just ignore it and stay focused so as an example If you and I are talking and this has happened to us maybe even recently I don't know but you probably can think of an example Is i'm paying attention to you and somehow my attention is diverted away And you know if I if I get all kinds of techniques for how to deal with that diversion of attention That i'm focusing on the diversion Not focusing on you. So I just simply need to turn my mind and heart back to you Right as soon as you're aware of it. And I I think that's the real key thing Is that often when we when our Uh, even our prayerful thoughts tend to wander and become a distraction in prayer Sometimes we don't realize it until we're like way down the road We've gone down that bunny trail and then we don't know how much time we've been on that Bunny trail and so as soon as we Notice we just turn back lord. I'm sorry. I'm back with you lord. I love you and You speak attention words of love Of apology because it's important, you know if i'm sitting there talking to you And I begin to ignore you and you're going hey Hey, my beloved come talk to me You know when I turn back to you out of love in response. I say i'm sorry Yeah, i'm sorry. I was distracted. I'm sorry I was thinking of the laundry that I need to get done or the shopping list that I have Or you know the troubles with you know so-and-so Whatever it is, but i'm sorry. I'm back with you now And I love you and I want to hear what you have to say to me And here I am Yeah, and I one thing that's important. I think about this too is that we're talking about mental prayer and the In our humanity we tend to like to be very active in prayer And What i've heard as a teaching which I don't like or subscribe to Is that when you're in mental prayer and let's say the lord brings an image of somebody to you or whatever Um, I actually I shouldn't I said that exactly wrong When you're in mental prayer and an idea comes to mind and let's say it's a person or whatever I've heard people advise. Well, that's the lord telling you to um Telling you to you know intercede for that person or no or Or if there's an issue that's troubling you begin to pray about that. I really disagree with that I it would be similar to When a husband and wife are in the marital embrace And the wife remembers the grocery things she needs to get and she exits from that reality to Then begin to write down notes, you know, or she begins to discuss it with her husband right in the height of the marital embrace I don't think that's proper. It's you know Yeah, it's it's it's really disordered and it's bad advice and it and it reveals a misunderstanding Of the purpose of mental prayer At least as taught in the carmelite tradition, which we hope to Which is to draw you to union and unity with god. It's the it's the it's that time Uh in the marital embrace is the perfect analogy It's that time when the husband and wife Are concerned with one another above all else and there's no other distractions. There's nothing else But each other that's when we talk about mental prayer. That's what we're talking about So there's you know, we do all like on the way to mass this morning. We were doing Our intercessory prayer in our rosary that's we do our intercessory prayer a lot in our rosary We do it at other times as well according to our The prayer book our community prayer book has all kinds of Opportunity for intercessory prayer, but mental prayer should be a time where we're focused on the other And if distractions come we just turn our mind back to gently and don't get frustrated because that's a That's a tactic of the enemy too to make you frustrated. Just blow it off Don't worry about it and go back and as you say you could say I'm sorry for Especially if you willfully allow distractions that's a bigger deal And in fact, uh, st. Thomas Aquinas teaches that that's actually a sin is to as we're engaging in prayer to willfully allow for a Distraction comes we ascent to it. We give ourselves over to it and we Follow it and we and we don't so one of things you can do to overcome that or to repent from that if you will Is add some time at the end of your prayer to give god back that time that you used elsewhere That you had committed to him in prayer. Yeah. Yeah, so when we get back from the break We'll keep answering your questions about prayer And if you want to learn more about prayer Second and for Saturdays we do free formation to about 350 people on average show up worldwide Uh through apostolate va.org. So if you want to there's a lot of other free content out there That's our community. That's our digital monastery. So this is a a monastery of the mind. That's the digital monastery And we'd love to see you out there in one of our saturday meeting formation And we'll we have to go to the break. Okay, we'll be right back. Okay Next question, okay, so Uh, we went to 12 34. What do you want to do? All right, and then folks if you're on live remember At the end of the show the normal ending Which is our recording for you to be tn. We'll also hang out for a few minutes and Keep grab a few live questions that that come through facebook. So All right, you ready to roll Good your markets at go welcome back to divine intimacy radio. This is dan and stephanie burk And you're listening to your radio haven of rest And we're talking about mental prayer and I know we've got another question The saints and others have penned beautiful prayers that I use but I have difficulty praying them from the heart Maybe due to language or simply reading them. How can you make these? How can I make these prayers my own and from the heart? So I if I could begin with a story The I remember the first time I prayed the stations of the cross in alfonso's lagoori And I was grieved at you know, my own hardness of heart and I the I'm gonna misquote it a little bit because I actually use it almost daily in prayer there's this phrase he uses that Throughout the different stations the version I use regularly in prayer is I love you jesus my love grant that I may love you always And do with me as you will but he also speaks of loving jesus with his whole heart And I when I first started to pray that I knew I didn't You know, I knew I didn't love him with my whole heart but what I decided to do was kind of like In the spirit of centurion where he said Lord, I believe please help my unbelief So it's almost like lord. I love you. Please heal the parts of me that don't where I don't And I just kept praying those prayers and eventually Though I'm not perfect and I'm not claiming to be or that but Now when I pray them I have there's no hesitancy like when I say it and I'm the kind of person probably like the the one who asked this question Who if I don't Like fully believe what I'm saying. I can't say it. I just admired that way Um, but I did as an act of faith, you know, knowing that god wanted me to knowing that it was right to Express love to god and then eventually it became Beautiful full expression of the heart when I pray it. Yeah, what do you think? Well, what came to mind was uh, a moment that we had early on in our marriage And um, you know in families you say I love you. I love you people say it a lot. I love you And I was telling you that I loved you and I knew that you didn't understand Like you said, thank you. I love you too But I knew that it wasn't getting through to you that how much I loved you And I slowed down and I said dan I love you They and you know, I really You know, and I remember that you emoted When I did it And I remember where I was. Oh really? I was in my Jeep. Yeah X because this is before we were married And we were just courting I was in my Jeep and I was leaving my apartment complex and it made me stop We were on the phone together. We were because I lived in a different state. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah So do you want to so I guess what you're saying then is Do you want to describe it? Sure? I mean, there was a difference between saying it with my lips Saying it with my mind and then saying it with my heart I love that you went back to talk about scripture of you know, or Alfon says la gruery speaking about Loving God with all your heart, right and the scripture verse that says we need to love God with our whole heart A whole mind our whole spirit with all of our strength with all that we are, right? So that's the difference when we look at vocal prayers because what what this this Listener was referring to was a vocal prayer something that was written by someone else And how do we turn that into a mental prayer? And the way that happens is to do it with all that you are Slow down let it let it Let all your emotions your physicalness Your heart your spirit all of it engage in that prayer Because that's the that's what takes a prayer like the rosary And can turn it into the contemplative rosary like you're like the book that you wrote with conny rosini That's what can take The our father and turn it into the most exquisite perfect prayer ever Uh uttered taught to us by our lord when we pray with all that we are and we say our father Our father, right? Yeah, I totally agree with you and in fact it may reminded me of something I did recently After mass so in our prayer book for our commute for the possibly be a community we have a normal practice, of course, which is tradition to pray A prayer of thanksgiving after mass And what we have in our prayer book is the prayer of st. St. Anbrose, which is very beautiful and I noticed one time after mass I was just blowing through it and sort of thinking about multiple things I want And I was praying it without silently, which is how I pray most prayer. I'm very quiet In prayer in general and in mass in general But I realized I needed to say it and so I I said I draw near loving lord jesus Oh, this I'm sorry. This is The beginning of mass. This is preparing for mass It's not after mass, but also same thing. We have a tradition. We always prepare for mass as well I draw near loving lord jesus to the table of your most delightful banquet In fear and trembling and thinking about the words You know loving lord jesus the table of your most delightful banquet Sometimes we when we're praying mental vocal prayer We don't all vocal prayer needs to be mental prayer to be authentic in a sense that we need to engage Our heart and mind st. Teresa said all of us, right? Yeah, I've repeated Quoted for a million times if you're not if you're not aware of who it is you are and who tome you're praying It's not prayer. Right. So I draw near loving lord jesus So I I call upon my love for him as I say to the table of your most delightful banquet What is that just this glorious reality of the holy sacrifice of the mass in fear And trembling why because of the gravity of what's going on here? So when you when you use vocal prayers that somebody else has written What you need to do is engage your heart and your mind and orient them to Praise right and to prayer In a fuller way and sometimes you have to do it vocally or out loud. I mean And use other imagery and add your own imagery to what you're saying. So that's a way to solve that Yeah, I think it's really important that we Understand that when we are praying Whether it's through the holy sacrifice of the mass that we should pray through. Yeah That we should really engage all of our senses through our own mental prayer time our vocal prayer time our rosaries whatever it is the devotions And the way the church gives us to engage with the lord that we really need to do it with all the reverence With all the gravitas with all the love with all the passion That we can muster in that moment And the lord will honor that and receive it and not only that you know You you you said this in the first question people don't realize this God Puts on our hearts the desire to pray and then gives us the ability to pray right So as you like when you said I love you and you talked about that What you did is as an act of the will right engage more fully in what you're saying And expressed it in a way that got through to me Similarly with prayer We don't realize often that we can exercise our will But real recognizing God put that on our heart to pray in the first place Right as we engage and more fully engage Regardless of how we feel But just as an act of the will then grace comes more fully in that into that reality So he he he gives us the actual grace which is the ability to do it or desire to do it And then the sanctifying grace which is this Reality that comes to fruition when we begin to cooperate in a fuller way And it's grace upon grace when we do that grace upon grace and then and in a real way The lord begins to pray in us the holy spirit begins to pray in us And and animates our prayer So we we unite ourselves with the lord we unite ourselves with the body of christ And the fullness of all that we have all that we possess all that we are And in that the lord Honors that and and then the holy spirit engages with us in prayer. So it's really really beautiful So any prayer can turn into mental prayer when we do it with all that we have right awesome We had another question mr. Producer man How can we hold on to the grace the contrition and the love we receive and touch? During morning mental prayer. How do we ensure that our hearts are fertile soil? Not dry thorny or rocky ground staying recollected while writing emails about hVAC equipment and work That's awesome. I know who that is. I love that question Yeah, so can you put the first part up again because it's pretty important. So one of the ways that uh saint St. Francis to sales actually a number of saints have said this That you can take your morning prayer into the day Is to he uses this idea of taking a bouquet Uh of flowers Like if you're walking through a beautiful field or through a field and you stumble upon Something beautiful that moves you, you know pick pick the flowers or pick a portion of them And put them in a little vase in a sense. I'm I'm using metaphor And then keep them with you during the day. Well, how do you do that? Uh, one of the practices is to Write down the graces that you receive And so you can put those in a sticky note on your computer screen or on your steering wheel of your car And revisit them during the day and thank god for that grace and remind yourself Right now. I'm going through meditating on the passion And I'm really stuck on when jesus says I Who are you they're coming to get him and he says I am And they all fall down and they all fall down and I'm stuck on that because I'm thinking That has got to be an illusion to when he said I am that I am or I am That when he said before abraham was I am and then he of course is referencing back to moses and the burning bush And and why is he doing that? So? I'm just as a norm I'm just musing on that all the time I don't have to write it down anymore because it's just sort of a practice that I've done for years But that's one of the ways to do it. Yeah, absolutely And I mean we're into a time when tech is very important to us and we use it a lot and we have You know Watches and cell phones and blah blah blah all these things use it to your benefit Hey, you can put a reminder app to pop up the idea. Yeah, did I just interrupt what you were going to actually say? That's fine. I'm I'm kind of used to that So anyway, yes, you can put reminders in in your calendar. You can put it on your phone To remind you during the day and also the other way that you can do that is you can take that little sticky note That maybe you made in your prayer time and then you should Stop at midday. You should stop at periods during your day. Stop and recollect yourself Go back to that moment for a moment. Even if it's during your lunch Take a moment to recollect yourself go back to the lord and say lord, thank you for this moment lord I'm here. Help me to finish my day. Help me to love you with all that I am Okay, so we are running out of time so until next time May the god of peace make you perfect in holiness. May he preserve you Body may he preserve? Sorry. I'm gonna redo that. Yeah May the may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole an entire spirit soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our lord Jesus christ Yeah, and hang out for a minute if you want us to answer your questions live and we'll as soon as the producer is ready He'll pop that out. Right. Um, that was the end of our normal show and So the first question is how to manage distraction in prayer My time spent trying to listen to god result in an endless distraction and redirecting my thoughts ending with frustration So i'll give that a shot and I think you can too one one of the challenges with distractions in prayer is That we have an unending well of junk in our heads in our minds. Yeah So The more you pray and the more you orient your life to god and the more you are living what we call authentic discipleship, which is understanding The what it means to truly follow jesus in his fullness sacraments prayer ascesis And I have a free course on that out on a possibly va.org but When you live that reality over the years it reduces the junk in your head It purifies your memory. Which is something saint john of the cross has talked about And we also don't consume as a norm Unless we're in airports or you know Whatever Bad music non christian music or you know, we don't consume television as a norm. We don't you have a tv ever. I should say ever We just don't put junk in our heads so that when we go to prayer You don't have a lot of junk now it takes some time Right, so I think that's one thing that causes a lot of distractions in prayer Yeah What are your thoughts? Well, one thing that I would do for someone who's struggling with this a lot. It wants to figure it out is Take a notepad to you with you to prayer And as an act of self-awareness and self-knowledge When that when that happens jot down what it's about You know your son the dishes your finances, whatever it is Just jot it down go say you're sorry and go back to prayer later Go back and see what the patterns are and what it is that's starting to stir up If it's bad lyrics get rid of the bad lyrics the bad music that you're listening to If it's a tv show if it's images if it's your addictions If you're thinking about food and you struggle with you know the vice of Gluttony, I mean you you can start to understand What that junk is And why it's affecting your prayer because as a norm as you start to eradicate those things out of your life or to purify them To purify the way you live then your prayer should and can become More oriented to god and more peaceful now that being said You will suffer from distractions until your last breath. Ah, yeah, you know It we are human and that happens. So, you know, if it's occasional then You know, you you just reorient your mind and your heart as we said in the in one of the previous questions Back to the lord. You say you're sorry you get back into your prayer But if it's a repeated problem an issue It really then becomes a bit of spiritual warfare And so either those thoughts or of the world the flesh or the devil and if it's the world It's what you're consuming and exposing yourself to if it's at the flesh Maybe it's you know sinful habits vices that need to be purified That need to be confessed or need you need healing Or it's the enemy who's tempting you To not pray so you can Take a look at all those things and see if you can find a way to get beyond them Um So the the other thing I wanted to say So exactly right all that's right. There's a lot more to this. Sorry. I was distracted For a second speaking of distractions. You were distracted, right? My phone went off So I had to turn it off. I forgot to turn it off for the show So I want to ask for a prayer request for everyone out there There's a little girl named magdalena who's a granddaughter of a member of our community And who's in surgery. I think right now right with a baseball sized tumor Takes up about a third of her total size of her head If you could if you could stop a minute and pray for her we sure would be grateful for her Successful surgery. Yeah And for complete healing complete healing beyond that, uh, let's do one more turn. What do you think? One more is good. Okay How is centering prayer different from mental prayer? Okay, great question. Uh, centering prayer is not actually prayer It is what but it's being taught in so many of our parishes dan Burke. What do you mean? It's not really prayer. It's not it's it's what it was is it's and and some I just have to say this because I always get these You know feedback later So I am not speaking off the cuff. I've studied it for years I have every single publication written by the most prominent, you know promurgator of this Um, there's a great book out there that you really ought to get. I think you can get at any dbtn's library or uh Religious catalog. It's called is centering prayer Catholic by Connie Rossini. Yeah, you should get that book and read it Yeah, everybody should get that it goes into detail and Connie and I have worked together for years on these things But essentially it's a non non-catholic ideas kind of like mindfulness It's using non-christian eastern spirituality to try to solve problems that I guess Jesus can't help us to solve and it's In in their mind like right we don't Jesus does not need buddha to Or or any of the hindu gods to Jesus how to pray, right? So So, uh, essentially what it is is it's a practice where you You know, you posture is a big deal breathing is a big deal Um, it's so uh non-christian east always obsessed with method So then you pick a sacred word and you which could be tree Right or love, you know, and with the intentionality of being open to God and so And then they call that a personal relationship or you know, and I remember taking a course on centering prayer Just because I had read the books, but I wanted to take the course see and I said I said as research as research. I said, what if God speaks response to me as I'm sitting there loving him And the answer was we'll set that aside. It's like, okay Right. So this is personal. So can you imagine, you know, if I was If I was courting my wife and attempting to You know express my love for her and I said I love you love Love Love and then you respond. I love you too, honey and I go love Love and that's when I say, okay, somebody get a medic right something's wrong with my husband You know or my my boyfriend. He's staring past me uttering the word love Right, and I think he loves me, but I'm not sure because this certainly isn't a personal relationship folks It's so I mean, I don't mean to be crass, but it is so incredibly stupid And I'm not saying people are stupid. My wife's looking at me like be nice Well, I I think it's important to note when so so people are lost a lot of people do not have the benefit of the formation That you have had or the formation that I have had, you know In being in relationship with you and I'm not saying they're so they're seeking they're seeking their god Yeah, they're just being led astray and I think that's the most important thing to say is the people who are teaching this Should not be teaching it. They're misinformed or worse or worse, you know, and so this needs to be eradicated You know from the church. Yes. Don't feel stupid. I'm not trying to make you feel stupid. I'm just saying it's When you study the mystics in the catholic church Somebody claiming that centering prayer is catholic is is like me, you know claiming that you're an elephant I mean it is Profoundly absurd. That's kind of what I'm getting at with my stupid comment It's just beyond absurd. So It's not catholic. It's not going to help you. It's going to be a distraction. It's not christocentric. It's not christocentric and in fact Father thomas keating the guy who is the most popular writer on the topic Doesn't even believe in the trinity the way we believe it the guy is a pantheist God rest his soul. I hope that you know, he's with god. I don't but But when you read his writings in detail, which I have and other scholars have in detail He he's his his he's he got lost somewhere. He got lost in a big bad way Where he exited christianity in my opinion, even though he used christian terms He renamed all the terms and you know Reminds me of tayar deserdans the same thing We're renaming the words and meaning something different by what he's saying Which is so confusing to catholics because it sounds orthodox. Yeah, and it's just bad bad stuff Yeah, and so to end on a positive note. Guess what? We have all that we need right within and in the catholic faith within the sacraments and within the mystics of the church and an authentic mental prayer So if you really want to learn how to pray Lean into those beautiful mystics pick up dan's book into the deep to learn how to have true Christen or prayer mental prayer better part the better part Yeah, you can get these through a dwt n's religious catalog or its vitual direction.com shop Yes, the writer said it that she didn't practice mental prayer, which is great Um, good. That's because you're a smart woman. I that makes other people feel stupid I've been trying not to do that. I'm just saying I was just affirming her So uh, because I know people get legitimately drawn into that stuff They desire God. I totally especially if you've had nothing and all of a sudden that shows up on your on your radar I mean, then you were let astray into the occult. Oh, right. We're really really young. Yeah, you went down that path first That's true. But what was fascinating is you went through that path that in and then later it led you Into the church through a really strange way So anyway, so I want to say one more thing just to remind people If you want the best book ever written to date on centering prayer It's called is centering prayer catholic by conny rocini to understand What authentic prayer is and the difference between centering prayer And catholic and that prayer that book is so good That I use it in my foundations of prayer and union with god course where we talk about true prayer False prayer, you know makeup and one last thing i'll say Some people, you know Another argument is well, Jesus would never Criticize anyone for prayer, you know the way they pray and i'm actually not criticizing anyone Except for uh, father thomas keating I am disagreeing with uh, the false teaching But uh, Jesus when the disciples said how can I how should I pray actually said don't pray like the pagans? He actually said it. He actually said it He said that they they think they're praying and they're not they're repeating Stuff that isn't prayer, which is the mantra kind of prayer whatever So, um, jesus himself said it there is a true and false false prayer If you want to learn more about all this stuff, uh, of course head out to spiritualdirection.com Apostleva.org we just have an avala dash institute We have an unending well of a catholic mystical tradition for you Both free resources apostleva.org courses at the avala institute Whatever books publications through sophia institute press So it's it's and it's all authentic and thank you for your Thank you gloria for she said i was kind She said i was kind you were worried that i wasn't being kind i was being very i just wanted to have clarity because People have you know, there's a lot of wounded folks and i don't i don't want to hurt people I want them to come closer Um, so we can talk more and i but i also want to be really direct because it's just Junk so with that Okay, are we all done? Okay. Thanks for hanging out. Okay. God bless you all. It was great hanging out with you today Okay. Bye