 Why don't we Let me start the prayer The name of the Father Son Holy Spirit Amen Good and gracious God. We thank you. We praise you. We bless your holy name Oh God, I thank you for the call that you've put on these young men's life to discern their vocation And I thank you for the way that you've been working Since before time to prepare them for their vocation You created them out of nothing out of your abundance of your love to be one with you to live in your love Lord the particular call to serve you as a priest is a call to come and die I Asked Lord that is they continue to discern that you would be there with your Holy Spirit every step of the way to Confer with your peace your joy your love What the next step is how they can continue to progress not only in their discernment but in their pursuit of holiness and love Just be with them. Oh Lord bless their families bless their studies bless their service And we ask this all in your name Jesus. Amen Father Son Holy Spirit Amen So I have a prepared talk, but I wanted to just maybe stop before I jump in anything and just say like you guys have Been absorbing a lot, right? You have any questions thoughts Responses because I this is like it's hard to say, you know, you're like making sausage You got like a two-pound sausage skin and we're trying to like stuff 20 pounds worth of stuff into it You're like, okay, I'm not I just I don't want anybody to be feel too overwhelmed Any any thoughts? Yeah Most of the people that were at The Duquesne weekend who are part of the original experience are still alive actually a few have passed But there's a lot of people that God is still using them. They're still active It's the thing about the Holy Spirit. It's like miracle grow and I don't know fought in a youth all wrapped into one Yep Well if I'm giving you an out before you have to listen to me so you can keep asking questions One thing that's always encouraged for us That's that's a great question because we know that You know Jesus has said the Holy Spirit will be an advocate like he's an advocate for us That means they're both by our sides to lead a guide the catechism repeatedly refers to the commission of the son of the spirit and Bringing about conversion and and revealing the will of the father and conforming us to that will so I think you know They probably tag team it a lot, right? I think Jesus like okay I'm tagging you in spirit go move his heart you know with a with a ardent desire for for my soul and You know you go to this the soul of Jesus you're like Jesus I'm here with you and he's like let me send you the Holy Spirit because he's gonna be your strength And it just it's like the circular motion of grace So it's hard to discern you know like for me at least When is it when it's the son of the spirit because they are so one that it's hard to embrace the spirit without embracing The son matter of fact the spirit wouldn't want you to embrace him without embracing Christ The spirit always wants to reveal Jesus. He always wants to be about speaking the name of Jesus That's why you know St. Paul says you can't even say Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit He puts that on your lips as the first response to his presence in your life It's the lordship of Christ and so while You know and I think it's also one of the great challenges of the renewal is to Almost and I don't want to say this as a criticism because I know people who love the Holy Spirit deeply also love the church But the primacy of Christ You know, we are you know, we are crystal centric And so we don't ever want to take our eyes off that and the spirit wouldn't want us to And so we don't want to overemphasize just the spirit in our lives Because the spirit ultimately would want to draw us into the lordship of Christ and the full submission of our hearts and minds and souls To his perfect will for our lives So, um, yeah, I think it's a circular thing where they cooperate and collaborate with our and work on us We're we're so broken that the two of them need to work over time With the father's guidance, right? You know, like I don't think we're ever without The the the trinitarian presence and that's the beauty of being catholic, right? You know, like this full expression of God In embracing God as a community of love that we've been invited to step into I love that so I hope that helps All right, so what I want to talk about is something that uh, You know, I kind of ended my session this morning kind of Dangling this a little bit. And this is the need for us to have a strong interior life of prayer As much as I love Spontaneous prayer praise and worship as long as the way that the spirit can release this freedom this grace to praise and put Your hands in the air and all these external exuberant expressions For me what I have found after walking with the spirit since I was 18 years old, which is almost 40 years ago now Is that ultimately what the spirit wants to draw us to is is the silence of our own heart that in that silence of the interior cave is So many like st. Trees of Avalon st. John of the cross referred to the interior castle the inner cave of the heart where God wants to commune with us And I think this is the great challenge, especially The due to the fact that so many of us and I would put myself in this We're we're rather malformed by the world we grew up in with the noise and the distraction and finding quiet within ourselves It's almost uncomfortable at times right to just sit and be with the Lord and not be distracted and drift But I think it is definitely God's desire that each one of us are able to develop and live in this interior life of prayer So what I want to share about you know is just some of some of the ideas what God has done You know for me, you know, I if you were you guys at the life in the spirit seminars each anyone You know, I share about the holy spirit being this undiscovered treasure, you know the ocean and diving in but I I think I would qualify that and just say the interior life of prayer is just as vital And it is so undiscovered by most catholics most catholics most people don't even know how to be quiet It's constant noise like the and I think part of it is When we are quiet, we start to hear our own still small voice within us crying out in pain We become more aware of our own poverty And that's scary to embrace because no one wants to to have to confront a problem unless there's they're sure there's a solution You know, there's an answer like this ache of our heart Like we're created for more can be a scary concept because then it it almost demands that I respond by looking for what that more is And if I you know, if I'm if I'm satisfied with something in the world Then That's good enough and that's where most people are. I have a life. That's good enough An old friend of mine, you know, we used to talk and you know, he's once shared There's a reason why the dogs drink out of toilets It's because no one puts out fresh water for him And right now we have a lot of people Drinking from the toilet of the world because no one's offered them the living water of christ And they don't know how fulfilling it can be to live in communion with the beautiful heart of jesus through prayer I want to start with st paul's words from Ephesians chapter 3 says for this cause I bow my knees unto the father from every family in heaven on earth is named that he would grant you According to the riches of his glory that you may be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inward man So right away st paul is saying like there's something inward. It's not, you know, and paul was like, you know Very clear and you know go and read, you know first christians chapter 12 when he starts talking about The extraordinary more external gifts of the holy spirit That he says be desirous of these gifts But he always takes it back to but make love your aim because ultimately Inwardly is the transformation that god wants us to experience And it doesn't matter if we're spiritually activating gifts If our hearts are far from god And and you're like you can say well, is that even possible? Well, I think it is because if you listen to jesus's teaching at the end of math You know, he says what but jesus we cast out demons in your name and we perform miracles in your name And he says get away from me. I don't know you Like you know and when mary and martha Are before the jesus jesus like martha has chosen i mean mary has chosen the better portion martha to sit at My feet and just commune with me So we can be active in ministry But the actions that we Have that we perform especially in the priestly life can almost become an idol if you don't have the interior prayer in place You know, it is full as st Treza of avila said it's foolishness to try to serve christ without him You know only an idiot would do that, you know, she was very blunt, you know, she just never missed words She just told you straight up you try to serve jesus without jesus. You're a fool But st paul in this he says like he wants us to be strengthened through his spirit in the inward man That christ may dwell in your hearts through faith not through emotion not through a An effective kind of you know sensory encounter but through faith Why but it feels so good to feel the presence of christ when we pray right to know that he's with us to feel that You know his loving hand upon our shoulders whatever it's like Yes, but we need to learn to god dwell in our hearts through faith because there will be times when the lord will be testing us When he'll withdraw the any kind of consolation And let us walk in desolation to test us to try us to purify our faith because if we're only putting our faith in jesus In seeking him because we we get this reward this cookie of comfort Then we'll be more about looking for comfort than we are for the will of god Because the will of god in our lives is often very uncomfortable So st paul says like you need to seek him from a place of faith He's worth it He's worth it if he calls you to lay down your life as a martyr tomorrow And you don't get to live the rest of your life on earth. You have fulfilled your mission and it's worth it You know laying down our lives And I think in a lot of ways it would be a lot easier to be that kind of martyr, right You die quick you're done and you go to heaven right and you're celebrated right pretty soon You're being canonized and it's all good Most of us have to go through a lifelong work of martyrdom by day by day or chipped away Putting the old man to death that the new life in christ might come through This bloodless martyrdom that is the life of christ within us But why does he want us to approach that christ would dwell in our hearts through faith? He goes so that that being rooted and grounded in love You may be able to comprehend with all the saints What is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of christ which Which passes knowledge that you would be filled until the fullness of god That there's a prayer of faith of going before the lord in faith In our inner self with the help of the spirit that then unlocks and enables us to be filled with the fullness of christ You know you can consider yourself In your vocation as a lantern, right? You're the lantern christ is the flame You want to be the light of the world christ has got to be alive in you You want christ to be alive in you you have to have an interior life of prayer All of the graces of your ordination will not make you that Because you're a child of god And while you have these special graces that allow you to forgive sins and you know that will give you the ability to Say prayers and change bread and wine into the body and blood of jesus You're still called to this intimate relationship with christ and profound transformation You know and and that's the great call of of life and prayer is that what gives us that ability So i want to talk a little bit about what i've learned that prayer is So that we can have the faith And the and the motivation to to invest what we need to In uh in our prayer Prayer uh first is a loving conversation between the father and the son that we're invited to join Prayer you know anytime the the the trinity is talking within itself You know it's it's it's heavenly communication And when we talk to god in prayer, that's heavenly communication. That's not us talking to the ceiling You know people talk about the internet No, I can get online and I can FaceTime somebody in australia Have instantaneous communication with somebody across the globe We forget that from the beginning of our creation. We've had the internet We bow our heads make the sign of the cross and we're talking to heaven We're talking to the trinity the life of god. We're activating grace That sacrament that smallest sacrament of the sign of the cross is like a key Or a button that you push that starts the the the the the grace flowing And it's not magic And you gotta your heart has to be joined to these these symbols and these gestures But it is given to us as a tangible way of of of entering in and assuming this posture of receptivity and communicating with god We know we're entering into a holy moment Yeah, I mean God bless all the major league baseball players, but giving yourself the sign of the cross when you step up to play They're not thinking about heaven. They're not trying to do they're not in that moment Moving every part of their being into the presence of god They're not using it as a sacramental so that they can encounter more grace in that moment They're asking god if I give you this will you give me a home run? I mean like It's a total misuse now We might say oh, he's he's a believer. Yeah, you know, but You know, we have a tendency to think okay. I'm going into a meeting boom boom boom I just gave myself the lucky sign And I'm now god's gonna be on my side It's like no Now it is it is the beginning of our movement of our continual Going and living out of our baptismal call And entering into that and the in prayer is that eternal dialogue between the father and the son is what we're invited into We know this because in Luke chapter 11, right when when the disciples are seeing Jesus They saw this pattern. Jesus goes all night in praise. He comes down and he feeds 5 000 people Jesus goes out and prays all night. He comes down and chooses his apostles Like Jesus does something big. It's usually preceded by several hours of alone time with God So they're like whatever Jesus is doing in prayer. It's working I want what he has Jesus teaches to pray In the next two words out of the Lord the word the mouth of our Savior our father Right that just sets it right there You don't have to pray to my father because he's not our father My work is to bring you back into the family What was lost in sin Through the old Adam through the new Adam I'll be redeemed what eaves disobedience brought about the chaos in our our division from the father And the loss of of being able to live in his likeness is going to be restored through the yes of the new eve the blessed mother She through her yes salvation will come into the world through eaves the first eaves know chaos division and sin and death through Mary's yes life And because the the work that i'm going to complete amongst you and what i'm doing here amongst you You're now going to be able to say our father. So start getting used to saying those words It's happening our father and you know Jesus lets us share in his divine sonship Through adoption through the power of the holy spirit through baptism. It says in first John chapter one verses 12 and 13 right but to all who received him who believed in his name He gave power to become children of god who were born not of blood but of god Is god's gratuitous grace his initiative to re reattach us to his family to make us one with him So when we say our prayers when we do when we go to prayer, it's not a thing that we do It's not an obligation to fulfill. It's a relationship It's a mystery that we are invited to participate in to be a part of with god And what does that mean that means that we need to do a good deal of listening In this conversation There's one person who says everything that is good and holy and beautiful and wants to speak it into your heart personally He wants to communicate divine life and love and light to your soul Which means we need to be putting ourselves in a posture of listening when we pray For true intimacy, we need to not just listen with our ears, but to listen with our heart We must allow our heart to be permeated by god's divine word It is the primary way by which god communicates us. This is why the liturgy. The hour is so vital It is continual Immersion into the voice of god speaking his truth into our hearts But then there's always spiritual reading to be done always, you know People say to me. Oh, I'm so busy. I don't have time to pray I'm like If you're so busy, you need to pray. I think it was st Francis the sales who said to his his followers like you need to pray at least half an hour of day of mental prayer Unless you're really busy, then you need an hour You know But we're the exact opposite we we prioritize our life in such a way That the first thing to go sometimes is the thing that we need the most It was after my son's accident that I just finally stopped playing around with god I was so convinced the power of prayer and I had I had a I would say I had a pretty good prayer life, but it But it needed to change And so I made this commitment that every morning my alarm's going to go off at 4 30 and I'm going to pray And I'm now up to about an hour and 15 minutes of mental prayer every morning. Just being with god Sundays an hour some days an hour and a half And I can tell you over the course of three years You know the Literally over a thousand hours of prayer that I've spent and I say this in all humility because even the desire to pray is a gift of grace Because it's not about me. It's about god convincing me and convicting me to make this choice I have nothing You know my face sometimes feels like a mustard seed But I knew that god was calling me and it was so it was more like radical obedience just to this Undeniable call of christ to enter into deeper prayer And now I can't wake up without thinking my first thought is time to pray. I need to go spend time with the father What does it look like for me? Well, I just I just tell god I use the the kind of this Ignatian prayer, which you know, you're not familiar with I'm gonna kind of review it for you just briefly at the end but I also just walk I sometimes I walk while I pray and I just walk in silence and say speak word You know, and then there's and even if I get that time in I'm still looking for At least 15 minutes throughout the day when I can go into one of the chapels on our campus and just be Before the blessed sacrament in silence Just to listen. I usually come with no agenda I say everything I don't need to say during my mental prayer and then just give other times during the day where I can just listen to god So prayer is primary listening and we do this through two things that we that I think are Hopefully part of your training in seminary and as you get formed and that's meditating and contemplating Yeah, I don't know if you've been trained in practice How do I meditate what's christian meditation? What is christian contemplation and and seriously we could spend a whole retreat Talking about those two things and just start to scratch the surface But just as a brief overview because I want to encourage you To learn to meditate to learn to do to contemplate Meditation is an exercise. It's a form of prayer where we seek to understand God's revelation of the truths of faith and the purpose of our christian life So we already have a whole body of wisdom handed to us by the church You know including in the primacy of sacred scripture We have all the teachings of the church. We have the catechism and then we have a whole volumes of holy writing from the saints holy men and women who walked before us You know, I always say like if you're a saint today, you're standing on the shoulders of giants Who showed us the way can you imagine being the first saint and trying to you'd have to totally like oh It's so good. I can read from this saint and see how to do it Where they were just relied on the spirit to teach them how to do it There was no one showing them. No one had gone before them in faith They were blazing trails And they've left clear markers on these trails for us to ascend the mountain of god Thank goodness that we're not having to whack our way through the weeds every time we went There's paths already created for us But meditation is when we seek to understand these things And it's it's not a seeking like there's a there's a real trap in meditation Because knowledge is such a beautiful thing that knowledge in and of itself Can become an idol for us. I want to know all there is to know Right. I just want to consume we become consumers of catholic truth Rather than converts who are being converted by catholic truth Meditation keeps us from just becoming consumers of theology And knowledgeable, you know st. Paul said look knowledge puffs up You know it can really be a a source of pride in our lives But when we approach scripture with the humility of saying i'm not here to consume this word I'm here to be consumed by this word to transform by these words into the image and likeness of christ And we're meditating in humility Then the lord is working in power in our lives He's teaching us with his own voice how to take these truths and make them our own Because even though the truth is what it is We are all so unique That the application of truth in our life can look very different The way you're called to love can look very different than the way somebody else is called to love It might both be selfless. It might be giving But for some it'll be in a classroom for some people It'll be at a soup kitchen for some people will be next to somebody's bed as you're administering the last rites The anointing of the sick. There's various forms and expressions of that love But we all need to meditate upon it and say okay god, what are you asking me to do in love today? We all know that we need to surrender our hearts to god But what you need to surrender before god is not what i need to surrender. We're different. We have different wounds We have different sins. What's going to be your remedy? Surrender but there might also be something in particular that god is asking you to do a particular fast A particular discipline that you need to do Your prayer life might look radically different than mine But we're both in going into communion with christ because you're wired a certain way and i'm wired a certain way And there's not a one all one size fits all spirituality. That's the beauty of being catholic You know, there's so many religious orders. There's so many different ways to pray We literally have a smorgasbord If you're a protestant They the way they talk about prayer. It's like, okay, you sit down you quiet yourself you read some scripture You say a few prayers. You're done What I mean like we can meditate. We got like the lives of the saints. We've got prayers I don't know if anyone's familiar and I want to recommend a book And I think you might be able to buy it in our bookstore divine intimacy Have you heard of this this book? If you have a chance to buy divine intimacy just buy it it has a daily reflection for every day And it's so applicable. It's challenging and what I love it is each daily reflection Reflection includes prayers by saints So they actually go into the prayer journals and prayer Writing some prayer that these saints made and they they put them there You know, they give you something to reflect on and they give you an example of how a saint prayed into this reflection You know and it challenges and it teaches you new ways to pray new ways to express your heart You know, I think one of the things, you know, like you heard a lot of and I'm not this is not an Advocation of any kind of political thing as I think the church is too political And I think people are too quick to gravitate and to try to associate being a good catholic with being a good republican There once was a time when I think you could have been a very good Catholic and been a very very good democrat Maybe not be the case anymore But when we hear somebody like donald trump speaking everybody saying like I like what he says because he it speaks to me He's saying things that I've been thinking about but he says it in such a way that I could You know, that's what it's like when you read the prayers of the saints Like they're able to express what's in your heart and unleashes you to be able to move your will With these words into a deeper sense of conversion a deeper place of transformation with the spirit So divine intimacy. I can't I can't recommend it enough It is one of the great tools that I've had to aid aid myself in the the work of learning how to meditate Second is contemplation, right? This is more of a wordless form of prayer And this is much challenging because it's really the joining of the mind and the heart the intellect and the affect When we focus on god's greatness In loving adoration We look upon jesus and the mysteries of his of his life with faith and love and just let the lord take us on a journey You know a lot of contemplation is Can be an Important part of even getting deeper in lexio divina because you can actually let the spirit take you there There's a one of the greatest things that I think we've lost a sense of is the christian mind the christian imagination Right of the spirit lead us to where we are really in deep prayer contemplating these mysteries of god And seeing how our lives relate to them and how how the spirit speaks into each one of us in these But that's a gift of grace Contemplation seeks alone christ himself. You're not trying to understand a teaching you're trying to Encounter jesus and just contemplate his life jesus What are you saying to me as you speak to the woman at the well? Or to blind bar to mayas i'm contemplating this moment What are you trying? What would you teach me today? As you there's a reason why this story was was put in scripture Believe me when we take this this this time to go deep and let the spirit lead us That's when christ really starts to speak He'll tell you what his purpose for this scripture is for you today because the beauty of it is You can come back to that scripture in six months and god will say you something completely different because you're a different person He's got something else to teach you Scripture is like a diamond And you move it this way or that way It's like a the facets just glitter like oh, I never noticed that facet before Well cues you never really looked at at that angle before and all of a sudden you see something shiny and new and beautiful within that scripture And scripture never ceases to amaze when we take time to contemplate it It's a prayer of silence or silent love Meditation is kind of a quest Contemplation is more rest Just resting with this word and letting god speak meditation is mental cognitive Kind of a discourse that we have with god Contemplation is more silent heart centered and beholding of the majesty of god and letting that encounter Move us to a deeper affection and love for god a deeper transformation And as important as meditation as I would say contemplation is even more so important Because once again, it takes us to a place where we're letting the word of god Change us change our hearts A prayer, you know, I mean I don't want it to make it sound like it's a serious thing that every time you Got to pray there's got to be a profound encounter with god in that way Not every prayer you pray is going to be contemplation Not every prayer and mental prayer that you exercise in is going to be heavy meditation Sometimes prayer just needs to be communion and friendship with god because he wants to be your friend He says look, I no longer call you servants. I call you friends I want friendship with you And you know, he says this as he's about to die Like this friendship is not going to end with my death He wouldn't start laying out his idea of wanting to be friends with the apostles right before he dies I mean like it's not it wasn't it was for this ongoing relationship But to be built on friendship and st. Teresa of Jesus she looked at prayer in this perspective She said mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends It means take time frequently to be alone with them With him who we know loves us So we take time frequently This is what you know, I mean like people say to pray always means oh if I'm scrubbing the floor I can offer it up as a prayer Yes, but if we don't pray at particular times we're not going to learn how to pray always You know And you know granted you might be able to get a good hour in the morning Half hour in the morning, whatever your schedule allows or whatever you're asked to do But there are so many little moments throughout the day where we can turn our hearts to god and jesus christ Son of the living god have mercy on me a sinner. I place my faith in my trust in you Just we raise our hearts just for a half second say jesus. I acknowledge you're still with me And even though i'm busy doing this work I love you and i'm glad you're still on my side, you know Like oh jesus, you know like laughing with the lord, you know, you know something happens, uh, you know that just It gives you delight to say jesus. Thank you for that. You know, thank you for blessing me in that little way Like little acts of faith hope and love Done in faith. I mean like people say well, it just seems so wrote To you know to say, you know, the jesus son of the living god have mercy on my Sinner those even aren't even my words. Is that really communicated with god? Absolutely because we're praying it in faith And those those acts of faith are what you remember paul wants us to Be strengthened that christ would dwell in our hearts through faith And faith demands The continual turning of our hearts to god in big ways and little ways throughout our day At the center of our prayer it always remember it's always the mingling of two hearts the heart of jesus in our heart You know, and if the spirit has a role in it, it's because the spirit is light That enlightens us how to join it the spirits the glue that joins our souls with christ makes us one with him So the the most important piece of advice I can tell you in your relationship with god is be authentic Please don't go to god thinking you have to impress him You know, um Prayer is not performance It's a real relationship where you can just tell god Dear lord jesus, I just want you to know i'm having a shitty day You can edit that out mary k Believe it. Thank you But I mean like god would rather hear you say that than say oh lord jesus christ Son of god if I love a thief with all my heart, you know, I mean like there are times when our formal prayer is very beautiful But there's times when we just need to be real with god To be raw and authentic and let him know That we trust him with our worst parts We don't have to hide it from him We're crying out loud if we're broken. He's the only solution Why are we trying to tap dance for the lord in order to please him when really the greatest way his glory Is going to be revealed in us is if he heals us forgives us and transforms us No, I said well the greatest glory we can give to god is to hide our sin and pretend It's not there and put on the brave face and you know, no no A thousand times no the saints knew their brokenness They knew their weaknesses. They knew their utter dependency beyond god And that's why my next point is that prayer is the ultimate expression and experience of humility There's nothing more prideful than you can say as a priest You know or even as a any catholic But especially in your life as a priest if that's your final destination your priest and you say to god I'm too busy to pray that is the ultimate insult of pride Because that's your where I say like god, I am so busy doing the great work of building your kingdom try to keep up with me You know, I mean like how arrogant But these see it slips. We lose our discipline. We lose our focus and then we lose our humility and then we're lost Then we're lost I mean, we look at the priests who've brought gotten brought scandal to the church I can tell you the first thing that they brought was just an arrogance and a disregard to their prayer We hold this sacred treasure in clay jars We break we leak My goodness, we need prayer more than we need the next breath You know, there's just no way Any of this is going to make sense or be effective for the renewal of the church without prayer at the center of it deep intimate communion with god Peter who Humiliated himself over and over again Had the ultimate humiliation and denying christ three times. He taught very quickly humble yourself therefore under god's mighty right hand That in due time he may exalt you Like humble yourself. Don't wait To make a mistake. Don't learn from my mistakes Humble yourself because if you don't god will humble you and when god humiliates us because there's no other way to lure to learn Humility than a humiliation And humiliation can be a public very embarrassing thing or humiliation can be us renouncing ourselves And just admitting our nothingness before god and spending time before him in prayer Because we know that we're going to get more out of five minutes From god and we're going to be more effective for the building of god in five minutes of prayer than five hours of our best work That's the ultimate expression of humility Wisdom chapter three verse one says the souls of the righteous are in the hand of god When we pray we put our lives in the hands of god continually as our protection our guide and it goes on to say no no torment will ever touch them If we're not going to god and placing ourselves every part of us in prayer into the hands of god on a daily basis We're going to get snatched from the hand of god by satan This is wisdom And protection and love that christ gives us That we discover when we submit ourselves and give all ourselves to god in prayer Even when we're in a time of dryness and we're experiencing this inability to pray Even more so in those moments The humiliation of knowing that even prayer is beyond us We continue to say God be merciful to me lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof But i'm going to stay here lord because you've called me to be with you I know that I cannot get there on my own help me jesus The best thing that I did uh in the last year when I was hitting hard spots in prayer Was just I just kind of reoriented my prayer to say before I start going to god with what I think I want in my agenda I'm just going to stop And just say holy spirit. I am here Lead me to where I need to be in prayer right now Jesus is out there And at one time I was praying this I had this really clear vision of of of me standing out a door And behind the door was jesus and it was me trying to pray and I was like banging on the door and the door wasn't open I was kicking the door. I was frustrated banging with both hands kicking this door like God, why can't I knock this door down? I want to be with you And also there was a tap on my shoulder and it was the spirit He said come here. I want to show you something he led me around the corner of this building There was like the small little door kind of hidden away and he opened it up. He says enter in And he's and it was just like the lord confirming that he's going to lead me to how I need to go and enter into god's presence To really commune with god The spirit will lead us there So just surrendering and because if we call the holy spirit the interior master of prayer Then we got to give him Authority we have to be subject to his leading us in prayer We can't be running ahead of the spirit saying okay. I'm going to go find jesus. He's like I know exactly where he is. Do you want me to show you? No, I'll figure it out Anyway, because we'll always get frustrated with that attitude, right? I'll figure it out. I can do this. I me I got this. You're like, no, we don't even have prayer It's the ultimate expression and experience of humility to pray. Well We will come to experience and pray prayer if we're doing it right At some point or another The truth of our own nothingness before god you put yourself before god long enough You're going to discover that you're nothing before him and in that you'll find complete freedom Nothing depends on you It all is about god and what he wants to do in you and through you St. Teresa of jesus taught the whole groundwork of prayer is based on humility The more a soul lures itself in prayer the more god will raise it up What a beautiful thing to remember that we don't have to raise ourselves up and justify ourselves before god We just need to make ourselves small to make ourselves low and say god. It is me I'm a sinner. I want to be with you. I need your love today I don't know how to pray spirit guide me I also call upon the blessed mother a lot Mother mary, you know and love jesus lead me to his heart through your immaculate heart Help me to find a sacred heart and prayer because mary is is kind of like God's like swat team first responder goes in and finds those who are really hopeless and it lost and helps them out She's been so evident in my prayer. Like, you know people say like, how do you know the holy spirit? How do you pray in the spirit? I'm like the most spiritual prayer prayers I have anymore or when I'm praying my rosary Honestly because she's the spouse of the spirit and I always pray right before I the the the uh When I pray my rosary, it's like this is meditation on the life of christ. Holy spirit guide mine Pray into the rosary. Let me not just rattle off hail mary's and our fathers But take me into the mystery. We pray this at the end of the rosary that meditating upon these mysteries The most holy rosary of the blessed virgin mary. We might imitate what they contain And obtain what they promise. That's the whole goal of praying the rosary not to check off the box pray My rosary today cha-ching it's to imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise So this prayer, you know the the prayer of the rosary can also be a great tool to aid in our meditation and even contemplation Because once again, I started my rosary and I started contemplating uh christ coming into the world as a baby I went down this rabbit hole of just Imagining and and praying and being awed by god. I didn't even get through the first decade Yeah, well you mission accomplished you did what the rosary was supposed to do It took you into the mystery of jesus, but I know it's not an accomplishment It's a pathway Venerable phone sheen said it's the book of the blind the rosary It's and it is kind of like reading braille because you're feeling the beads and praying and meditating and god is speaking and he's teaching It's very beautiful Well, finally prayer is love Because god is love And the in the focus and the encounter of our our prayer is god In first john chapter 4 says god is love Prayer is love It's our ability to enter into the heart of jesus to experience the love of the father Just to experience the love of the spirit that proceeds from the father and the son Who wants to you know set us on fire with divine love? You want to love god Let this love of the holy spirit fill you Because if it's just your human emotion leading you That's going to fail. I mean we I believe in human love people say oh, there's no love apart from god No humans can love We can desire the good of another person We can seek to to be good people without the holy spirit But we're going to fall incredibly short I mean we might be able to do things that look good Things that might be kind on some level But we will be pleasing unto god because we're doing it apart from him When we have the prayer our prayer in place and the spirit is moving in our lives Everything that we do is not only for the glory of god. It's joined with the glory of god It reflects the glory of god It's it's geared towards giving god glory Why do we love our neighbor as ourself because it gives god glory When we obey the commands we give god glory Well, don't our neighbors have dignity and just deserve love because they're our neighbors Absolutely, but by adhering to that truth We give god glory and the reason why sin is so repugnant to us It causes us to rob god of his glory St. Irenaeus said the glory of god is man fully alive man fully alive as a man pursuing holiness In the love of god Not pursuing the world in selfish gain St. John of the cross says be joyful and gladdened in your interior recollection with him for you have him so close to you Desire him there adore him there. He's talking about in the in the south He goes do not go in pursuit of him outside yourself You will only become distracted and weary thereby and you shall not find him Nor have him more intimately than by seeking him within you And we we love to stand before a beautiful altar that's been restored to its former glory You know like sometimes you see these churches that got stripped of all their finery into the statues and the altar was torn down It's like, uh This makes you want to throw up and then you see one that's been restored And it just it just takes your breath away A beautifully restored church when there's stars on the ceiling everything they went full tilt And it just takes your breath away And as much as that inspires us to awe and wonder the place where we encounter Jesus the deepest is not Out there but in here when we quiet ourselves through interior prayer Once again from st. Teresa. She says do you think it matters? little for a soul with a wandering mind to understand this truth and see that there is no need to go to heaven In order to speak with one's heavenly father or find delight in him Nor is there any need to shout However softly we speak he is near enough to hear us Neither is there any need for wings to go find him all one need do is go into solitude and look at him within oneself This is why Jesus was very clear like the kingdom of heaven is within you We want to build the external kingdom. We want to restore the city of god We want to help restore christendom Let that happen within first Let god build the interior castle Your prayer life make it tall and strong let your roots go very deep into jesus Because if you're not rooted deeply in jesus when the winds of hatred and and and rejection and sometimes loneliness And sometimes you're going to be tempted to despair And people are going to mock you And reject you and look at you a suspicion because you wear a collar You're automatically going to be branded a pedophile or a creep Because you stood wearing your clerics in public And for many people that's become synonymous with being a bad person The church is the last bastion of truth that stands up for what is right And if we're and if your roots are not deep in christ You will get blown over It's the trees that have the deepest roots When you see a tree that has grown up to this beautiful thing and it's it's got shade and the and there's animals finding shade and comfort And it's producing fruit and the fruit is falling onto the ground and people are eating of this fruit and and people are Life is being sustained by this tree What you don't see is is the greatest part of the tree Stretching out for hundreds of feet in every direction under the soil going down deep into the soil our roots You kill the roots you kill the tree I have forsythia growing in the backyard. Does anyone ever have forsythia growing in the yard? You can't kill that You can't I chopped it all down like one whole bush like my wife's like let's get rid of the forsythia So I chopped it all down to like it was just nubs within three weeks. It was three feet high again. It just grows Because I didn't dig up the roots I also had a silver maple. I love silver maples because when in the summertime when the wind is blowing They they have green on one side and silver on the other do they shimmer And I love this tree and its roots started to die and I noticed You know the top branches went dead And then the lower branches went dead and finally the branches that were closest to the ground were still alive But everything above it was dead because the roots weren't able to absorb enough nutrients to keep the whole thing alive I eventually had to call a tree service and to cut it down because it was so close to my house that Had it fallen it would have fallen into my house And I was so sad to see that silver maple go But if we have deep roots, I can't kill you If your roots are dead You're not going to let you're not going to thrive. You're not going to make it which you know Leads me to my next point that prayer needs to be looked at as The number one thing that you'll do battle for in your life You know, we want to fight for the unborn We want to fight Even for a just society and I mean like justice for everybody. I mean I there's a lot of lifestyles that we Cannot condone as Catholics But we would never condone anyone being robbed of their dignity no matter what their orientation Or skin color is You know like all the isms that are out there I shared this life in the spirit that the one ism that we need to be focused on to unite and heal the world is baptism It is the one ism that actually has hope for us is the grace of our baptism But more important than any social justice issue that you're going to do battle for any Human rights issue that you're going to do battle for even spiritual battle for the soul of another is your own battle for prayer Because if you're not girded up If you're not wearing the breastplate of righteousness If you don't have the helmet of salvation on if you're not prepared and you're not fighting for your prayer You're not going to be any good to god Why because god is a jealous god He does not let his glory Be revealed in those who are not one with him He will not lead you know if you want to pursue holiness without jesus go ahead, but you'll never find it Holiness is jesus alive in us his spirit alive in us And we can try to pursue it and try to make ourselves holy or we can surrender to jesus and his power And he will make us holy and we will collaborate with the grace necessary But that happens through prayer The catechism says in article 27 25 says prayer is both a gift of grace And a determined response on our part. There's a there's a real danger and I even see it here on our campus. It's quietism You know like oh, I'll just I'll just wait for god to show up and do something You know and you've probably been taught this enough through your discernment process is that You don't sit back and god comes and gives you a little slip of paper This is my plan you take a step is the peace still there then take the next step Is the peace still there is there confirmation that you're still on the path We have to in our own prayer have the determined response to the grace of jesus christ Because it is a gift of grace to be able to pray even the desire to pray is a gift of grace But we need to respond to it. It goes on to say it always presupposes effort There are no lazy saints You know saints worked hard to become saints It goes on to say the great figures of prayer in the old covenant before christ As well as the mother of god the saints and christ himself all teach us this Prayer is a battle against whom against ourselves And against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer away from union with god wow Because satan knows as soon as you're cut off separated from jesus You're like a branch that's been cut from the tree Suitable for what to wither and die and be thrown into the fire Jesus himself talked about this, you know, i'm the vine you are the branches Abide in me abide in me abide in me abide in me abide me nine times He says those words in the 15th chapter of john's gospel abide in me Like he was just telling you guys i can't say this enough if you're not abiding in me I can't work in you and through you and you will do nothing Apart from you you can do nothing we have this thing like here's the things I know I can do apart from god I can put on my socks in the morning god doesn't care if I wear blue or brown or black right I can have captain crunch Or nestle's crunch, whatever i like i do crunches in the morning, you know, that's how i exercise It's either captain crunch or nestle crunch But you know, we can decide what we want to do and what we want to eat We have so much control over the little choices that don't matter But the big things that really do matter We have the same amount of freedom with but unless we submit that freedom and make that choice To habitually submit ourselves to god in prayer We'll be pulled away from them That passage 27 25 it says the spiritual battle of the christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer You will never have a time in your life when your prayer is not going to be a battle for you You'll either be battling your own laziness or you're battling satan's trying to pull you from prayer Or just battling all the distractions he throws in your way It'll be a battle until the day you die It is the one number one way that spiritual battle will be manifested in your life And if you surrender your prayer and you give up that prayer, they've lost everything I can't say this enough And I don't think i'm exaggerating in the least bit I had the the sadness of being a youth minister at a parish in north carolina where the priest left the priesthood to go live with his gay lover He stopped praying Stopped activating his the grace of his baptism stopped cooperating with grace gave up on himself gave up on god and chose a lifestyle Contrary to the gospel and at the last homily He ever delivered at our parish. He actually announced it to everybody I want you to know i've discerned what's best for me. I'm leaving the priesthood. I have a Homosexual lover down in charlotte. There's a woman in north car. I'm gonna go live with him I might stay in the area. So if you're hiring or you know somebody who's hiring I need a job next week. He actually said this in his last homily I'm like, I'm like, are you serious right now? I love the man. He was good to me. He was a good boss And I think he definitely loved the people that he served but he did not have The life of the spirit activated in him. He was not rooted in christ He was rooted in self-love and despair and whatever wounds led him to that god have mercy on his soul But I had to pick up the pieces with the young people and try to explain to them Why god was still sitting on the throne of their parish, you know, like it was going to be all right It was crazy But this is what happens when we lose our prayer. We lose our theological and mental and spiritual sanity Anything can happen under the umbrella of christ in prayer. We are guarded against all attacks Step out from underneath that umbrella. You're going to get hit by every storm satan throws at you St. Maximilian Colby st. Padre Pio, even I think st. Thomas Aquinas. They all describe satan as a chain dog Right, you ever hear this? He's a dog on a chain, which means unless you go within his range within his circle of influence You're protected Satan just cannot walk up to somebody jumping into their soul overtake them and wrestling with them to the ground and Possess them That is not the ability that satan has for somebody who's in christ and even somebody who's not in christ It's like they really have to cooperate and collaborate for satan that really dominate and infest their life But when we don't pray Right, we're moving into satan's circle Prayer, you know He's on a leash our leash is this chain of hope that anchors us to jesus that keeps us out of satan's Reach and he'll bark at you. He will snarl at you He will try to tempt you and scare you and intimidate you, but he's a chain dog And god willing you'll become as holy as Padre Pio someday so that satan can pick you up and throw you across the room As he spiritually attacks you and you'll wake up in the morning bruised and bloody because satan attacked you all night But you'll still be as holy as everybody Holier than anybody because you'll have survived and persevered Actually, I don't wish that on anybody But I think that'd be kind of a cool experience to be lifted out of your bed and thrown across the room by satan But in the end have him watch him walk away like a like a wounded puppy because for all of his Antics and all of his theatrics. He knew he's he's a defeated Chained dog With his tail hanging between his legs, you know, and and we need but we need to do this battle in our prayer You know the the tools that satan will use to divide you from him is number one division, right division I talked about this this morning this disruption when when when satan when when enemies go into battle The first thing you want to do is disrupt communications if you can confuse your enemy and disrupt communication with headquarters The people will scatter they won't be unified. We won't be unified in ourselves We'll be an emotional basket case or intellectually lost in the thought or Spiritually feeling discouraged whatever if we're divided and disrupted in our prayer God can't take all the forces of our will our intellect and our emotions and align them up so that we can go Into the battle strong with the united front to overcome satan through the power of the holy spirit So that prayer helps us to align all the assets that we have within ourselves and gear them towards doing the Lord's holy will But he'll try to disrupt that He'll try to make you believe that there's something that's coming across your plate right now. That's more important to prayer Now the average american right now watches between six and eight hours of television surfing the internet some sort of media Think about that six to eight hours a day. That's 25 of your life That means by the time you're 40 you'll have spent 10 years Of your life watching television or surfing the internet If you're way below average and you're I only surf the internet maybe two hours I watch television two hours a day That's still 10 of your life. That means that 10 years from now you'll have spent a whole year Of unerupted time in your life watching television or surfing the internet But between video games so many young men so many young women They're spending a third to a fourth of their life Tied to a device that promises them nothing but a distraction this ongoing distraction distraction That's what satan wants to do he wants us to focus on anything But god he'll use anything to distract us and usually we get so distracted even before we go to prayer right We consume so much media and so many new flashes and new sound bites in this that when we finally sit down to be quiet We're trying to process everything we just consumed for the last 24 hours And our hearts can't and our minds can't be still we need to stop the distractions of prayer before we go to prayer It's a radical thing to say. I mean I have been working on this Very diligently in my life I have an iPad that I use for work. I have deleted all media apps off that Device it is now simply a work device because it used to be so easy wherever I was and I could get on the internet And even if I wasn't near your wi-fi I could you know use my phone as a hot spot and watch something on netflix. I canceled netflix You know, I mean like I just okay. I'm wasting my life I'm 56 years old that I and I'm estimating I have maybe 20 to 25 more years of of good ministry that god's going to call me to And I don't want a good look back and say oh, I and when I knew I had 25 years ago left I still chose to spend two or three of those watching tv You're not going to wake up on your deathbed saying oh lord. Jesus. Can I can I can you keep me alive for one more week? The next season of the office is dropping or you know Maman or oh, it's about to become baseball season. Just let me live through baseball season then take me lord That's not what's going to be on your mind as you go to meet your maker In fact, I think a lot of us when we stand before the lord he rolls the tape and we see Hour after hour after hour after day after week after month after year of us sitting on our butts looking at a screen We're going to have you have nothing but shame and misery saying lord. I could have done so much more You ever see the movie schindler's list? At the end when he's looking at this list of people he saved he's like I could this could I could have sold this You know one more Yeah, all he had was this I saved so many but I could have saved more And and we don't want to be that way with God. I could have done so much more, but I didn't So what do we do? How do we overcome the division? You'll try to make you feel like a discouraged person. He'll say things to you like If you if you pray you don't feel anything. You're a hypocrite You're not you don't have active faith because you're not feeling anything. You're not in the right state of heart You know that mother saint mother Teresa lived the last 30 years of her life in desolation With no real sense of God's presence in her life when she prayed And you know that she still prayed two hours every day If she had all of her nuns pray for two hours a day because she said if I can't see Jesus in the blessed sacrament I won't see Jesus in the poor That was her spiritual food and even though she wasn't consoled by those minutes She was empowered by those minutes to do the Lord's holy will in her life You know, you might even begin to think I'm not worthy to feel God in my prayer I'm so broken and I'm so sinful. I don't deserve to feel God And the Lord doesn't want to give me there are times when God wants to console you. He does love you so much We hold back because we don't feel like we're worthy of having a deep prayer life I'm you know, we feel like st. Peter Lord go away. I'm a sinful man And the Lord's like, yeah, I know that's why I'm here I'm the only solution for that sin that you were you're so worried about I'm your only hope Don't push me away now because once you realize you're a sinful man, you're halfway there to say I'm a forgiven man Most people don't realize they need Jesus if you realize you need Jesus you're almost there So I'm at four o'clock Do you mind if I take five more minutes? All right, I'll be quick I promise it's only gonna be five because I just want to kind of touch over the dynamics of prayer First entering a prayer I already talked about but but trusting in the Holy Spirit Listen to what it says in the Catechism 26 72 It says the Holy Spirit whose anointing permeates our whole being is the interior master of christian prayer He is the artisan of the living tradition of prayer I love artisan things like artisan food handcrafted quality ingredients good stuff I don't I don't want to uh to eat a At a fast food restaurant. I mean when I get to travel and I'm at a place and the priest says, oh, you know, uh You know what let's go out and get a burger tonight. Like where do you want to go? I'm like anywhere but a chain You know, don't take me to applebee's we have an applebee's in student list It's one level above dog food in most cases right most things that applebee's are is microwaved or fried I said, where do locals go to get the really good stuff? Well, you know, who's got the best burger in town who crafts their burgers? You know, I went to this one place when I was in Waynesville, North Carolina this small City up in the mountains and it was just like fantastic handcrafted artisan burger And that's how the Holy Spirit is he uses the best ingredients and handcrafts each one of us Custom made not mass produced He's an artisan He's the artisan of the living tradition of prayer Which means this living tradition this river of grace that flows through the church of that's called prayer He invites us all into but he forms us in a particular way individually into a masterpiece of our own He goes on to say to be sure there are as many paths of prayer as there are persons who pray But it is the same spirit acting in all and with all It is the in the communion of the Holy Spirit that Christian prayer is prayer in the church So when remember when we say our father We're not just admitting that you know our understanding when we say our father that oh that unites us to christ We share a common fatherhood with christ. It also means that we are one That i'm not just praying for myself i'm praying for all of you like our father Together one human body when i lift up my prayers to god i have to be lifting up everyone Not just you know because like we can have personal intimacy with jesus But there's a an expression our Protestant brothers use do you have a personal relationship with jesus? Do you all have a personal relationship with jesus? I would say no I have personal intimacy with jesus God speaks to me in a very personal way, but as soon as i came into a relationship with jesus you became my brothers You became my sisters you know like like we became a family So it's no longer just a personal thing. It's just not me and jesus as long as i got me and jesus i'm okay I pray our father i make a vow to you To love you to serve you to honor you and to help bring you to heaven Our father has words beyond oh god, it's my father. That's so cool It means like every human person becomes you're you're you're related to them in a way that you you owe them love and dignity It calls us out of ourselves to pray the our father And that's when we have the holy spirit active that that prayer becomes prayer in the church uniting us all St. Bonaventure said simply put the holy spirit comes when he where he's loved where he is invited and where he is expected And so we have to when we come to pray just pray holy spirit Don't lead me to a feeling don't lead me to emotion. Lead me to the heart of jesus and let me abide there during this time And how do we do that? Acknowledge relate receive respond That same rhythm that we have in conversation with one another To acknowledge is to give an authentic giving of yourself as you are right now to jesus To say i'm having a bad day lord or lord today. I woke up just feeling overwhelmed by this in my life Or feeling troubled by this in my life I just want to tell you this is how i'm at lord And then related to god, but god i know that this anxiety is not of you That you are my anchor in the storm and so i come to you jesus and say be my anchor You know you say jesus you're the one this is where our meditation or our knowledge of scripture helps You lord you said uh come on to me all you who are weary I feel weary today. I'm coming on to you lord. I want to find the rest for my soul You relate it back to him If you're feeling joy like oh god i'm just so excited that i've been called to the priest and i'm just i feel so blessed Lord jesus you're the giver of all joy I'm fighting this joy because you're in this call you're the center of this call and i'm so grateful for that Right now i'm this joy i turn it back to you god the source of all joy Whatever you're dealing with just take it and relate it acknowledge where you're at and relate it to jesus Well, however that is good bad ugly. It's all good because it's real And then just receive The holy spirit will speak to us it might be it might take a while for you just to You know find that place of peace and this is why the listening part of our prayer needs to be expanded The talking part needs to be cut back But you can be sure the spirit is speaking when You feel like you're not being rushed If you have like this voice and you got to get this done. This is why i want you to do it now That's not how the holy spirit works. He brings peace and clarity not panic and rush to rush to action Like so many people are you know, like i'm all in for god and therefore when this You know, I let myself be deceived that the first thing the spirit wants to tell me is go do something You know the first the spirit says he wants us to be something Then we can go do something just like jesus said i want you to go make disciples of all nations But first i want you to wait until the holy spirit comes upon you Just wait. So that's what we need to do in prayer. We need to wait for the holy spirit to guide us The holy spirit speaks in a soft inner voice. He doesn't bark. He doesn't coerce He wants our cooperation our collaboration most importantly the holy spirit wants us to do it out of love So he's going to woo us with love. He's not going to use fear tactics He doesn't got to scare us into coercion So if you have an accusing voice of voice in your head reject it in the name of jesus because that's not the spirit speaking We know who the great accuser is it's satan Who wants to take your eyes off of jesus and put him back on yourself? You're not good enough. You need to do this. Why aren't you doing this? You're never going to be good enough all these things that sometimes fly into our head when we pray Just and how do we do that? We renounce them in the name of jesus. I renounce you Go away satan. You have no power here. I'm with jesus. Holy spirit. So quiet my heart The holy spirit will inspire you. He will not intimidate you He will invite you It is satan that puts the fear and forcing in our lives like i've got to do this or i'm just never going to please the lord That's not the holy spirit speaking The holy spirit invites you to give your heart once again to jesus The holy spirit invites you to listen and ponder Like he did with the blessed mother not push you to an you know unthought of decision Like you know like take the time to think things through There's wisdom that will be revealed Nine times out of ten we rush our decisions because we feel compelled to make decisions to be men of Action and decision and what their spirit is saying like i need men who are prayerful And receptive and being led But finally there is that part where we do need to respond So if you're taking your time and the lord says okay, this is what i want you to do And he lays it all out you have to be willing to do it I think people say well god's not speaking to me They will how committed to are you to obedience? What do you mean? Well if the lord asked you to go and forgive somebody would you go do it? No, I couldn't forgive that person That's why the word's not speaking to you because you're not willing to do it He'll tell you to do you've got to come with a blank page and say jesus I'm not giving you like you know, what do they call those little things? Uh, where they give you like Put in the name of a color the man walked in wearing a blank jacket and then you know like what are they called? Madlibs thank you We don't come to god with the madlibs with most of the story written just add god add god You just put a few words in there that I need to know we come with a blank page We don't have the story already created and ask god to just fill in details We come with a blank page and say what is your will for me? Now within your state of life life, right a lot of those decisions are made for you and that's good You know my morning prayer. I don't have to decide today if i'm going to have morning prayer Or i'm going to do communal prayer I know that those things are worked into my schedule because that's what I do like for me I don't know. I don't have to wonder whether or not god wants me to talk to my kids You know they need me that's that that's what the father does But I need to be able to respond when the lord says go in a particular Direction you have to be willing to to obey to respond And if you're doing that on a regular basis with your concerns with your heart Just giving it the lord will help you to grow into into a prayer warrior You'll wake up hungry for god your first thought before your feet hit the floor is jesus christ I'm making the lord of my life take this day and make it onto you. I give my life to you now I want to be with you now because I know at some point during the day I'm going to really want to be with you and I'm going to need you but if I neglect you now What if I can't find you when I really need you? You know and the truth is we need god all the time But i'm saying like we need to really make that room to commune with god when we can Because the ultimate end of our life is not ministry The ultimate end of our existence is communion with god in heaven With nothing to do but be with him to sing his praise for all of eternity No more problems to solve no more fires to put out No more important decisions to be made or not made Just communion no more baptisms no more confessions to hear Just eternal bliss and everything that we love about life will be a part of heaven The best parts of what we have here on earth without all the garbage If I told you you you know if I said to you I'll make a deal If you give every waking moment of your life from here on out to jesus christ And forsake everything else I promise you if you do that you'll go to heaven would you make that deal Who wouldn't right our life on earth is like a drop in the bucket compared to like the ocean of eternity right We'll be swimming in that water forever and still not hit the bottom Then I would say well what would it take for you to give uh How about how about five percent of your day to god? Well, what's five percent of my day one hour Give one hour to god and mental prayer. That's five percent of your day And give another five percent of spiritual reading Because if you invest that time you'll become a saint and You'll be on the path to say And we we we need to keep we need to keep things in perspective right Nothing is more important than communion with christ And and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise So let's stop here. Let's pray because I went way over the five minutes that you gave me I'm a greedy little person and I apologize Name of the father son holy spirit amen Good and gracious god We thank you that you love us so much that you accept us where we are at as we are But we'll also praise you jesus that you love us so much that you refuse to let us remain as we are That you're constantly calling us to change to grow to become everything that you made us to be Spirit be poured out on our lives in abundance. Let this fire of god Transform us because just as fire transforms everything it touches may the fire of god's love The passion for the father the passion for prayer be awakened in our souls Dried us deeper into the mystery of christ and his love Lord forgive us for the times that we have not made prayer a priority For the times that we've wasted our lives And lord, you're more than more than able to forgive and mercifully You know cast our sin from us And with that we just want to recommit ourselves right now lord to our prayer to you as our lord and savior To you holy spirit as the interior master who will guide us and form prayer in our hearts We surrender all of this to you jesus knowing that you are more than capable of of doing more than we could ever ask or imagine Through trusting in your power in your love Just be with us now lord continue to be with us through the rest of this retreat and we ask this all in your name jesus Amen the father son holy spirit amen