 Okay friends you watch behind the scenes divine intimacy radio. We're talking about the interior life today Q&A from our listening audience and Before we jump into the show make sure you check out etch a homo for Lent and That's you can find that a spiritual direction comm events 50 Catholic speakers by the Josh Johnson. Oh, that was just one other Boniface Hicks That's like to Dan Burke. No, that's weak Yeah, it's their amazing crew If you want to be blessed and it's free that doesn't mean low quality and it doesn't mean free to us But we're trying to help the world become holy. So go check it out spiritualdirection.com events you can also find all the pilgrimages we do and the other retreats and all that good stuff So should we start the show? Yes, and your market check go. This is Dan Stephanie Burke Welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven abreast your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind We lift our hearts and minds to heaven To draw on the wisdom of the saints to help us to navigate the two volts of life and with joy and Peace possible. Yes. It's actually supposed to be normal. Yes for the Christian life. So First before we jump in the show, I just want to say thanks to you to be 10 Wtm is just an awesome organization and Really when you look at all the jump going on in the church, especially I'll just say it in Germany You know, I I think that mother Angelica a WTN Bishop Fulton sheen that crew Really kept the church in America from going a lot worse Places than it could have so I'm so grateful for the work of EWTN and all their news Efforts and everything to do and that they let us do the show. Yeah, very good. I'd be praised. I'd be praised All right. So what is spiritual direction sound like? It reminds me of that famous song. What did the fox say? Don't oh, no, no, no, no, we're not going there But what is it sound? It just sounds like it's an animal and it makes a noise But I guess that's not what they're really asking It's so they go on my apologies to everyone who knows that song and it's now playing in their head I don't even know the song. So it seems like spiritual directors can only lead with questions That is not the case. You want to answer that? No, however as Well, first of all, I think there's there's needs to be clarity in that the true director in This relationship of director and directee There is a third person and that's the bless the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the true director Yeah, so the spiritual director is The discerner and is helping to discern with the directee of how the whole Holy Spirit's moving Listening for movements. Yeah, listening for inspirations Listening for patterns in the person's spiritual life their walk in their prayer life all of this thing and also looking to to To recognize what is off? So that involves a lot of stuff that you know, it involves questions. It involves feedback. It involves clarity and Teaching and so there's a lot going on there When I give direction, I'm utilizing all of that So It's not just asking questions. It's I would say it's prayer and discernment and it's very core Yeah, and I think sometimes you ask questions of the directee and Sometimes as you observe patterns, you'll talk with them about that and propose, you know, is this where the Lord's leading? I guess that's a question, but it's not all just Questions in fact, it's it's modern spiritual directions. Best in the United States has been heavily influenced by a psychologist named Carl Rogers who proposed that the only way that you should have Someone in therapy come to conclusions is when they do it on their own and that's not really a perfect model for spiritual direction There's some good things about it the philosophy but In spiritual direction, you know, let's say somebody's in Mortal sin and they're not aware of it. It's okay for the director to say This behavior will send you to hell and yet you really should stop, you know Directions are usually a lot more nuanced than that but I think in particular this is important because there was a time in history When you know the catechesis that that individuals were receiving was better the even through homilies and you know so on and so forth, right? So Nowadays when our life is so Modernized it's so spread out. It's so compartmentalized Where people maybe are just going to mass on Sunday and their catechesis has been very poor You have to be able to fill in those gaps with Assigning spiritual direction spiritual reading with assigning church documents, maybe The catechism, you know books on prayer and the interior life and all of that So you cannot just ask questions Even though the Holy Spirit is going to work and he's going to do what he wants to do I think we are called to Enter into that Relationship in a deeper way to help people find and fill in the gaps in their own catechesis that they may have experienced So there's a lot going on in direction outside of just asking questions. There you go What is the difference between mental prayer and listening to a Catholic evangelist? So I have an example. I have analogy I have so what's the difference between mental prayer? So so let's go back to the first century Okay, so if you watch the chosen you should have a good holy Imagination let's go back to the first century and Jesus is let's say he's in the living room of the house and You can decide to go talk to him or Matthew is in the backyard and they're both Of course still alive that you know, there's not been a crucifixion or any of that part of history Who would you go listen to? Right ain't Matthew. I'm gonna go sit at the feet of Jesus So it's not complicated. I mean mental prayer is made for the most intimate kind of Communication with God it is not it can't be replaced by YouTube or listening to father Mike Schmitz. However amazing or praise and worship music I love it listen on the first one to love praise and worship music It cannot replace your mental prayer time right and people need to consider mental prayer time is I Talk about it. It's it's akin to the marital embrace Without a sexual connotation to it. It's one-on-one no interruptions The world falls away It's you know loving God and allowing yourself to be loved in return. It's deep intimacy In deep silence. Yeah And anything outside of that is gonna is gonna interrupt it And not only that it's so important for your spiritual life. It's transformative. It will change your life. Yeah, that's the positive side St. Alphonse's Liguri I think Teresa of Avila Both doctors of the church will tell you That if you're not practicing mental prayer, you're not gonna make it. It's too hard But when you draw near to Jesus you get to know him And you're walking with him on the narrow way In and through the sacraments in and through all the graces that the church has to offer mental prayer keeps you Deeply rooted in christ and deeply rooted in relationship with him. Yeah, and he's so long To be with us I think if people could understand how he longs To be with each one of his beloved children in that one-on-one To love them to to bless them to heal them to restore them to fill them He longs to be with you. Yeah, and and why would you deny yourself such a great grace? Because you're busy because you know, whatever Allow yourself that time And You will never regret one minute spent in prayer I can guarantee you that and if this is appealing to you or this idea or Stephanie's Plead to learn how to do mental prayer Um, and you you don't really quite understand it or what to do head out to spiritual direction dot com And you can get a hold of I did a what is it a five part? series on On mental prayer called into the deep and it is free And it's on the events page And you can go to It says into the deep into free free event But you can watch that series and and normally If you were to try to get something like this from any other organization You'd be paying for it because it cost us a lot to produce it. We had four cameras set up and A very high crew every it's very very high quality audio crew very high quality so Check out Finding peace through prayer into the deep based on my book into the deep Finding peace through prayer and that'll help you to get started in mental prayer and It's necessary to being an authentic disciple of jesus. That's right. All right next question Do you write your responses to examine questions or is it purely mental? How do you respond as you say yes and no in your mind? So what they're talking about is we recommend us does Teresa of Avila that the most basic practices for entering into The interior castle what we call authentic discipleship Is beyond the foundation of the sacraments is daily mental prayer and the examine The examine is a is a practice you can do just in a few minutes morning or evening That evaluates your day and asks the question. Where's god and where am I in relationship to god? Basically, how am I doing in relationship to his call to me in all the various Aspects of my life my state in life that sort of thing So the question then i'll read it again and you can take a swipe out if you like Do you write your responses down to the examine questions or it's a purely mental? And do you respond? How do you respond as you say yes and no in your mind? Maybe describe the detail of those? so um Well for one You and I use a form through epistole v. A that you created Where we have our plan of life our plan of love and so we our commitments to the lord whatever they are and I divide them in Commitments to god and then to others And and so I'll I'll run down that list and you know, did I get up at my prescribed time? Did I take care of my auxilium christian norm prayers? Did I pray my rosary my mental prayer time? Did I? um, you know, we have a commitment to the liturgy of the hours and so all of those things um I I know like at this point in my life I know whether I completed those and there's so much a part of the rhythm Of my day that I don't necessarily have to check those off I can just do a quick mental check and go. Oh, yep. Got everything completed Um, that's good and good, but at the beginning sometimes we need those mental cues So we may use the checklist to do that So I think if you're in the pre-pergative purgative way and you're starting out on this journey And you've made commitments to the lord. I think those you're gonna need to be more specific So having some sort of notebook and some way of of doing that I think is very helpful um as far as I'm more general examine of How did it how did my day go? You know, I I'm going to look starting at the beginning of my day up until that point at the end of my night Kind of from a 30 000 foot level and I'm thinking about well, did I get up on time? Did I pray how are my encounters with my husband? How are my encounters with other people that I love and serve people well? And oh, I was out in my car and I got irritated at that driver And maybe, you know, this is not my issue Praise be to god, but maybe I was it was angry and I yelled a word or made a hand sign You know, oh, I need to take that to confession Or I was rude to the cashier or the waitress or whatever, right Things like that or or my mother-in-law called and I you know, I I You know ended up saying something. I wish I hadn't said or I was uncharitable Those kind of things I can make those notes and jot them down so that I can take them to confession And then what we also do is a redemptive And it's just saying lord. I praise you for all these good things. Why don't we continue when we get back from the break? Okay, that's important. We'll be right back When your mark gets Go, this is dana Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to divine intimacy radio before the break Stephanie was talking about the Examine and how to do that daily and we you sort of kind of get cut off Which we're talking about the redemptive examine, right? Which fundamentally is we look at all of this as positive if I see that I've sinned I don't praise me to congratulate myself. It's like, okay. I'm sorry You know, let's if it's a pattern. Let's break the pattern. Let's work harder Yeah, when I say praise me to God is that I'm aware, right? I'm aware that I've sinned so that and then there's a remedy so I can take that to confession If it's venial I can do a confidia right there and I can offer that to God and get rid of it So the redemptive examine is both checking our day against those things that were in affront to the lord or to others or And or both Or I rather it's and Praising God for those moments of grace. Thank you lord for the exchange of love with my husband Thank you lord for that beautiful phone call or that text That was an encouragement or an act of love. Thank you for The phone call from my son, you know, whatever it is that was a grace moment in our day That we can praise God and thank him for that. Thank you lord for our priest Thank you that I was able to receive the Eucharist today Thank you for the sacrament of confession, you know, we I don't think people understand the power of a heart full of gratitude A heart full of gratitude drives out resentment a heart full of gratitude Brings healing restoration and oneness With the lord and those that he's entrusted to us So this idea of looking back on our day and praising the lord for all that he's given to us Is a beautiful way to end your day To go into your night in peace and then you're ready to rise again All right, very good If you want to learn more about the redemptive examine you can head out to spiritualdirection.com and Type in redemptive examine and you'll find out you'll get a document that describes what what Stephanie was was talking about So this is a good question for uh, I don't know when this will air may air afterland I don't know But uh, regardless will you do mortifications? Whether it's lent or not so, um How can I be sure if the intent of my mortifications? Are for spiritual and not personal Benefits specifically right regarding to good things. I should be doing anyway like exercise, you know Some people you can get overly scrupulous about their and they And these are all good people by the way like nobody cares about this who's not Heading from good to better It's like well, I realize my motives are mixed because I want to see my muscles grow So when I look in here or or I'm tired of not fitting into my jeans, right? Well either way, right? Um, but you also know you're responsible for taking care of your body and that sort of thing Look, you know, I just can't conceive of a human being Unless they're a saint Not having some kind of mixed motives for doing any good You know, um Yeah, you know, it's it's can people have pure motives sure, but I you just got to forget it Just if you if you have mixed motives, you have mixed motives. Just go do the good thing And eventually the lord will purify your motives. That's I don't know you do you agree with that? Yeah, and I I think you just have to consider that that desire to to be How do I say this without sounding like somebody else's jingle? um To to refine I'm going to reword it to refine and perfect this temple of the holy spirit that you've been given, right? In in all its facets mind body soul spirit All of that That's fine. The lord's placed that desire on you. He wants you to be free He wants you to be able to be able to squat down and pick up your granddaughter You know, he wants you to have a healthy body Because the healthier you are The more that you can complete the mission that he's given to you unless he's given you one to suffer and and be ill for the sake of That redemptive suffering and and and suffering that for others and for the whole church And and those the those situations do occur But other than that the motive to be healthy Isn't a negative, you know Now if the motive is so that you can fit into the you know um You know the I don't know whatever those those different designer dresses are So that you can vainly go to a party. That's something you shouldn't do right But to be healthy and to do something that you need to do anyway for your health I wouldn't worry about it. I would just make an offering to the lord and keep going What about if a person has a roots in a vanity? um Well, then they should Not work out in front of mirrors Yeah, maybe that's a good thing. I mean, really if you have a roots in a vanity that doesn't mean you let yourself go Please don't let yourself go you have a responsibility to be happy clean well cared for holy And in a decent amount of health for the sake of those he's entrusted to you so Just don't look in the mirror and if somebody gives you a compliment say thank you and move on Yeah, yeah, and that you know if your roots in a vanity Then it's good to fast from looking at yourself in the mirror And i'm being dead serious Uh or taking pictures of yourself and posting them You know of your workout or on social media or whatever. Yeah, it's really weird. Yeah, okay Is divine intimacy for mental prayer or spiritual reading? It's a great question So their divine intimacy is a book and some of you may not know that you might just think oh, it's just a radio show Or a podcast or whatever But the podcast was named after a book and it was published by Or compiled by father gabriel of saint mary magdalene Who is he a blessed or anything? I think his cause is up I don't know if the producer can look that up, but I think his cause is is Is creeping but I don't know for sure, but it is certainly an extraordinary book. Yeah. Well, listen, it's out for Uh outside of scriptural reflection there. I've never encountered a book That is better to do daily meditations on then than divine intimacy But it is more spiritual reading than it is mental prayer But it can lead you to mental prayer. I don't know if you've ever experienced that using it Yeah, I mean Way back when, you know, probably 10 12 years ago or whatever I was very dedicated to reading through divine intimacy And I would do my mental prayer on scripture using the better part Which is a resource that we recommend for mental prayer For a script, you know, christian meditation, which was extraordinary and then I would read divine intimacy So I didn't use it solely for my mental prayer time I used it for spiritual reading, but it became mental prayer because of its richness So it was kind of like an add-on What I found extraordinary about this and maybe this was just a special grace, but You know, they it comes with kind of a daily theme whatever it is humility Patience, you know different kind of themes that come through it And what I found is that the lord was truly working through that time of prayer with that with that passage In my daily life and it was awesome. Yeah, it was an extraordinary resource because I I do think it is deeply graced Yeah, I do too. I think it's it's If you want to learn spiritual theology in small bites, you know, it has two meditations a day Two prayers a day and it does teach you in the book how to Practice mental prayer and the spiritual reading that will lead to mental prayer You can find that book out at spiritualdirection.com And go to the shop page and then it you may need to Pass through to the sophia institute press website if it's not on our page But i'm definitely gonna work on getting it on our page because it's covered In our system. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a great book. So Um, I'm gonna have to give this one to you because I don't know the answer How any advice on receive in working toward healing? from a father wound Oh Wow, that's a deep question I you know I think We all have parental wounds of some sort And just don't I haven't met any perfect parents except for mary joseph and our lord Um, and and you know people bring what they have they bring their strengths their weaknesses their imperfections All of that to the table when they become parents and For the most part, I think people really desire to give their children nothing but good But often the woundedness is so extreme and the lack of self-awareness is so extreme that it causes Deep wounds I have experienced deep wounds in the in the father area And I think the most important thing Is first of all to do a deep reflection on God the father And his love for us And also the prayer that he gave to us And if we reflect on the our father and it says, you know Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive right as we forgive We are entering into A you know this contract with the lord of sorts of saying Lord, I'm asking you as I pray this on a daily basis, whether it's in the context of the mass or in my daily prayer That you forgive me as I've forgiven others And there's no little bracket in the middle of that prayer that says if everybody was on their best behavior or If they merit the forgiveness Or whatever it is and this is not And I and I say this with deep love And deep tenderness and and understanding the deep sacredness of this It is not to say that the wounds that have been um Done to you or are the wounds that you have experienced It's not to excuse what's been done to excuse to excuse that pain Um, and the lord's not asking for you to excuse what they did but he is Asking you to forgive as we ask him to forgive us. Why is that? Unforgiveness poisons us it poisons us and And we'll keep talking about this when we get back here in a minute. Um, but when we're in the second segment Oh, we can't okay, so quickly He asks us to forgive and to leave him to to take care of that for us So that his grace can heal us and restore us So we leave the forgiveness to him We know that when we forgive in jesus name, he brings to perfection that Area of healing that we need and then we surrender that to the lord And I would add at the end of saying in the name of jesus I forgive my father for enlisting those that you ask that all Curses be turned into blessings that the that your father be restored a hundred fold and you set him free So with that until next time May the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body Irreproachable at the coming of our lord jesus christ amen