 a moment to talk about, you know. Hey friends, this is Dan Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio. First, just want to shout out to EWTN and just say with a great expression of gratitude for allowing us to do all this work through their channels. They're they're they've through the heroic work of Mother Angelica and people like Fulton Sheen and you know, the United States Church is way healthier shaped and a lot of what's going on in the world. And we're grateful to be a part of that. And whatever we recommend on the show, you know, when you're looking for good materials for like, what do I read that's Catholic that's faithful. EWTN has a theology department with multiple theologians that vet every book they sell in the EWTN religious catalog store. And you ought to make sure you patronize them because you're going to find it's just a safe place. So just want to let you know that today. The show today, just a preview of the show is we're continuing the series on Finding Peace in the Storm. And that's a book that I just wrote, which is basically a spiritual commentary on St. Alphonsus Liguri's great and amazing work, Uniformity with God's Will. We're going to be talking today about a monk that knew amazing peace in the storm that we could all learn from and certain principles to help us navigate the difficulties going on. Before we jump into the show, Divine Intimacy in Marriage, we just had Divine Intimacy in Marriage retreat in Hansville, Alabama at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Hey, and there we our guest today was there with his fiance. Oh, this one. Yeah. Oh, Jordan. That's right. And I got pulled up on stage at one point. He did at the very end. We tried not to bug him. We did respect your, you know, you guys did. Yeah. Yeah. We worked hard to do that. It was good. People appreciate that. Of what? Of what Jordan said. The question. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. Were they just kind of, it was, you know, the marriage retreat was just kind of okay. It was just, you know, it was all right. That was really good. It was really good. It was amazing. And I'm not saying this with any sort of bias or anything. And they know that it was amazing seeing the transformation that occurred in a lot of couples who were there somewhere on the, I mean, you talk about this all the time to witness it. Couples who were on the verge of divorce and couples living together and all these other different things who at the end of the retreat were, you know, snuggled up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to that end, I mean, when we started, I was a little worried because of the heaviness in the room. There was it was heavy when we were standing up there. It's the heaviest I've ever felt. And we prayed over that room. We've done the perimeter prayer. There was holy salt, holy water in that room. And those couples were sitting there and it's dead silent. And you could cut the tension with a knife. And I thought, well, Lord Jesus, come on, you know, not to mention the warfare before. Oh, we had crazy warfare, you know, all kinds of stuff. And then, you know, in our in our priest, he said, without breaking the the seal of confession, he said, a lot of people here are seeing this as their last resort, you know. And so to see like you were talking about that transformation, because by the end, there was joy. There was hope. People weren't running out the door, which did happen. One person, yes, they came back. God bless her. I mean, she hung in there. She kept kept her way all the way in the end. But to see the transformation by the end was remarkable. And I was just, I'm so moved. I'm so pumped by this part of our ministry. I mean, so much of it touches so many things. But heal marriages is just remarkable. Yeah. So I want to say to any priests that are out there listening, you should allow the couples that you are putting through marriage prep pre-kana. This should be their weekend retreat. Oh, that would be great. Yeah. That's my opinion. Yeah, because you've done them. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what I had experienced here versus what I had experienced in previous. It's not even a comparison. Yeah, it's not even. So any priests out there listening, if you want to set your young couples up for success, and again, no bias, no bias at all. Yeah. And we did have, we do have a spectrum. We had, we had, we've had, we're regularly having pre-marrieds. Yes. We have people with good marriages. We have people with marriages toe, you know, on the rocks. Been married a year, been married, you know, 60 years. They're all getting tons of great. So the next one's February 9th to the 11th, 2024, also in Hansville, Alabama. Yeah. Don't miss this. You know, tell your adult children about it. Buy, buy it for them. Tell your grandkids about it. Buy it for them. We have parents that have gone through it themselves that are now saying, Hey, I'm going to purchase this for my kids and volunteer to keep the kids so that they can come away for the marriage retreat. Our producer today came with his bride and part of his family. I don't know how many members of his family were six, right? There was a bunch of your family came. Yeah, six of them. So it's, it's not, we're not promising that it's going to solve everything. But the Lord is doing a mighty thing. And it's based on Catholic mystical traditions. Very different. And we even had a guy, one guy came up to me afterwards and he said, you told, you were telling the truth. It is very different. We had, we had some couples have been in marriage ministry for 30 years that were blown away by it. It's so different than what they've experienced. We don't ask dudes to act like women. We don't, you know, we don't have hug parades. We don't, it's, it's not based on pop psychology. It's based on tradition of the church and the healing power of what it means to come to union with God and one another in that context. So one last thing, we'll jump into the show. Another event we have coming up in San Pedro, California, November 11th. So, you know, it's, it's just a few days away, right? We're leaving tomorrow, setting the captives free spiritual warfare and the discernment of spirits. It'll be, it'll be held at, let's see, Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, beautiful church, and you can sign up for that. Just go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. You'll also see all of our events there, including if you're in Australia, by the way, got a bunch coming up in Australia, one in New Zealand. Yeah. So, and we'll have those up. Yeah, on the site soon. Great. Okay, let's go ahead and start the show and your market set go. This is Dan Stephanie and Jordan Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest, your hermitage of the heart, your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to drop on the wisdom of the saints to help us to navigate to see clearly to find peace in the midst of this, wow, storm of a culture, storm in the church, storm everywhere, personal lives, and I'm so grateful, and you know, and this could sound self aggrandizing, maybe, but I don't think it, I'm so grateful for to Jordan to just saying, Dad, you got to read this book, Dad, you got to read this book, Uniformity with God's Will by LaGruy, and then just being prompted to, you know, read it and go, okay, this is tough for a modern audience. How do I help? It needs to be a book. It needs to be longer. It can't disappear in the shelves. It's too important. And we're people are really responding to it. So I'm grateful to you. And I'm grateful. And that's which why Jordan's joining us on the show. We always enjoy having me either way. But he's the one who really read it, probably memorized it and then said, we got to, we got to get this out there. So God be praised. So today, we're in Uniformity and all things. We're just walking through major themes in the book. We're on page 29, where St. Alphonsus talks about the afflictions of Job. And Job, of course, what's funny enough, Job was the first book of the Bible that I read seriously. And it had a huge impact on me then, because the sovereignty of God is just the theme of the sovereignty of God is just so profound there. But there's a messenger comes to Job and says that the Sabians, which are enemies of, you know, like an enemy tribe, had plundered all of his goods, which means stolen everything he had, and killed his and killed his children. And Job's response is is profound. And I'm not saying, if you don't have this, you're a loser, there's no condemnation. This is just God, God decides to tell us Job's response. So God's not, you know, he's not he's not absent in mercy in this. He's just saying, this is a rightly ordered heart. And Job's response is, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. And he only, he only, yeah, okay, this is the whole, I'll read the whole section here. It's really brief. The Lord give the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, he didn't say the Lord has given me my children and my possessions and the Sabians have taken them away. He said the Lord, he said, he realized that adversity had come upon him by the will of God. Therefore, he added, as it is pleased the Lord, so it is done. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We must not therefore consider the afflictions that come upon us as happening by chance or solely from the malice of men. We should be convinced that what happens happens by the will of God. And I want to go to a story that I've told before, but you and I were in the car, the backseat of the on Brown's car. Beautiful. Oh, wow. Yeah. And you know, I've already talked a bit. Why don't you want to tell it what she said? Yeah, we were, she's, she's the foundress of Marion Servants of Divine Providence down in Florida, Clearwater, Clearwater, Florida. Great spiritual direction school down there. Yeah, they're doing great work. And we had gone down to visit because we were, was before we had our own retreat center and all that. And just making connections and getting to know her. I think we were down there at her behest to, to visit with her. And she was taking us on a drive around and she drove us out to where her house was. And it's on this, like this little key or this little outlet. Peninsula. Peninsula, I guess, you know, like you literally drive right in front of the house and there's the ocean. Yeah. And, and I was remarking on how extraordinary beautifully beautiful it is. And she said, yeah. And she's telling us about it and how long they'd lived there. And she said, my son was killed right out there in front. You had it fixed. So this one will go to either 13 or 14. We can go. So as is the norm with shows that are important things, tend to go wrong randomly. We've never had this happen before. We've had issues before. Are we live, by the way? We're live now. Yeah. So we never had this happen before. The computer booted right in the middle. I saw this go out and then I heard that. Yeah. So do we need to, okay. So I got, we're gonna go. Yeah. So what we'll do is I'll just, I'll cue you up again to talk about Dion. Okay. On your mark. Are you ready? We're all good. Mark, it's a go. So, I mean, we know of a story in a sense in a micro like Job in our own life, beautiful woman, Dion Brown, we went down to see her in Clearwater, Florida. Maybe you could pick it up from there and tell that story because we were both just blown away by it. Yeah, sure. So she's, we wanted to connect with her. She's a founder of a community and a spiritual direction school. Mary and servants of divine providence. Down in Clearwater, Florida, they're doing great work down there. Friends of ours. And so we went with Dion for a little tour of everything, the grounds and then out to where her house is. She took us on a tour of the little peninsula and the house is right in front of the ocean, like literally right in front of the ocean. There's boats all around. Yeah. Yeah. And she, she let us know that her son had been killed in a jet ski accident right in front of the house. And I mean, I was just crushed in the back of the car as she said it, just my heart was just immediately like broken. And I said, oh, oh no. I said that, that's so, you know, terrible. And I'm so sorry. And, you know, you don't even have a, you don't even have words at that point when somebody expresses that to you. And she goes, oh, she said, no, no, she said, I need to explain something to you. She said, if I had the power to bring him back, I wouldn't. That was weird. We're both, so we're first, we're sort of blown away by the, that kind of level of suffering. Then we're just sitting in our seat, back in our seat going, wow, what? What did you just say? Right. And then she went on to explain to us that it was by the loss of her son that her conversion came, which then led to everything else. The starting of the beautiful ministry, this incredible ministry, that the loss of her son, she said, without it, I would not be who I am today. Meaning she'd be in hell. Right. You know, it was her conversion. Right. Right. And, and so now that's faith. Right. That's a woman who truly understands because so many people can see these situations that happen, job like situations where, where everything is lost. And, and you could, you could wrongly assume, well, or, or understandably assume, well, God's a God of, of cruelty and he's sleeping or he's napping whatever. And it's just not the case. He uses all circumstance for good for those who love him for those who are called according to his purpose is what Romans 12 says. Right. Right. And we all have the freedom in that moment to either choose bitterness and hardness of heart and, and death or choose life and turn to the Lord and surrender to him and say, I don't get this and I'm dying inside, but I choose you. It's so contrary to what the world tells us how we should respond to hardships and, you know, people flounder and again, understandably. So we're not degrading anybody and saying that. But, you know, the world basically says, Oh, you're suffering. God must not be there or you're suffering. You know, this is terrible. Everything is terrible. And there are objectively horrific circumstances that occur that we've all experienced when we're another, but the key is recognizing how God is moving and working through that. And that's where the peace comes in. Because otherwise, I mean, you mentioned people suffering in hell, you know, well, because of it, what we all know, because of the work we do, one of the, one of the doorways for the demonic is wills. So people experience these things. Unforgiveness, bitterness, and contrast. I become my wound. So it's hardness of heart. It's so important to understand this. And now, so just to be really clear, when she lost her son, she probably cried for six months. But the issue is, is though, where did that lead her, right? Where it led her into the heart of God, into a reality that transcended all of the pain and suffering of this life, because the suffering pointed her to the solution. She said yes to the solution. You know, it just occurred to me. So my closest sibling is my was my sister Linda. Didn't expect that. But I was just thinking about her untimely death. And the reason we were close, she was my step sister. But she wasn't my step sister. She was my sister, you know, the step thing doesn't, I don't have that thing. You know, if God puts you in my orbit, you know, you're my sister, you're my sister. So we became close because she, I scared the hell out of her, because I was trying to figure out faith. And she stayed with me when I was in school in Phoenix. And I would talk about hell with her. And I wasn't trying to scare her, but it affected her. And she was living a wayward life and, you know, that sort of thing. And she became a devout Christian, evangelical Christian, as did I shortly thereafter. And so that's why we had this deeper, this deeper bond. She started to take care of orphan kids. A few of them lived in a dump nearby where they lived, and they had contracted some kind of really strange disease. And then she caught it and her lungs stopped working and she died at 35. She died really quickly, like overnight. Yeah, she was healthy. And then I got a call, she went to the hospital next day, I got a call that she was dead. It was just really brutal, like just brutal. And, but I just, it just struck me that my dad, my dad died just a few years ago. But it was, but the first, when I finally was able to share the gospel because he converted essentially on his deathbed, not exactly, but a few weeks before. And the thing that got through to him and woke him up that the Holy Spirit gave to me when I went, when I was prompted to share the gospel again with him was, I want you to see Linda again when you die. That suffering brought forward in time, led to the conversion of your dad. Right. Because when he heard that, when he's laying in the hospital bed, his eyes got as big as saucers and he went, what are you talking about? What do you mean? He connected to that pain that he had probably never processed. Right. Because he never told her, he loved her. And he loved her like crazy. He just was not mature that way. But yeah, that's the point. We often don't understand when we're in these deep storms what God is doing, what God did there. Linda was fine with the Lord. I mean, I'm not saying, she didn't, I pray for her every day with purgatory, I don't know, but she was baptized. She would, you know, the church does teach the invincible ignorance and these other factors, you know, the thief on the cross who never was baptized. So that's my hope for her. So I believe she's okay, at least on the way or there, not because of Catholic teaching. But in the end, my dad, I don't think would have been a wake to the gospel because then I shared with him, you know, Dad, you're a good man, but you can't, that doesn't solve the problem of sin. And that's why Jesus came, you know, but it was them saying that, that just his whole face lit up and he was ready to hear the gospel again. Right. And in a powerful way, but you just never would connect those events. You don't know. Well, that's an important thing to know, too. We're not saying that people can't be sorrowful. We're not saying that you just have to accept it with no sorrow. You have to be some sort of emotionless knowing, right? But that sorrow rightly ordered is what brings about the goodness of God, because you're saying, I am in pain, but I'm entrusting this to you because I know that you have a bigger plan. So I don't want anyone listening to this thinking, well, I can't, I can't experience emotion. No, God gave you those emotions for a reason. Right. But they have to be rightly ordered and have to be put in this particular. Yeah, it's very good. Well, when we get back from the break, we're going to keep talking through these incredibly powerful, but difficult teachings that will help us to navigate through the storms of life and really to rise above them. That's the key so that we can be a lot of beacon, even in the midst of our despair, even in the midst of our suffering, we can be a beacon of light to say, you know what, I'm hurting. This is difficult. We're together. Let's go. Let's follow the Lord. We'll be right back. So then the next one, so that'll be our 13th segment. This will be our 12. Is it 12.5? I think it's 12. No, that would have been 1226, because we went back a minute. So it's 12. All right, we'll just keep jumping in since we had all that delay and we need to get, you said, and Mark said, go. This is Dan Stephanie and Jordan Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio. So happy to have Jordan on today talking about Finding Peace to the Storm, which is my latest book from Sophia Institute Press. You can find it out at spiritualdirection.com forward slash or just shop. All of my books are out there. So talking about Joe, talking about the loss of a child, these difficult things. There's this, Liguri kind of sums up this section. He says, we must not therefore consider the afflictions that come upon us as happening by chance or solely from the malice of men. We should be convinced that what happens by the will of God because when we're convinced of that, we ask the most important question, which is, what are you doing? Where are you heading? How do I follow you? And when you answer those questions, that's how you find peace even, and I mean simultaneously with all the suffering, all of the visceral effects of tragedy. And the pain, yeah. And you find purpose in it and direction. Right. Well, then I guess the question would be, why would God, because I think this is important, why would God permit these things to happen? And I know that we'll get into this a little bit later, but to touch on it now. Feel free, yeah. Well, do you want to either go on? Basically, why would God permit these things to happen? Liguri is saying that all these horrible, painful things, a doctor of the church, a church doctor is saying that everything that happens is either willed or permitted by God. So does that mean then, this is somebody out here who's listening to this, that God is allowing these evil things to happen? Well, it doesn't, again, we'll get into this. It doesn't mean that God wants these things to happen. Right. That's a different question. Right. Yeah. Right. He's not a cruel, evil God. Right. This, the terrible things that happen often, you know, at the hands of others, that's sin. Right. And I think it really comes down to, you know, is our love free? Right. Because this freedom of the will is our love free. Do we choose to love him? Because if we doesn't allow complete freedom, then that means then we are forced to love him and forced to worship him. Which isn't love. It actually doesn't. Which isn't love. That's not all sin. And you can't receive it that way. Right. No. So it has to be completely free or not free at all. There is no middle ground. And so, I mean, he's given us guardian angels to guide us. He's given us the doctrine of the church. He's given us the sacraments. He showered ways for us to follow him and to find consolation and healing and restoration and peace in him. But we have to choose it in the end. Right. And there are plenty of folks who don't. You know, it's just... So then the easy answer is also with all of that, God is not willing this evil to occur. Right. Right. He's permitting it. Right. And the cases and the instances that we're talking about. Yeah. So if we believe that, because that's what Scripture says very clearly. Yeah. We have to believe that, which I believe is one of the first steps. Yeah. The second step is then to say, going into this, all right, Lord, your will be done. What are you trying to do? Right. And in every one of these instances, there's something moving in the background. God is taking something evil that he did not will and using it for a better good. Right. And we have to believe that. Right. And then that gets us to the next question. Exactly. How do I join you? Right. How do I live in this reality? How do I participate with this pain? Yeah. What do you... Yeah. So... Well, I mean, even this morning, if I can use the example of this morning, wives know things about their husbands. And you've been on, I don't know, how many months of prednisone, which really wrecks you, wrecks your ability to sleep and everything. And you're suffering and I can feel your suffering. And, you know, humanly speaking, you start to worry, you start to speculate, how long is this going to go in? Am I going to find relief here? And there was just a moment where I said, just live in the moment, just live right here, offer it up. Just a gentle reminder. I know you know those things, but sometimes we can do it together. And I prayed for you so that you could just kind of just get right back, right in the center of your being with the Lord and just do the next right thing. Right. Yeah. No, I mean, it is a big trial for me in the sense that I'm stable on a micro level and declining on a macro level. That's just what's happening. So I'm not... It's managed, but I require some kind of intervention that's significant. So I'm heading into that. But the point being, it is for a reason. And I know it's for my humbling. I know that. I know it's to tell me you are not like the master of your universe. Slow down. Make sure you're praying. Make sure, you know, and I also know I'm supposed to offer it up. You know, we just had 500... We passed the 500th men. We prepared for seminary. You know, what a glorious thing. All of that requires funding. So I'm offering it up for that, offering it up for Jordan's future life. So it's God's giving me this trial that turns into a gift that I can give to others because of the unique ability to join my sufferings with the sufferings of Christ. All right. Let's shift. So I want to talk about this monk, this awesome monk that Liguri gives us a great example about this guy who's... His external religious observance is described as the same as all of the other monks in the monastery, right? But if somebody touches one of his garments or something that he's worn, they get healed. And the abbot's going, what is going on with this monk? What are you doing? Yeah. How are you praying? What are you doing that's different than the rest of us? Are you drinking holy water? Are you putting holy salt on your food? It's kind of a funny question. What are you doing different than the rest of us that you're so holy? Well, and I was going to say that just tells you the level of how profound the miracle was, that the abbot noticed it and was thinking, okay, we're not talking about something small, we're talking about something big. So he says, marveling at these deeds, since his life was no more exemplary than the lives of the other monks, the superior asked him, you know, what was the cause? And his reply was mystifying to the superior. And so the superior says, what devotion to you practice? The abbot says, I mean, and he said there's nothing different than the rest of the guys. But he says, however... Can I read it? Yeah, yeah, do that, please. Okay, so he says, prosperity does not lift me up, nor adversity cast me down out of the monk. I direct all my prayers to the end that God's will may be done fully in me and by me. So he said, you know, I'm not doing anything extraordinary. I'm doing my duties. I'm completing my promises. So he's obedient. He's persevering. Right. All the foundational spiritual practices are there, which is what we've been talking about as necessary for this kind of peace. I mean, just that alone is extraordinary. So that is going to create a type of peace that is beyond all understanding because there's enormous grace in the way he was living. He's living his duties and his life, his rule of life as it should be done every day. So I want to play the abbot on this next part. So I guarantee this is what happens. So the abbot probably sits back and goes, this is what he said. I mean, it's recorded here, but I can just see him sitting back in his chair with his eyebrow up or is, you know, going, okay, then let me just talk to you about this recent situation. He says, the raid that our enemies made against the monastery the other day in which our stores were plundered. So all of their supplies were stolen and our granaries were put to the torch to all their granaries were burned, which means the structure, the structure, no ability to produce food because the structures were burned. So it's a pretty heinous act cattle are driven off. So you don't have milk, you don't have meat. Didn't this misfortune cause you any resentment? Question mark. Reply the abbot and you can. And he says, no, father. On the contrary, I return thanks to God as is my custom in such circumstances fully persuaded that God does all things or permits all that happens for his glory and for our greater good. Thus I'm always at peace no matter what happens. That's uniformity with God's will. That's like, you know, the Lord is taken, the Lord is given, he is taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And let's just talk about this peace thing for a minute. Dom Choutard in the soul of the Apostle, speaks of this idea that the, which is a great classic on the prayer in the spiritual life, the first thing that a spiritual director needs to do for a directee when they're struggling is get them to a place of peace. Because when you allow the circumstances, and again, it's hard, I would get that, but when you allow the circumstances to rattle you and take you out of that realm of peace, in a sense, you're taken out of the presence of God in a practical sense. I'm not saying in a real sense. God doesn't leave you if you're not sinning mortally, you're there, he's there, you know. But when you're in peace, you can hear his voice, you can know his presence, and you can fulfill his will. You can become an instrument of peace to him and to others. When you allow the moment, the circumstances to wreck that peace. And I want to say this back to Dion's example or things that we're dealing with or what I'm dealing with right now. I can be in distress. I'm in distress right now, physically, in terms of breathing. But I'm at peace. So you can be in distress and at peace at the same time. Those can coexist. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, what really comes to mind is, you know, I have a number of directees, and I think about what rattles them. And I was thinking about even myself, because, you know, we have plenty of family members that are in one form of distress or dis-ease of some sort. And I love them. And I want them to be okay. And so if I'm not careful, what I can let happen is my thoughts can end up kind of twisting around those circumstances in worry or regret or what do I need to do? What do I need to say? How do I help or whatever? And so when I do that, when my mind goes in those places, either by temptation or my own human weakness, what happens is I step out of the present moment. Right. And then I'm unable to pray for them. And I noted it in prayer this morning. My mind was going off. I'm sitting there. My body's at peace. Somebody walks by and they're going to think I'm just like, you know, you know, in the third heaven or whatever in my prayer. But my mind went someplace else and I thought, I'm not with you, Lord. I'm not with you in my thoughts. And I brought my thoughts back and concentrated on my prayers at hand in front, putting my mind and heart in his presence and just saying, I love you and I trust you in this. And I just gave them those situations and went back to prayer. And that's where the Lord can work. That's where his grace can just really multiply and actually help in this situation. Amen. With that, you got to close this out because we're out of time. Okay. So 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. Okay. So, so we're going on to 3737. Um, are we going to try to do another one today? Yeah, we actually are working. We're doing fine on time. What do you want to title this one? Let me just look here. Yeah.