 Hey friends, you're watching behind-the-scenes divine intimacy radio. We have a return guest just because we like them so much He's back Eric Sammons Editor of crisis magazine anyway before we jump we're gonna talk about holiness for everyone And I think that means you whoever you are unless you don't want to be holy I don't know if you don't want to be holy. You're not going to heaven. So I think you should listen to the show What do you think? Sure? I think that's a good idea Excellent. My wife agrees with me. It's kind of rare, but that's good. No kidding It's not nice. It's not nice. It's not true before we go to the show a Couple of things we want to tell you. Oh other opportunities beside the show to be holy is Etche homo prayer in the pascal mystery Lenten retreat Bishop cousins dr. Anthony Lillis Josh Johnson father father Josh Johnson who else All kinds of amazing people 50-speakers 50 speakers so we even have breakout sessions for spiritual direction Which I think is really cool because I'm getting to host those awesome so we have father Boniface Hicks, yeah, and Who else is on their father Chris Clay? Yeah, father? There's another priest. There's another priest. Oh father Donald Haggerty. Oh, very cool beautiful priests. Yeah, it's a lot on the contemplative life Just amazing author great book recently wrote on John of the cross So this is a really neat retreat. Yeah, listen. You can get some direction and it's like a thousand dollars a seat, right? At least that's that's what you know, what is it? That's what it's worth, right? You know, but it's free Yeah, so we like giving stuff away because we like people to go to heaven lots of people Yeah, whether you can afford stuff or not, which is really cool spiritual direction calm events Look under there. You'll also see At or you'll see divine intimacy in marriage, which is we because our last event was over full We're gonna do another one in November November of yeah first part of it's this year Yeah at the shrine of the most blessed sacrament amazing on knowing anointed ground in Hansville Yeah, and the great thing about that event is met we allow men to be men We don't ask them to like hug and cry and stuff like that Yeah, I just yeah, it's an amazing amazing retreat and it's all come out of prayer and Our own relationship our own Catholic tradition Catholic mystical tradition all of that. No, no, we didn't base it on anybody else's retreat It's totally different. We've never even been to anybody else's marriage retreat. So no kumbaya, right? none of that so come Be transformed because there we just watch marriage after marriage be transformed. Yeah, if I thought too much about it I would just weep. Yeah, we had because of all this beautiful fruit That's coming forth and Yeah, and the surveys came back. We're just off the chariot. Yeah. Yeah, we had two Folks the spouse's last this last one privately come up to various members of the team and said I was gonna leave my spouse and because of this Retreat I've decided not to one decided to move out of the guest bedroom off the guest bedroom back into the main bedroom and another Said they weren't leaving and then they both couples I think have come to our Formation for after the retreat. Anyway, it's amazing for those who have good marriages want them to be better or Struggling want them to you know, so etch a homo prayer in the Pasco mystery of that other Event divine intimacy and marriage spiritual direction calm events page Is where you find all that stuff? Yeah, don't miss out. All right, let's go ahead and jump into the show When you mark it that go this is danna Stephanie Burke welcome to Divine intimacy radio your radio Haven of rest your hermitage of the heart your Monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom of the saints to help us navigate This tumultuous life and boy is it tumultuous. Yeah This is a tough time for the faith. We need saints We need to look to the saints because many of them live through way worse situations than we did, right? I don't know, you know, I think we're gonna find out about a saint today. What do you think? I think so and we're all called to be saints you too. Dan Burke are called to be that's not possible And if you are listening to this you are called to be a saint's raise your hand check your pulse It is with the Lord's grace all things are possible, you know, what's great I always love this idea and during what who are the only people in heaven saints, right? So either you you get what one go to hell, which is bad, but let's just say you're not going to hell The the other options are purgatory like who wants to do that Right no merit suffering like give it to me now You're right. Let burn it off of me now, right? I can go be home. I just want to be with Jesus, right? Yeah So who's our guest? Our guest today is Eric Sammons. He is the editor-in-chief of crisis magazine He was also the author of eight books including his most recent the Jesse tree, which you might remember We haven't yeah interview. We had him on the podcast discussing the the Jesse tree an envy devotion Well that was co-written with his wife Suzanne, right, okay, I pronounced it right Okay, welcome back Eric. It's great to see you. Hey, it's great to have to be on and yes You did pronounce my wife's name correctly. Most people get it wrong. So you get points for that Good awesome awesome. Well, we have a saint that we want to talk about today That there's it it's it's an he's an interesting guy I think because he's a modern day saint modern. I think you would call him modern And his name is st. Jose Maria Escriba. Did I pronounce it right or is it Escriba? I pronounce like you did St. Jose Maria Escriba. So it must be right if you pronounce it like I do I'm not a lot of things wrong. Yeah, but if we agree we're good It is Escriba. Oh, it's okay. So my wife is Espanola Spanish speaking Jose Maria Escriba. So there's the accent. There is an accent. I struggle with English. I struggle pronouncing English Other languages I'm really at it and you should be editor of crisis magazine. That's right But you wrote a book called holiness is for everyone And the subtitle is a practical guy a practical spirituality of st. Jose Maria Escriba Why how did you run across? St. Jose Maria Well, it really this book came out of my own personal experience Number of years ago. I was living in Washington, DC area. I was working as computer programmer I have my own software development company and and I was struggling with the whole balance of life and work family and Trying to be holy and this is the spiritual life and in my mind. I I felt like my work life was opposed to my spiritual life Meaning my work was keeping me from growing in holiness and I had this group of guys I was friends with still and friends with them. I moved out of the area. So I don't seem as much but dads big Catholic families like I had and we they all had secular jobs for lack of better term Washington, DC area we all work somehow connected to the government in general as contractors or subcontractors or directly and All of us when we get together we usually get to play poker But we talk about these things and all of us had this exact same feeling that our work was keeping us From being better Catholics from being coming more holy and about the same time I saw Scott Hahn was talking who was my former professor friend of mine and he was talking about Opus Dei and St. Jose Maria Scriva and and It kind of was like hey this guy sounds like he might have something that could help me He might have a message that might help me and sure enough. That's exactly what it was I started reading his works, but also his life and I realized this was literally his mission was to help lay people particularly with the whole work spiritual life balance of seeing work not as The the an obstacle to holiness, but actually it's the means that God gives us The holiness along with family life, of course as well, but it's the means that God gives us to become holy So that was really was my introduction to him and I realized wow this guy. I Really liked so I introduced my friends as well. We all liked them and so eventually then I was like I want to write a book about this because I feel like even though Opus Dei is well-known St. Jose Maria's actual message is is is less known to interesting now for a full disclosure You're like a 39th degree Opus Dei member, right? I have sacrificed many kittens and No, I am not actually not a member at all of an Opus Dei does not do that Wait as far as I know I'm not a member. What do I know wait? Do you know an albino monk? Albino assassin monk I like to joke like there are no monks in Opus Dei are no assassins in Opus Dei, but there might be an albino or two I don't know about So 90,000 members. I'm sure there might be one or two, but I am not a member of Opus Dei I'm not on any level a member. I did when I lived in DC. There was an Opus Dei Group there and I would go to the monthly nights of evenings of reflection. I went to an Opus Dei retreat once But I never you know, it's kind of funny. They're Their stereotype is they're very aggressive recruiter stuff like that. They never asked me to join. No, they're not aggressive at all, right? I mean, I thought maybe that's me because it was me, you know But yeah, they didn't even ask me to join if I wanted to I'm and I asked that they probably would have been like, okay Let's talk about it But yeah, so it was very much. I'm not a member and that's kind of was my point right in the book as I felt like all the books I read by him or for him about him were Really in the Opus Dei world like you had to almost be a member of a say to know about them They're published by the Opus Dei publisher and that's who it was promoted to and so the average Catholic Didn't really know much about this, but his spirituality was not for just members of Opus Dei That's a that's a distinct call that somebody might have it really was for literally everybody I mean he wanted he wanted spirituality to help anybody and everybody. So that's why really reason for the book was like I want to introduce him to not Opus Dei members like me Yeah, great. So I also find him incredibly practical and I've read the way and some of his Works and found them to be amazing So can you tell us a little bit about the layout of the book? One of the things that I noted was You at the end of each book There's each chapter sorry at the end of each chapter you have a read meditate pray and contemplate So it's almost like this could be like a month-long retreat in and of itself or maybe less Maybe not a whole I mean there's nine chapters, but I Just really love the way it was laid out. I think it's it's super practical It has meditations reflections in it. Tell us a little bit about why you designed it the way you did Yes, so what I wanted to do was first. I just want to make sure People established. Yeah, you are called to be a saint. So I start with that just yes This is for you. I literally mean everybody when I say holiness for everyone and I also wanted to introduce the St. Josemaria. It's not a biography of St. Josemaria I have one chapter that basically gives in a nutshell his life story, which is interesting and fascinating I would encourage people read full biographies of his life, but did I want to give the foundations of his spirituality because? typically every saint when they have a spiritual I mean certain saints have spirituality St. Francis St. Dominic St. Nations loyal St. Tres Teresa of Avalon people like that they have spiritualities and St. Josemaria did too, but they're based on certain foundations and so for St. Josemaria for example one of his foundations is this idea of that we are divine affiliation which means we are children of God sons and daughters of God and That we look at God as our loving father and that we really take that seriously like we all pray to our father We all talk about God the father But he really wants us to radically understand that we should look at him as a loving father And so when we start get late and the reason I do this because later when we're talking about the practical spirituality some of It's hard. Some of it's very Kind of regimented regimented and and and difficult and you go through it and it's like you can get to a You can go into it like okay Here's my duty I have to do this almost like I'm a member of the military I do is or you can go into it like I'm a son of God And I want to please my father my father's like Hey I would like you to do these things because this will make you a more like me and I do that out of love So I have the foundations in the first part of the book the first few chapters and in the second part it's a Breakdown of the practical aspects of actually doing his spirituality because that's the key is the practical spirituality Of it and so yeah in every chapter. I really want people not I mean they can't they want to but it's not a book I intended for people to breeze through just kind of read it through like you like you read a biography or for example It's more a matter of okay Understand this this message of this chapter meditate upon think about it Then go to the next chapter but but get that foundation so it does build upon Each chapter kind of builds upon the one before it so another thing I wouldn't want people I don't think people should like pick Okay, I'm gonna do chapter 7 and just read that one because you might get some of the outward benefit But you're not really seeing underneath The what St. Josie Marie his life was about and what his foundation theological foundations were for why he's saying do this or do that Very good. Well before we jump into you know, how how to do it and the book we're talking about today is Holiness for everyone. It's the spirit about the spirituality the practical spirituality of St. Jose Maria Escriva before we jump into that Why is what's unique about him as a modern saint? We have about a minute for the break, but maybe we can cover that and we need to after the break as well Yeah, so he was first of all, he's born in 1902. So he was a 20th century saint. He died in 1975 So I actually my life coincided with his someone. I won't say how much but it did somewhat and So he's modern that sense obviously. He's a 20th century saint but also he had a very modern mentality in that he understood how the direction the world was going and so he wanted to he understood how busy people were getting with a lot of noise and So he wanted to give us practical means. How do we still grow in holiness in this busy world? I often say if you've ever read the way, I mean, he's perfect for Twitter He would have three statements. Yeah, right He just makes these beautiful profound statements in less than 240 characters often or whatever it is And so he's almost like made for us in today's world our very Inundated world he gets through all that crap so to speak and says, okay How can we stay focused in the midst of all this craziness that we have in the modern world? Perfect. So when we get back from the break will we continue our conversation with Eric Sammons the forward of the book is by Scott Hahn and the title is holiness for everyone the practical spirituality of So say no me Jose Maria Scriva Published by Sophia Institute Press will be right back Ready to go back and are you you're gonna hit? Yeah, okay? Okay on your mark. Well before we go back Just so I don't get in trouble We have a course coming up for those listening and wanting to be holy and Learn about discernment of visions and revelations in the interior life The course will be on private revelations from major Apparitions like Lord's vatama Guadalupe divine mercy sacred heart to lesser private revelations and mystical phenomena I think we're using father Gabriel st. Mary Magdalene's text on this that we helped to bring back into print through Sophia Institute Press We taught by father Matthew McDonald's a school of spiritual formation course, which means It'll be deep but not Extreme and you can do it if you're a busy mom or a busy employee or whatever you are or a boss or whatever Wednesday, May 17th This course and many others you can find out at abala-institute.org as an Apple vias and Victor I la Dash Institute org and your markets that go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to divine intimacy Radio talking about talking with Eric Sammons about Holiness for everyone and you know Steph you really need this so you might want to ask him a lot of questions Yeah, I do need this. I need to be holy. Yeah, what I what I love before the break Eric you were talking about the the that St. Jose Maria Scriva, sorry Jose Maria Scriva. I'm Hispanic and I can't say it How he really understood where society was going the busyness of life He had kind of see the writing in the raw wall So he wanted to help families individuals become holy within that context and and I'm seeing that all around I you know, it's just it's it's just gotten to almost a fever pitch the busyness of life and families are You know kind of just breathing air through a straw underwater and they're trying to stay above it And they have a desire to be holy and they just Don't understand how do I have make this happen in the course of my normal every to everyday life and challenges and difficulties and And and so I'm I love that that's where his spirituality is so how does he help lay people in particular? Grow in holiness. What was his focus there? So he had a few different focus folk. I guess you'd say One is the idea of being a contemplative in the midst of the world So St. Jose Maria had a great respect for contemplative nuns We think of contemplative or others somebody in contemplative life a monk and not something that where they live outside of the world So to speak they do not have interaction with the greater world and that's a beautiful thing I've always believed there. They basically are the foundation of the church keep us from completely falling apart And so we a great respect for that, but he also recognized Everybody really is supposed to be a contemplative. It's a it's a scary thought People don't think of themselves most people don't think of themselves as contemplative That's somebody who prays all day but his idea was no you are called in one sense to pray always to pray all day and So he really wanted us to consider the idea that we're contemplatives as well Even in our busy lives So obviously some of that would be that you set aside time for prayer and that that's the foundation If you're not doing that you can't do the rest of it anyway So you are spending an hour a day in a space that is dedicated for your prayer life that you're focused You're not interrupted by anything no no devices all that stuff So he wouldn't have known about devices yet, but he would definitely have said no devices and so That's one thing, but beyond that your whole day needs to be Touching air times of prayer. So for example, let's say you just work a nine to five job at the office So you would do little things that for example, you might have a crucifix sitting on your desk You would have certain times they like for example say the Angelus It's noon you say the Angelus might have to say it interiorly because you're in an office situation We can't say it exteriorly for example, you might say other Ejaculations throughout the day you're doing these different things That so your day you never go this extended period of time without directly saying, okay I'm offering this up to you God. I'm doing this for you So this idea contemplative myths the world is very important But then he also though in and this is particularly the the key point is the work Everybody has work. They do and so just to be clear. I'm not talking about paid work So the stay-at-home mom for example her work is Maintaining the home taking care of her kids all the things that make up that life So when I say work just want to make sure people are clear It's not necessarily paid work, but we all have work that we do a student for example has work and So he really wants us to recognize that that work needs to be offered to God and the image I love the best is he talks about the priest has their altar where they offer up the sacrifice of the mass We all have altars. So for example the computer programmer his altar is his his desk at work That's his altar where he's offering up his work to God The the stay-at-home mom the diaper changing table might be her altar Wow And you're offering up and so for him the idea of excellence in work and some people Kind of thought he was a little bit obsessive about this like you really want to do excellent work in everything You whatever your work is you do your best because you're not doing it for your boss You're doing it for God. So what this does and this was what I was talking about earlier with with some of my friends Some of our work that we did felt meaningless It felt I mean like I said, I was a subcontractor for a contractor of the federal government That's not exactly something that you're just like wow I'm really changing the world here for Christ because I did like I did software development And it was for like this the highway administration something like that Yet what say Jose Maria was saying is that is the way you grow in holiness You offer that up and you do that work for God directly not for some government bureaucrat Maybe who might be using it and that really then transforms Your daily life because now it's like when I'm doing my sitting there doing my computer program Whatever the case whatever it is you're doing It just it's it's a means of holiness And so that would I would say that's kind of the two major things that the most I think of is a contemplation midst the world And then your work being your path to holiness Yeah, that's really beautiful in fact, it's an interesting timing on this interview with you we just had a conversation with a beautiful couple recently and you know, he had some concern about the intensity of his work and wanting to be holy in it and And and wanting to ensure that his work didn't become an idol and what I'm hearing from St. Jose Maria Scrivah in his approach to this is that your work will Becomes a shifting from an idol to an offering So you got to work and and you're at the altar of your work and that altar Transforms your work that could become an idol into an offering and then the Lord blesses that and Multiplies it and it becomes a means of your sanctification rather than your damnation and your downfall Right because it goes against kind of both extremes that we can have with work One is it's in a sloth that we just if we have a somewhat meaningless job. We don't take it seriously That's not a good thing because that's not offering up your best to God But also on the other side the workaholic which a lot of Americans particularly fall into That's also extreme it protects against because if you're offering up to God God is not asking you to put work ahead of your family and so if you're offering your your excellent work for to God Well, then you're not going to be Working until 10 o'clock at night if you don't have to just because you're trying to get head and make more money It's like that because you're not doing it for the money. You're doing it for God. So it really does help Mitigate against both those extremes that we can have in our work life Which I really like but it is funny because so one of the criticism against opus day is they often It's like the the rich the successful stuff like that Well part of that is because they're so focused on telling people do your best work and if you do your best work It's not like it's prosperity gospel. We're all saying you work, you know, you follow God You'll get rich, but often if you do excellent work, you will get Promoted you will get raises and things like that, but the beauty is that's not why you're doing it You're just doing it because you want to do excellent work for God And if these other benefits happen great if they don't happen that that's okay too, you know, it reminds me the passage in St. Paul in the New Testament Do everything as if you know for the Lord which is really, you know, probably one of the passages That was a big thing for him one thing you mentioned on the fly That I think is foundational to all of this and I suspect to your life is That if we have a time of prayer with the Lord That always occurs always is kind of the compass for the day That really lets elays the groundwork for being able to pay attention to him During the day and I I frankly have never met anyone who? who without Prayer time, you know, that's specific then had the ability to pray, you know at all times or even pray frequently You know during work. How important is daily mental prayer and his spirituality? It's it's foundational like you said it He has what he calls the plan of life that he encourages everybody to have and so for example And the plan life begins the moment you wake up. He calls it the heroic minute. I love this idea. Yeah, well your alarm goes off most of us Do not want to get up. Our body is resisting it wants to go back to sleep and This is a first mortification that we can offer up to God in the day And it's a beautiful mortification because it's not unhealthy in any way. It doesn't harm the body It's actually good for you. And so that's your first moment That's your heroic moment where you you get up the alarm goes off you hit it you get up immediately You don't like staying better than that and then you make your morning offering. So right there at the beginning of your Day the first thing you do after you get if you sit up maybe to wake up You either make your morning offering and there can be different morning offerings that you can Use but then you do then half also that hour of prayer day And I do emphasize the word hour and I know some people might not be there yet. That's fine work up to it But really I think Samu's and Maria just joins the the the mass of spiritual directors and saints who would argue that Typical person should have an hour a day That you're you're focused on that time of mental prayer where you're really conversing with God And he would agree with the other spiritual masters who would just talk about you might start with spiritual reading You know various things he might be a little different for each person depending on what spirituality Connects with you the best but but you have to have that and then Everything else goes that and I think say has a real made me very clear that if you don't have that hour that time of mental prayer every day Then your foundation just doesn't exist and you like you say you're not going to remember You're not going to be thinking about God throughout the day if you weren't conversing with him First thing in the morning. So yeah, so that was all part of a plan of life and then also he would recommend on a regular basis you have Evenings of reflection, that's why I hope a stay holds monthly evenings of reflection and also annual retreats So you have these times where you're every day? Yes, you have this hour But even that's not enough you also want to have maybe once a month you do a little bit more and once a year You hopefully have a weekend or week long retreat Because we just need that we're our fallen nature and the way the world is it's beating down on us And it's just like an athlete Needs the daily actual daily exercise, but then he has more intense times as well. The same thing is true of the spiritual athlete Perfect. I love that heroic moment. I like to say saints don't have snooze buttons They just don't exist for the saint because you don't worship your bed you worship God and if you worship your bed That God's not going to save you But there is one who can and will if we orient our compass to him Every day he really should get this book holiness for everyone the practical spirituality of St. Jose Maria Scribon by Eric Sammons published by The great and marvelous publishing house Sophia Institute Press is doing such an amazing job Eric, thanks so much for being with us and thanks for working so hard at crisis magazine And all you do to help advance the kingdom of God through the truth of the church Thanks so much for having me. I really I love talking about saying who's in Maria and I just encourage everybody to Pray every day. I mean obviously by the book if it's gonna help you but more importantly just pray every day Amen, 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 Thanks, brother Eric