 Okay. Hey, welcome to Buying the Scenes to Buying Intimacy Radio. We've got some studio guests and special guests in the studio today, but you won't see them. You get to just see Stephanie who's always a special guest and Father Matthew McDonald. So we're going to jump back in on visions and private revelations from Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene inspired by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene's works. Before we do that, tell them about one thing. I'm thinking the pilgrimage. What do you think? Sure. Sure. We are doing a carmelite pilgrimage. It'll be June 5th through 16th of 2023. And you can find these things at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. Amazing, amazing carmelite spain. We did this a few years ago. We've expanded it, made it richer. We've included an add-on for Fatima. So if you can join us, we'd love it because it'll enrich your prayer life. St. John of the Cross, I felt like he was just tapping on my shoulder the entire time we were there. And spain is amazing. It's just incredibly beautiful. Our pilgrimages are different. We keep them down to one bus. Very prayerful, a true pilgrimage to grow deeper in the faith. So please join us and check out this and all of our upcoming events at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. Don't miss out. One of the things I'll be doing on that pilgrimage is teaching through portions of Devil in the Castle, which is spiritual warfare in the progress of the soul. And we'll be learning how to battle the enemy more effectively during that pilgrimage. So I think it's going to be pretty powerful. Yeah. All right. Very cool. So Father McDonald, are we on the positive criteria? Was that what we agreed on today? Yes. Okay, good. All right. So let's go ahead and jump into the show. On your mark, get set, go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest, your hermitage of the heart, your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints to understand how we might successfully navigate this very challenging life that we all live in and it's getting more challenging. Normally, I don't like to reference the day and time of when we do a show because it affects it. But today is that we're recording this, though it's not the day that many people will hear it, although live streamers will hear it today. It's the feast of Saint Benedict, Saint Teresa Benedict of the cross. Did I get it right? Yeah. And I was reading her a reflection of hers from the Carmelite Proppers, which is what Carmelite religious use for their Liturgy of the Hours reading. And I was just blown away. She just is talking about the world being on fire, you know? Yeah, I think the world's on fire now. Well, as I read it, I was just thinking, wow, you know, I mean, we can't, we have to be careful to properly honor the great tragedy of the Holocaust and its epic proportions and we're not there. But many of the same factors are alive in the world today that led to the slaughter of millions and Marxism on the rise, socialism on the rise, a lot of that. And so we'll lift up this show to and ask for her prayers for us as we help the faithful really navigate what happens in these difficult times as well is in difficult times, God tends to speak through saints and through prophets, if you will, to lead his people. Is that am I going too far there, Father McDonald? No, you're absolutely right. And often these voices and these manifestations come from the unlikeliness of places and sources. And it's important to have a healthy receptivity and a real and a proper guarded openness towards these things happening. Well, Father McDonald, the one you just saw and stream and heard is been with us since the beginning of the show. She won't pick up his bio and hear the previous shows because this is a series. You can head out to spiritualdirection.com and all the shows eventually be posted out there. So when we're in times like this and prophets emerge and I'll put prophets in quotes, they have to be tested by the church and the church has norms that we can test them by. And there's a lot of, I would say, more false than true in my experience in our time. In particular, I'm sure it was the same in the past. I think of the Alhambrados and the crazy folks who were popping up around the time of Saint Teresa of Avila. But Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, this is sort of a celebration, this reflection is a celebration on his new well republished book, Visions and Revelations, for which Father McDonald wrote the the foreword by Sophia Institute Press. It's an important book, you ought to pick it up. But we're going to pick up what we left off last time, Father, and talk about positive criteria for the assessment of visions and revelations. There's a lot of them, but what is, does one come to mind that's the most important? Well, with positive criteria, and this is from the CDF document, the norms for discerning alleged private revelations, there needs to be a certain balance within the person, and also a connection to revelation and a certain particular certitude that, yes, this happened, not just because I feel it, but a certain persistence, clarity of message, clarity of thought, and it being tested by the pastors of the church. So, balance meaning, so the positive criteria assess the quality of the life of the person giving the message, right? So, we're looking at, you know, not complex things. How are they oriented to the sacraments, right? So, how are they oriented to the sacraments? Do they obey the precepts of the church? How do they engage with people around them? Do they have a healthy prayer life? So, in the case of a modern revelation, some of them are easy to vet because people are speaking things against the Magisterium, and that just is never going to be of the Holy Spirit. But the harder things to vet, though, are the private life of the person. Is the church, in this case, can they violate internal form or the private conversations or things like that to assess folks like this? No, internal form always must be upheld in investigations such as this, right? But just general impressions from the spiritual director, from witnesses, from the subjects who receive the message themselves, just making sure that, all right, they're balanced. They are living a life of virtue. They're not engaging in anything to defect or excess in regards to devotion or mortifications or penance. They're obedient to authority. You know, they have a holy obedience. They're not just, this is what I'm doing. You have to do it because God is telling me. And the message of the revelations is consistent with the teachings of the church found in Scripture and tradition and taught by the Magisterium. So, I think one of the main criteria, the positive criteria would be humbleness, right? So, when you think about somebody says, oh, I heard God say or I saw X, Y, Z, and then you ask them questions about it or the ecclesial authorities ask questions about it. If they push back, they get prideful, argumentative, that would be a clear sign that there's something off. There's something wrong. Yes, absolutely. And if you look at the life of somebody like Padre Pio who received the stigmata or other saints who received visions, a mystical phenomenon, something that is a distinguishing mark about all of them is that humility you just spoke about and they don't flaunt it. But because of their holiness of life, eventually those things come out, not in, look at me, I'm so holy, but because God, they're manifesting Jesus Christ by their faith, by their hope, by their charity. Now, this doesn't mean the person is perfect and this is something a lot of people get wrong about the saints. The saints' lives aren't perfect and that's not what makes them saints, but it's a predominant disposition, right? And one thing, like with the example that Stephanie mentioned, which is a great one, one of the things that makes that easy is he's surrounded by people all day, every day, in religious life. I'd imagine then that this sort of thing as it emerged out of religious life would be easier to assess. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so then if it's not done in religious life, so it's a lay person, let's say, or it's a superior. One of the things about Padre Pio that made it, I think, a little bit easier and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not an expert in his life is, you know, he always was under a superior. I don't recall him ever being a superior here. Was he ever in that kind of role in his community? I don't believe so. He faced immense persecution. Yeah. And there were times he was not able to say mass privately, the same thing with contemporary of Saint Padre Pio, the servant of God, Dandelion de Ruotolo, who was also a mystic who wrote the Surrender Novena. Yeah. So this is interesting that you bring this up because it actually fits with what we're talking about on positive criteria. So is it common for the church to issue a suppression order to test the obedience of the person in question? Is that a common tactic? It could be not always. It depends on the events that happen. Sometimes the events have a certain clarity and ring to it, a predominance of grace where the church is like, wow, we got to take this seriously. But sometimes there is some testing. Even the children of the Fatima Visionary, Saint Francisco and Jacinta Marto and the servant of God, Sister Lucía de los Santos experienced this as well as Saint Bernadette Subaru after she received the Operations Our Lady at Lourdes. Yeah. One of the things that I wonder because these revelations come or visions come, and then it can create a stir. There's people getting excited. They're becoming more fervent. Or then, of course, we need to understand that wherever there's great light or wherever there's great darkness, there's great light and vice versa, then it'll also create a stir among, it would seem, the demonic forces to try to suppress it. Would it not? And doesn't that stir make the ecclesial authorities a little bit nervous? It's like, okay, all of a sudden we've got a lot of activity. People are getting upset. All kinds of things are happening. We're just going to put a quench on this for a little bit and try to figure out what's going on. So we're going to suppress it until we can get a determination of whether it is truly from God or not. Is that, am I making too much of that? It depends. The document speaks about a sectarian spirit. So if there is a sectarian spirit forming around the visionary or visionaries where it's, we are the elite ones. We are the chosen ones. And there is a resistance to authority under holy obedience. And there is a lack of humility. If that's detected, the church more likely will try to suppress it in order to test it or may just suppress it completely and it may not be from God. On the flip side, there may be an apparition that occurs at a place that's not yet fully church approved or still being investigated. And there could be some error or misinterpretation that creeps in. And something to keep in mind is just because there's some error, it shouldn't be completely suppressed. And also there could be something that happened early on and that ceased to be like an appearance of our Lord or Lady. They stopped, but there could be an appearance that these apparitions are continuing to go and people are going and they're praying the rosary, they're going to confession, they're going to adoration, they're receiving holy communion with devotion and state of grace. And God's going to bless that. And sometimes God will use, will utilize those things to do minor miracles, healings, consolations, things like the Eucharistic phenomenon that we saw in the monstrance yesterday based off the principle of our Lord from the gospel, where two or three are gathered in my name, their mind, midst of them. Yeah, that's a really important point. It's one of the things that's helped me to, it's been difficult to understand at times why, you know, let's say there's an occurrence that appears to me to be in violation of church teaching or whatever, maybe the church hasn't ruled on it yet. But when my question has always been, well, then why are there so many blessings surrounding it if it feels weird or if there's weird stuff? Well, James 4-7, you know, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. I have a friend who came to Christ, had a Grateful Dead concert of all places because interiorly he had a desire for God. He's in a place he shouldn't be, that's not healthy, but he had that desire. And God met him in that moment and lifted the veil and showed him all the evil around him and he converted. So you can, you could be, but we would never recommend as an example that, you know, you go to a Grateful Dead concert to be converted. But certainly it isn't a valid measure in and of itself that people are being converted that would say, well, this is absolutely true and from God. So when we get back from the break, we'll continue talking about visions and revelations and apparitions. We'll be right back. Okay. So let me just see where we should go after this. We should probably go to Kay. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Well, so let me ask you this. Based on what I mentioned, we are live streaming still, by the way, just so you know, our conversation is open to the world. I was, yeah, okay. Let me look at that. Let me look at Kay. Great insight on Padre Pio, by the way. That was helpful. So I kind of wanted to save diabolical phenomenon for the next show. Okay. But what we could do is go through the rules for their spiritual director, because I think this can get down to, we have a lot of people who are spiritual directors and priests who watch the show. You know what I think I want to do after the break? I want to start with a comment you made, which is just because there may be an error, that doesn't nullify the whole reality of the thing or the supernatural, because there's elements where John of the Cross speaks of that in the scent of Mount Carmel, which I think is a helpful, and it's coupled with, okay, I know where to go with it. We'll start there. Okay. And your markets that go. Welcome back. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke with Divine Intimacy Radio. We're talking about visions and revelations. This is a series that you can find the full set of them eventually, it'll be at spiritualdirection.com. Before the break, Father, you mentioned something that is commensurate with, well, there are two ideas I want to talk about. One is, when you look at the life of a saint, for instance, what, that they are perfect is not what makes them a saint, right? So saints can have flaws. I think I remember Saint Francis de Sales had an anger issue and I could probably spend a few minutes and recount different sins that different saints struggled with. So it isn't that they're perfect. The second thing, so that goes with this thing that you said, which is that visions and revelations are not necessarily deemed invalid because the message is imperfectly delivered. I think Saint Faustina is in that category. Talk a little bit about that. So when we're dealing with visions, revelations, there's a prophetic element that's always involved with it that can apply to the church and the world generally or can apply to the individual who's receiving it or other people. And when we deal with prophecy, John the cross speaks about this in the Ascent of Mount Carmel Book 2. There's always a danger where our own understanding of what the prophecy means can get in the way of the actual intended meaning of the prophetic message itself. And that's a big, big danger because sometimes, and we see this in Sacred Scripture in the Psalms, and John mentions this in the Ascent of Mount Carmel, the Psalms speak about what the Messiah would do. And Jesus fulfilled the prophecies regarding the Messiah, not only the prophets but in the Psalms, but he did not always fulfill them in a human, literalistic way. And when we focus too much on our own understanding of what God is trying to say, we can miss other meanings. And also what God is trying to say could be conditional. So it could be just a warning to us hinging upon our cooperation with grace or not. An example of this can be seen in the life of St. Vincent Ferrer, who had the title, The Angel, The Apocalypse. And according to accounts, in the around the time of the Great Western Schism, he did not know how to speak French, and he went from Spain to Southern France, and he would preach in the French countryside to tens of thousands of people in tongues. And the version of tongues that he received was a knowledge of the language of French, which he didn't have. When he would preach, he would warn them, if you do not repent right now, the antichrist will come. And as he would preach, there would be healings, blind would see, the deaf would hear, and people would repent. And that was averted. So what Vincent Ferrer was giving in that point was a conditional prophecy. And sometimes people may receive things from the Lord in prayer that apply to the larger church that may happen, but may not definitively happen. Right, right. So to John of the Cross's concern, he speaks of the idea that there, you know, let's talk about locutions, which is, we hear something from God, we hear a voice interiorly or exteriorly. He speaks of the danger. So there's the locution and its effect, which are immediate or even precede the experience of the recipient. But the danger is that there are two forces that can distort that message. One is the devil and the second is the person. And of course, if it's the devil, they're going to instigate the second reason, the person, and they're thinking about it. So the problem comes in where there's a message and then there's an extension of the message in some way or an elaboration of the message or an interpretation of the message. That's when you begin to, that's when things begin to break down. And I think this, this is, so this is why at the beginning of this series, I said, I totally believe in all the charismatic gifts. You know, I've, I've had, I've had locutions. I, I believe Stephanie has spoke from the Holy Spirit directly to me and on occasions, and I knew it was from the Holy Spirit because the power it had, whether it was liberating or convicting or whatever. But the general problem I see today and to apply this really practically, particularly in the charismatic movement of which I am very too, toward which I'm very friendly, is this excessive confidence and I would say prideful, proud proclamation. The Lord told me, you know, the Holy Spirit said this to me. I just think that it's really imprudent and dangerous, even though it's a little bit of a diversion from the topic to do that. I don't know what, where do you fall in that? Because I know, you know, you're a Franciscan grad and, and I've experienced some of the gifts. So tell us your thoughts. I, I'm definitely on the Tratismatic side. And I think sometimes when you get something in prayer, whether a message, you know, profound consolation or you have a gift, and there's a certain clarity, that clarity must be rooted, tested through humility and also persistence. If you receive something in prayer that's clear and it's persistent over time, then it's more likely that it may be something that the Lord's asking you to do. When you immediately go into the mode, my Charismatic gifts are telling me right off the bat, that could be lead to a self-reliance where you can confuse your own will with the Directive on will of God, and even one can easily manipulate that and cause a lot of damage. And it's a pretty grave thing to say, God told me to tell you or God's and be wrong. I mean, we should have some trepidation with that sort of thing. For me, I'm, as you indicated, I tend to want to be quiet for a while and listen and assess, you know, I think the second set of rules from St. Ignatius are very powerful in this, you know, was, was I thinking about anything remotely close to the thing that, you know, occurred to me, right? And if I was immediately that location should be suspect as, as, because I'm already thinking about it, right? The more pure things that come from the Lord regarding all of this, maybe we should do a show on this, but are those things which come out of the blue? So I'm gardening, and I'm thinking about tomatoes, and I hear you should become a priest, right? Or if I'm not me or, you know, just a male who's, who's, who may not even be discerning. Well, that's way more likely to be from the Lord than I'm thinking about the priesthood. I'm considering it, oh, I should be a priest, you know. Yeah. And besides that, that ship has sailed for you. Well, I was, yeah, right. So it'd be contrary to my state, right? So there's no way that that would be, that would be alive. And that's one of the ways that we can measure these things as well, right? So whatever we're hearing, seeing, experiencing through prayer, or, or out of the blue as a location, you know, if it's leading us to greater faith, hope and love, if it's encouraging, if it's uplifting and leads us, or brings about profound contrition, right? For our sinful state and, and a desire to repent and return to the church and whatever it is, then we can measure those things and say, okay, this, this is from the Lord, because it's drawing me to him versus something that may, you know, help me believe that I'm supposed to be the next, you know, Ezekiel and run off and stand on a corner on my soapbox and tell everybody to repent. We've got a few minutes left. Why don't we cover a few of these things for spiritual directors? So if somebody ever came to them with some kind of prophetic utterance, or they perceive it to prophetic utterance, what are the, what are the guidelines? And these come, these come from a great source, which is Antonio Royal Marine. He's a Dominican in the theology of Christian perfection. Is it all in that text? Yes, it is. And this I added as an appendix to visions and revelations, because I thought it was that important in the book itself. Yes, in the book, in the second edition. So he states, generally, any revelation contrary to faith immorals must be rejected as false. God does not contradict himself. He also states any revelation contrary to the common teaching of theologians, or purporting to settle an argument among the schools of theology, which the Magisterium has not defined on, should be held as greatly suspect. So there's some issues of the faith that the Magisterium has formally taught on. There's other issues, particularly dealing with the eschatology. There's certain general principles that the Magisterium has generally taught on. But there are other questions that have not been formally defined. Some schools have agreement, the doctors, the church, the early church fathers, the Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits. So if a prophecy tends to side in an area that's still under debate, or goes against what's commonly agreed, that is a red flag. And Pius IX speaks about this in Tuas Labenter. Father Chad Rippinger also speaks about this in a work commonly of teaching of theologians. Third, just because one aspect of the revelation is found to be false, does not serve as grounds to reject the entire revelation. The remainder of what is revealed can possibly be authentic. Also the fact that the given prophecy is fulfilled as not a conclusive argument for the divine origin of revelation. This could have been brought about by a natural cause or as the result of a superior natural knowledge given to the seer. Then revelations concerning curious or useless matters or overly detailed, lengthy, and filled with a plethora of proofs and reasons should be rejected as not of God. Divine revelations are usually clear, brief, and precise. Can you restate that? That is so important. John of the Cross speaks to this very firmly. Boy, this is important. Can you restate that again? So revelations concerning curious or useless matters or overly detailed, lengthy, and filled with a plethora of proofs and reasons should be rejected as not of God. Divine revelations are usually clear, brief, and precise. Clear, brief, and precise. Very good. The sixth point we only have about a minute. Every person who receives a revelation should be examined carefully, especially as to temperament and character. So are they psychologically balanced? Do they have virtue? Then the principal rule of discernment is to judge the revelation via the fruits it produces in the soul of the individual, yet always understanding the revelation is as such a charism and therefore is primarily for the good of others and the Church and moreover is always possible for an individual to use the gifts of God for their own spiritual detriment. Okay, great. Well, continue with us in this series and 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. One second. Oops, I messed up. Say amen again. Amen. So that will help our editor. Before we jump off, there's two things for folks live streaming. Our next show is going to be on a diabolical phenomenon related to all of this. So if that's interesting to you, we'll be live streaming that at spiritualdirection.com. No, Facebook page or YouTube, spiritualdirection.com, Facebook or YouTube. But before we go, I wanted to tell them, oh, about our book study that's coming up. So for the first time since 2016, we're opening up our book study again. And we'll be doing introduction to the devout life. And you can find out about that. Can you pop this up on the screen, Jordan? It'll be spiritualdirection.com forward slash book study. Yeah, spiritualdirection.com forward slash book study. You can sign up for that and you'll be deeply blessed. You'll be meeting with a few hundred or maybe more than a few hundred holy people from around the world. And you'll you'll have the opportunity to dialogue with them and encounter this amazing text that'll change your life. And with us. And with us, that's right. So all right, so we're headed out to the spiritualdirection.com Facebook or YouTube page. We'll see you then. Thanks EWTN for having us on. We're grateful to you. God bless.