 Hey friends, you're watching Behind the Scenes Divine Intimacy Radio and just in these moments where we're allowing for people to get connected with us, I'm going to tell you a little bit about some opportunity before I do, though today's show is going to be on questions and answers about prayer and so if that's interesting to you, then hang out for a minute and you'll get to hear. But I want to tell you about a few interesting things going on. One is at J. Homo Lenten Retreat, March 21st to the 23rd, which will be, which will include Christopher Carstens, over 40 speakers, Simone Riscala, Father Samuel Moorhead, a few exorcists which is interesting. So spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. And then the last thing I'll tell you about we'll get going related to exorcists, I guess. It's it's not even Halloween time. We're talking about all those angels and demons, of course, taught by Monsignor Charles Pope, who's also an exorcist and writes for us at spiritualdirection.com. But the course explores the reality and nature of angelic beings and their roles in the lives of the faithful, fallen angels, their power, role, origin, etc. So it'll also include discussion about possession and exorcism. So that begins Tuesday, April 30th. And that's a School of Spiritual Formation Course, which means if you're busy, you won't tax you too much angels and demons. It's called avala-institute.org avala-institute.org. And this episode is sponsored by Holy Habits. And the Catholic community of apostolate VA Holy Habits is an app that helps you develop Holy Habits. Think of that. It's kind of complicated, isn't it? Hard to understand. No, not at all really. Holy Habits. Check it out in your app store. And then what's the last thing I was going to say? I can't remember. Oh, EWTN Rocks. They're awesome people. I was just talking with a nun that's staying with us at the retreat center and what a gift it was to be an employee there for so many years to work with Michael Warsaw, Doug Keck, so many amazing people. And just super grateful for EWTN allowing us to broadcast this show and for serving the church and for really keeping the church in the United States in many ways sane for so many years. You're looking at me like, what are you doing? What? What? Might want to just keep rolling. She's giving me a look. She forgot her glasses and she's given me a look. All right. So, let's see. I think we'll start the show. You ready? Mm-hmm. New markets that go. This is Danis Deppony 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 help us to navigate the tumult of this life, the difficulties of this life. And boy, is it weird out there. It's weird. It's a little weird outside the church and a lot weird outside the church, a little weird inside. But we're I'm grateful to be Catholic. I don't know about you. What do you Oh, I'm going to live and die Catholic. Yeah, I'm really I'm holding on with both hands. Yeah, I'm I'm Mary Magdalene outside of the tomb. The resurrected Lord comes and I'm holding on to his garments and his ankles, both hands, but you know, that's a little bit of a problem because he said, hey, stop it. Well, that's, you know, I'm going to cling to Jesus. Okay. So we better do what he says. If he tells you, I do, I do. He didn't see and told me stop it. Okay. So today's show, we're talking about prayer and the questions we've received about prayer. What's interesting, I'll tell you a secret, you all are listening. So I have two books that people are using for small groups all over the world. Actually, one is called Into the Deep, Finding Peace through Prayer. And the other is Spiritual Warfare and Discernment of Spirits. And both were written so you could use them in small groups. They have questions and when we have to have a guide, question guide for Into the Deep. And what I do is for those small groups who are interested or group or large groups, I've done it for whole parishes, when they're done with the study or even a film series, I'll do what's called a drop in for them, which means I'll come on live and answer questions from the audience or whatever. It's really fun. So these questions came from a group up in Ontario, Canada. Cool. And there were some of the best questions that I have ever received. So there's hope for Canada, you're saying. There's a lot of hope for Canada. If people like this are all over Canada. You know, what's cool is we've been invited up to Ottawa to do a marriage retreat. Oh, look at that. So I don't know if it's connected to this group or not, but I'm excited about that. Because this is Ontario. I don't know how. Oh, sorry. I don't know how. I don't know Canadian geography. Okay. But it's a gigantic country. So Canadians out there forgive our ignorance. Yeah. And forgive the, you know, our confusion of Ottawa and Ontario. They both start with a no. Give us a break. And I'm a girl. So give us a break. You're not blonde, though. No. No. Gray. Does that matter? No. Okay. All right. So first question. Morning prayer time. Is the time set aside for mental prayer? Strictly for lexiodomina? Or can you incorporate other practices in this time also, such as the rosary and the divine office? My short answer is not a great idea. But what are your thoughts? Oh, well, how long do they have? Well, I think, let's say they have a half hour. And I think they're saying, can I, in my mental prayer time, can I also do the rosary and divine office? Right. So if you only have a half hour, that's not going to work, right? Yeah. There's not enough time. If you are blessed with few disruptions, maybe your empty nester, maybe your widowed, maybe your retired, and your morning, you own your morning and get up super early, like we do. I could technically get in mental prayer and the divine office, plus my spiritual warfare prayers that I pray first within that time. But that's like an hour and a half. Up to two hours, really, up to two hours, because I'm up at four a.m. Yes, you heard that right. It's tough, but it is like the best time of the morning to pray. It's amazing because it's so silent. And it was a battle one. But if you don't have that kind of time and that kind of luxury or that kind of just ability to get up at that time of the morning because you have to stay up later or whatever, then I don't know that you could incorporate all that during your morning time. The other thing about it is, you know, just I'm going to answer it from a totally different perspective. Mental prayer time is meant to be a time that's, you know, with a husband and wife. So mental prayer, contemplative prayer, the highest forms of prayer are compared to the marital union by the mystics of the church. And they do that for a reason. It's supposed to be a very intimate time with no distractions, no, you know, not a lot of, you know, and the rosary is a beautiful prayer. Of course, I pray it every day. And the divine office, we also pray four times a day, three times a day in community. And once, just Stephanie and I together. So we're, you know, we pray those other prayers, but our mental prayer time is kind of partitioned off and protected. I shouldn't say kind of, it's actually is partitioned off and protected because of the kind of intimacy and oneness and singular focus on expressing love, receiving love from the whole, you know, the blessed Trinity. So it's it's a dedicated, you know, quiet. Yeah, you know, again, it comes down to that having enough time. Right. I mean, there, I do know that folks have prayed with rosary, I've prayed with the rosary before, but seated in a in a very, for lack of a word, meditative kind of approach to it. Yeah. Slowly. The contemplative rosary version where it has the added clause, using scripture very slow, that has ended up turned in turns into mental prayer time. And I think we should also clarify that contemplative prayer is a gift. It's not something we do. It's something we prepare for. And it's a gift given from the Lord through the Carmelite lens. So slowly praying the rosary, very slowly thinking about the mysteries, thinking about the Lord, being birthed, you know, being born in Nazareth and thinking about him being placed in our ladies arms and the beauty of that, that can become a very deep mental prayer, just as scripture can. So yeah, you just have to be careful with vocal prayer that it can be just too robotic automatic. Yeah. Now, the way some people pray vocal prayer, it sounds like a drive by. It's terrible. I don't think anybody's listening on the other side of that prayer. Right. Just it just doesn't feel not about feelings, but it's about the heart and saying someone love you is very different than I love you dearly. Right? Very good. Second question's got a little complexity to it daily mental prayer struggling with consistency and always doing daily prayer in the morning, and how much time should be taken for mental prayer and then how much time for other vocal prayers? And if when does duty duty of the moment daily responsibilities override? I'm struggling with finding a balance. Well, I mean, really, you know, mental prayer should be your highest priority. And if you can't if if if you have to neglect some kind of prayer, St. Teresa of Avila would tell you doctor of the church would tell you never ever, ever, ever, ever neglect mental prayer. So it's I think it's really important if you're struggling. But the other thing is a lot of people don't think about why just get up earlier. You know, get up earlier or reduce your vocal prayers, you know, there are a lot of important and good vocal prayers, the rosary being the most important, the energy, the hours in terms of its connection to the liturgy in general, those two are going to be the most important vocal prayers. But mental prayer is extremely important. You can't get to know Jesus and follow him unless you're practicing mental prayer every day and protecting that time. Yeah, what is mental prayer, Dan Burke? Mental prayer is just a conversation with God, an intimate conversation with God. Now, when people are learning what I wrote about in my book into the deep, Finding Peace Through Prayer was a perspective on like Cio Divina that allows you to enter into the scene. And it's kind of a blend between traditional Cio Divina and Carmelite meditation and Ignatian meditation. So the goal is to come to know Jesus through the Gospels and by and then emulate him. And then of course, that creates a love deep in the heart that motivates us. So mental prayer is just a conversation can be aspirations. You know, if you think about the back to the analogy of spousal love and intimacy of what what do spouses say when they love one another? You know, those, those kind of effusions of the heart that are expressions of gratitude or care or admiration or whatever, but it's a two way conversation. Yeah. Good. All right. So the so I'll give you an A. There you go. Any more thoughts about duties of the moment daily responsibilities? You know, yes, I do. I have thoughts on that. It really depends on your state of life. It looks very different. Because we, you know, I have direct duties on all walks of life. I have, you know, super duper super food kind of mommies with a bunch of children at home. It looks very different for them as it does for, you know, some of the widows that I that I walk with. And and their life looks very different, right? They get to it's just really kind of a gift. I mean, it's a lonely time of life, but it's also a time to really pour yourself out for the Lord and the church. So it just depends on that, you know, you really have to work with a spiritual director. I remember when I was trying to figure this out and trying to figure out how to incorporate mental prayer into my day, I would go to direction every month. And I would say to father I failed again, you know, I probably prayed 70% of the time. What wasn't until I finally got kind of irritated with myself and looked at my agenda, I used to pay for agenda in those days. And I looked at my agenda and I turned the page and started with a blank slate. And I decided, what am I going to give the Lord? And I thought about my state in life, I thought about my responsibilities, I was working at the time, the children were in school, they had their own things. And so I kind of looked at everything. And I decided what I was going to give the Lord first, I put that in pen, everything else went in pencil, and it was an outpouring of that prayer time. That meant I had to change the way that I approach my days. So we'll come back in just a moment after the break and continue to talk about this beautiful idea of mental prayer. We'll be right back. We'll just call it 13 and do 12 and a half in the next segment. 12.5 1230 to 35. For those watching, if you missed the beginning of the show, the show is sponsored by Holy Habits app, which helps you to develop holy habits and builds responsibility and accountability and all that. And then the other thing I'm going to invite our listeners to is the Catholic community of Apostle Evie. If you desire to grow deeper in prayer, if you really are feeling malnourished in your faith, and you want to get yourself connected with a bunch of on fire Catholics all over the world, where there's regular free live online formation where the groups gather, there's a lot of stuff in the library. Yeah, holy community. Yeah. Yeah, gatherings, small groups all over the world. Yeah. Yeah. Check out Apostle Evie.org. A P O S T O L I V I A E dot org. All right, back to the show. You ready? Let's go on your market set. Go. This is Dana Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio. We're talking about questions about prayer, mental prayer, that sort of thing. You had something before the break. You want to finish? Yeah, we were, I was talking about how to kind of figure out where duties of life and everything come in with this, this desire, and our duty to God to engage in mental prayer. Because if we do not speak to the one, our creator, to the one who made us for an eternal relationship with him, how can we possibly say that we're Christians? How can we possibly say that we love him if we never speak to him? And we never listen to him. Wait, wait, wait. I need to correct you. There are husbands and wives all over the world who never talk to their spouse, but just proclaim how dedicated they are to them and how much they love them. And it all makes sense. And it's like, yeah, hey, I told you I love you the day we got married. What more do you want, woman? Right, right. And so we don't need to talk until we die. Baptism and then nothing. I don't know. Confirmed. What more do you want from me, Lord? You know, that's terrible. What a tear. I mean, honestly, it's a proper analogy. It is a proper analogy. It's very heartbreaking. And it's hilarious. But it's heartbreaking if you think about it. So we have a duty first to God, and then we have a duty to everything else, right? And the Lord's not going to interfere with your duties. But he is going to require you to sacrifice, you know, sacrifice time, sacrifice your TV schedule, sacrifice Facebook, sacrifice staying up to all hours of the night because you just don't go to bed, you know, and every, I think every woman out there, every Martha out there knows that they go around and do 18 million things before they go to bed, because they just have to get it done. But that's not healthy. And it's not helpful to your prayer life. It will wreck it. So you got to go to bed at a decent hour so that you can get up at an hour to then get your prayer time and spend that time with the Lord so that then you can fulfill your duties and what's beautiful about it. I love solo the Apostle it because it really is the secret. You give that time to the Lord and he will infuse the rest of your day with grace. You will get more done. You'll be more pleasant. You'll you'll start to manifest the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Manifest you will it will start be those gifts will be manifested in your life. They will be birthed in your life. They will be evident in your life of joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control, self control. There's another got the first one in the last one. Love love love. The first one is self control. Yeah. I remember self control, but I can't remember first. It's a love. Yeah. So, you'll become more loving, more gentle, more everything. So, we like to say in Apostle Evie everything for God begins before God on our knees. Amen. So, beautiful. Beautiful. So, the other thing I want to say about this to moms and people who are busy, if you give yourself the best way that you can, this is especially to young mothers. If you give yourself the the the best way you can. So, let's say you can only show up for 10 minutes a day for mental prayer and you legitimately that's it. You know, you got four kids under under six or or whatever. You know, and and they don't like to sleep or you know, whatever of the circumstances, you get 10 minutes and the Lord's going to give you all the grace you need to become a saint. So, don't fear that you're not praying four hours a day, although our time should increase as life goes on. There's no doubt about that. But your duties of state are pretty important. And the last, yeah, I think that's good for that one. Well, I want to say one more thing. Oh, please say my my favorite. I thought you said you're going to say one more thing. No, my favorite. One more thing. Okay, good. It's really it's really beautiful is especially for young mothers, young nursing mothers. Nursing time is a beautiful time for mental prayer to meditate on our lady doing the same with our Lord. Even if a little one has teeth. Well, you know, Mary dealt with all those things, right? With all those things and there's a trick to deal with that. So anyway, it's it's all beautiful way to ruin a moment. Anyway, it's it's incredible. So think about that. Think about that opportunity because I just think sometimes maybe that's the only time you have. And it's an incredible time. It's a joyful, beautiful time. Yeah. Put away your cell phone. Don't don't take your cell phone into your nursing time anyway, no matter what. All right. Next question is regards to mental prayer time. Do you stick to your designated prayer location or may you move around like outside patio, sunny window? I like to hang upside down like a bat just to get the blood flow in my head. New Zealand. That was a joke. You know, I was flying on a plane. We've done flying on a plane. We've done hotel rooms. I pray really well on planes. You yeah, you like that a lot. I like a little harder for me. Yeah. It's a little distracting to me. Yeah. But you know, oh my actually I have two sacred spaces here at the retreat center. One's in our bedroom in the corner and it's it's very rather elaborate and I love it. It has all my beautiful religious treasures. But the other one is being on the back porch in the dark in this in summer for 30 in the morning. It's amazing birds chirping. Well frogs roosters waking up. Yes, it's it's beautiful. I love it. I can hear the cows in the distance. I can hear even hear coyotes coyotes coyotes. I'm trying to figure out Alabama. I think we have coyotes creepy sound. Well, yeah, but they stay impacts in their way away. So anyway, I love it. So back to the question. The question is, should we move around? The answer is as little as possible. Right. You you want to make your the mental prayer is the hardest kind of prayer. It's where our minds are the most distracted. It's the hardest thing to do to pay it, you know, to draw our attention to the Lord and keep it there. And to the degree that you can stabilize and normalize where and how you go where where you pray. It helps your body. It helps to create a habit, a holy habit. So that's one of the things I write about and into the deep is sacred time, sacred space, which is a space that you make especially that with elements that move you or that move your heart that draw your heart. I like candles, which I think everybody, most people like candles, but not in the closet, not in the closet. Good. I pull good point. Like if your sacred space is under the clothes, no candles allowed. So any of the thoughts on sacred space? What's in your sacred space? I have an incredible antique Chris Fix that I actually found in Costa Rica when I was visiting my family. That's on the top. I have a statue of St. Michael. I have the icon from our honeymoon when we went to Rome that we got at the top, the gift shop that's on the dome at the very top of the Vatican. That's up there. I have a statue of our lady. It's a Madonna, mother and child that's been with me. My aunt gave it to me as a gift. Like 300 years ago, right? No, I'm not that old, but that's there. I have some little relics or secondary, you know, second class, third-class relics, candles, my holy books. There's a Bible. I'm a Catholic and there's a Bible. Whoa. I don't know if you're allowed to read that, are you? Somebody actually, Protestant actually asked me that. You guys well, I heard you're not allowed to read the Bible. I said, where did you hear that, my brother? Well, I heard they used to chain up them Bibles, you know, when you couldn't read them. That's because there weren't, you know, there weren't, you know, high-volume printing presses and people would steal them and desecrate them. So they had to chain them up because there were very few copies and they wouldn't be stolen. So it wasn't to keep them away from the people. You silly Protestant, you, but anyway. There you go. You can say that because you're a former Protestant. I love my Protestant friends. Just want them all to come home to the fullness of the faith. All right, next question. When we are doing mental prayer and we have placed ourselves in God's presence, we have a powerful sense and we have a powerful sense of God's presence even before we have begun to read the gospel passage. Do we just sit in rest and rest in God's presence for however long that encounter lasts or do we move forward and read and continue the steps from mental prayer? I would not let God bother your prayer time. You don't want to get him in. You don't want to let again with the way it's like. Listen, I've taken my centering prayer course. I asked the question. I said, hey, what if in, as I'm praying, I hear the Lord, oh, you set that aside. So I'm set. It's like if God shows up, I'm like, dude, I got things to do. I'm praying here. What's your matter with you? Or your spouse looks and says, honey, I really love you. And it's like, you know, I'm sorry. I'm, I'm communing right at the moment, you know. I'm interested in this love thing. I'm doing something important. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that's actually a great gift. I have been gifted with that on occasion where I sit down and it's just, it's me and Jesus for quite a long while. So you don't push. You don't push through. You stay with the Lord. If the Lord's there, that's actually the that's the goal. That's the goal. If the Lord, if the Lord is there in your, in your prayer from the moment that you sit down, be with him. Yeah. Be with him. Rest. You know, let the Holy Spirit breathe in and through you and let the Lord love you and let him back. Yeah. It's a good sign. It's usually, it's usually an indication that the Lord is moving you from your meditative stage of prayer to the prayer of simplicity, which is like a bridge to contemplate a prayer and allow that to happen as much as on as often as it does. Yeah. And don't force yourself to, oh, I got to read this scripture. I got to get this portion done. Yeah. No, anytime you feel the Lord's presence, you should rest in him, whether you're in the middle of a rosary, whether you're in the middle of your scripture verse. If he moves, rest. Be with him. It's a gift. Well, with that, I think we've got all the questions in that we could. I just want to remind folks, you know, we have endless resources for your interior life and growing spiritually, spiritualdirection.com, as thousands of articles and videos and all of that. And of course, these shows are posted out there. So you want to grab some other shows from the past. And abala-institute.org, which is our graduate and personal enrichment studies and spiritual formation, praise religious lady all over the world. We have our high calling program, which is prepares men for seminary. We're also teaching one of the seminaries. And then last but not least, apostolate VA community. So just check it out. Spiritualdirection.com is the doorway. With that, we've got to end the show. Okay. 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.