 Yeah, all right. Hey friends, this is Dan Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio. And before we jump in the show as folks are logging in, I want to just tell you about a few things going on. One, the books we're talking about tonight can be found at EWTN's religious catalog. So this morning, you mean? Oh yeah, this morning. We're just talking about me being tired. That's funny. The, you can always trust EWTN's religious catalog for orthodox books. So a few courses that are coming up. Apple Institute course spring 2021 gift of the Holy Spirit and divine indwelling. This explores the theology of divine indwelling and the gift of the Holy Spirit and the life of faith. Who teaches that Dan Burke? Dr. Michael Gamma. He's awesome. Sounds lovely. He's an awesome human being and he prays. He's a holy guy. And so he that is a graduate city course, graduate level course. And then a school of spiritual formation course, which is really for busy folks who want to dive deep and want high quality spiritual theology, but who don't want to write, you know, don't want to spend 20 hours outside of class working on their papers is exploring theosis, the patristic understanding of our participation in the divine nature. And I know Dr. Gamma did his doctoral dissertation on theosis. But it's covering Saint Irenaeus of lions, Saint Athanasius, dramatic description of our salvation by these and other fathers in our divinization. So early, early church stuff. That's really powerful. Dr. Gamma is teaching that too. So that starts Thursday, March 4 school of spiritual formation. So if you want to visit those or check those out or more courses, Avaladashinstitute.org, last announcement, we'll get the show moving. Is we have quite a few events in the next few months from California to Texas. Check them out to Illinois. Check them out. Spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. Say that again. Spiritualdirection.com. And then go to the events tab and you'll see it, including a couple of marriage retreats that are out and about. I think one in Texas and one in California. And the one that we just did this past weekend. People didn't like it at all. It was awesome. They did not like it. It was just beautiful. It was awesome. They were all sleeping in the chairs. No, they weren't snoring. It was awesome. We had a great time. Beautiful, beautiful souls. Right. And we got to spend some great time with them. Awesome. Check it out. You won't want to miss it. Okay. Ready to start the show? I'm ready. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready. Okay. You ready, producer man? On your mark, set, go. Welcome to Divine Intip- No. Stop. Reset. I'm so happy. I don't know how like Teresa Tommy on those people do live radio all the time. I'm so happy to not do live radio. Ready on your mark, set, go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio. You're a radio haven of brass. You're hermitage of the heart. You're a monastery of the mind where we, I don't know, what do we do? We turn our hearts to the... My wife's looking at me like, what do you say? And we turn... I think you need the help of the Holy Spirit. I know. I had some caffeine and the Holy Spirit. Did you pray? I did pray. I always pray. Right. So where we, where we turn our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom of the saints and the work of the Holy Spirit and the life of people who've given themselves to God. And today we're talking about one of my favorite saints. Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity. Right. I think you said that too low or I don't know, maybe I'm hard to say it again. Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity. You did. That's awesome. Okay. She is a beautiful saint. Right. We are interviewing a saint in the making, Claire Dwyer, who is the, is the marketing manager for Avila Foundation, as well as the editor and contributor to spiritualdirection.com. She has a degree in theology from Franciscan University, Steubenville, and like inches away from finishing her graduate program in spiritual theology with the Avila Institute. She blogs at even the sparrow. And one of the best, I know she hates to hear me say this, but one of the best writers of our time. I think, I mean, certainly top 20, top 10, really powerful. Her writing ability is very beautiful. And what we're talking about today, she wrote called this present paradise, a spiritual journey with Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity is something that you need to pick up and read. It's really something special. And in particular, I think small, it's awesome for small groups. You can really spend quite a bit of time with Saint Elizabeth, not a gigantic book, but the way she's written it. They're short modules that you can explore. It's a total of 38 of them. Explore the wisdom of Saint Elizabeth with study questions. With study. She made it very, very easy for you to run a study group. Right. It's beautiful. Very accessible. I called it story through prayer when I did the little blurb for it, because it truly is. It's like praying and listening to story at the same time. I just love the way she writes. Yeah. And I've just enjoyed getting to know Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity along with Claire through her stories. So I guess you like the book too then. Yeah, I kind of like Claire too. Okay. Hey, Claire. It's good to see you. Hi. It's good to be back. Thank you. Big day this, this a few days ago. Tell us, tell us what happened. Our oldest son was married on Saturday. So three days ago now and it was beautiful and a wonderful grace filled occasion. So I'm entering a new phase in life. I feel like now my children are, you know, moving on and out and onto better things. That's awesome. Wait till you get your first grandchild. That's going to be amazing. Awesome. That's going to be amazing. So we're on episode four or four and if you're blessed as you listen today, you can find all the previous episodes out at spiritualdirection.com. You can pick up this book, this present paradise and Jordan will put it up on the screen there at EWTN's religious catalog. Always a place for faithful books. And before we jump in, I also want to recommend another book that we've published in a concert with Sophia Institute Press. One of the professors at the Aval Institute translated a beautiful book called, A Life Appraised to God, which is on a biography of Elizabeth of the Trinity. These two books are awesome companions to one another. And if you really want to dig into this, this amazing saint. So today we're talking about her life and legacy and we want to jump in. I know Stephanie's already rearing and ready to go with questions about Saint Elizabeth. So what do you got? Well, what I found interesting is like Therese, she had a young death. You know, she died at such a young age. So can you tell us a little bit about the circumstances about that or final year? And I also hear that she can be a cause of hope because she had a particular temptation that was very severe, like Therese, which I know that certainly during this start time, we've heard a lot of it in the news. In fact, they're trying to force schools back open in San Francisco because of this particular stressor that's happening and it's playing out horribly among the young people. So tell us what that is and tell us how that relates to Saint Elizabeth and her young death. Yes. So she did have a young death. She in the year 1906 on New Year's Day, the Carmelites and Dijon did what was the tradition at the time was to choose a patron saint, just to draw one randomly for the year. And on New Year's Day 1906, Elizabeth drew Saint Joseph. So she spent the year with the saint, which the church has declared is we are all spending the year with Saint Joseph this year. But that year he was her saint in particular. And they over the nuns overheard her say, oh, that's appropriate because this is going to be the year that I meet Christ. Wow. So one of, you know, we invoke Saint Joseph for just about everything. I was doing an interview with Father Mike Schmitz a couple of years ago talking about the saints. And he said, Saint Joseph is basically patron saint of everything. I mean, we just can't go wrong with him. But one of the things in particular that the church recognizes is that he is patron of a happy death. So that's that would become true for Elizabeth in the sense that she would die in the year 1906. At the time, she was already starting not to feel well, but because she was so good at not drawing attention to herself, nobody else had noticed it. She had something called Addison's disease, which is now treatable. It's a disease of the adrenal glands. Basically, you lose the ability to process food. And so she would over the next eight months, 10 to eight months starve to death slowly and painfully. And so she had a lot to offer up, which she did. So it was excruciatingly painful. And like Saint Therese who died of tuberculosis, so basically, you know, suffocating to death, starving to death. These young women were in agony for months. And they knew suffering. And even though they were holy, they were not outside the temptation to suicide, which is what Stephanie was alluding to. We know that Saint Therese made a comment that you really shouldn't leave scissors out near the deathbed of somebody dying of tuberculosis because she experienced temptation to suicide. And Saint Elizabeth would make a comment to the priores one night when she was leaving her room. She kind of motioned to the open second story window and said, are you sure you want to leave that window open? Like she said, I understand at this point, I understand suicide. And so of course they didn't give into it, but it is good to remember that the saints were not outside of these temptations, especially at the time of our death. Father McManus at the summit in 2019 was reminding us all that Satan will take every opportunity, his last ditch efforts at the time of our death, which is why we pray in the Hail Mary. Every single time we say the Hail Mary, we ask for her intercession at that hour because that will be a critical hour for us. And I think it's ironic that we have this age where we are at the, the virtue is hope that we are called to have. And the two extremes on either side are presumption and despair. And in this age, we are experiencing both of them presumption in the sense that nobody wants to talk about sin. If you're a reasonably nice person, you're guaranteed, you know, to make it to heaven the minute you die and despair in the sense that there is no hope. There's nothing afterward. I have nothing to live for. Suffering is meaningless. And I want to end it all before I experience any of it. And so I think that St. Elizabeth is a great saint to pray for, for the virtue of hope and to overcome these two great, you know, evils of our time. Yeah. So folks are struggling with these temptations, both St. Elizabeth and St. Therese, and like saints they need to, to draw on. And I, I was just looking at the, the photo of her on the book Life of Praise to God, and she's a little bit plump in that photo. But then I've looked, seen other photos where she looks emaciated. She has the dark circles around her eyes. I guess that was getting closer to her death very thin. And at first I was confused. I thought, is this the right, you know, saint, but it really happened over a short period, didn't it? Well, it was a kind of a long drawn out agony. She was living for a while on little bits of chocolate and cheese, anything that she could digest. Ice. And in the end she couldn't even drink. And she said, she said to her priors, I know it's very bad, but I think the first thing I'm going to do when I get to heaven is drink. As much as she wanted to see the Lord face to face, she was going to be looking for the water. So it was an agony, really, and it was a long one, but she knew the power of suffering. She knew the sanctifying power of suffering. Personally, of course, it strips us of everything. If we allow it to, it strips us of everything other than God and can prepare us to receive him in a way that's just magnificent. And it's also redemptive. I mean, the power of suffering is redemptive and it's a gift from God that he allows us to participate in his own crucifixion and death through our own suffering. And through that in the restoration of the world and the raising of all things back up to him, it's amazing. But the power of suffering is something that he's given us as a gift. And she embraced that fully. She lived those years with him on the cross joyfully but painfully. She called her room the Palace of Pain and Bliss in the Infirmary, which can seem so. It's one of those great paradoxes of our faith that will insist a mystery will never really completely understand it, but it's both beautiful and painful at the same time. Yeah, it is a complete mystery, isn't it? And I think particularly as Catholics will frequently say to whatever's going on to our kids, whatever little inconvenience, it's like, offer it up. And it's like, well, what does that mean? How do I do this? But it's a gift, whether it's emotional suffering, physical suffering, disease, you know, the sufferings of your watching your children take the wrong path, whatever it is. That suffering can be offered back to Christ on the cross to be united with his suffering to make it complete, as Scripture tells us, to complete the suffering in Christ for the redemption of those that we love and for the salvation of souls. So we're going to be transitioning shortly to the second half, and I think perhaps we can dive into that time that she's in the infirmary. You know, what her major works are, the related letters that she's writing while she's convalescing why she's getting suffering in her last hours, and why she ended up being so prolific. She lived such a short time. So amazing that during that time, through that suffering was when all these beautiful works came to be. So we will be back after the break to talk about her works. Awesome. We'll be right back. Okay. So 1246, what do you want to go to? Okay, where could that go? This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest. And we're talking with Claire Dwyer, who's written a really amazing book, This Present Paradise, The Spiritual Journey with St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. And if you don't know St. Elizabeth, you will get to know her in a very beautiful and powerful way through this book, through story and through brief reflections. There's 38 of them, great for a small group study. And then also a great companion to this book to really dig into St. Elizabeth is A Life of Praise to God, a book that we brought into print in English through the Avala Foundation through one of our professors. And it's an excellent biography. So these two together will really get you into this very powerful saint. So before the break, we mentioned, we wanted to talk a little bit, Claire, about the, her letters or major works in the infirmary, you know, why, why she was so prolific. What are her central or maybe final messages? And how can she help us to navigate the challenges we face today? Well, we had, we've spoken on some of the other episodes about, you know, the life of a Carmelite and that when you entered a Carmelite convent, you really were dying to the world. And so there was limited correspondence or limited visits, limited correspondence allowed for the, the nuns ordinarily. However, Elizabeth had a spiritual mother in the convent who was really attentive to her needs, the needs of her friends and family and her gifts. And Mother Germain recognized that Elizabeth had a message for the world and a great gift in expressing it. And so she was allowed, she was allowed to write quite a bit in her final year. And so much of what we have, her letters and two major retreats that she wrote, which were really a series of reflections to be read over about 10 days. One for her sister and one for the nuns in the convent are what remain of hers. And so we can be grateful that her spiritual mother had this sensitivity to Elizabeth and to her gifts and to the needs of the world, honestly. So of her major works to, like I said, our retreats, Heaven and Faith, which I cover in one of the chapters of the book. And then her last retreat, which was written for the nuns. She also has a number of letters that we consider her major works because they are so significant. One of which is called Let Yourself Be Loved. Of course, we've named them, she did it, but she wrote this to Mother Germain. And she saw in the, and it's really a message for all of us. She saw in this woman who had the responsibility of this entire convent of nuns in a time which we said in France was extremely perilous and uncertain. And yet had a vocation to be loved by God. And so she writes in this beautiful letter to Mother Germain, your first vocation in life, your first calling is to be loved, not to love, to be loved, to allow God to love you. And it is just this beautiful message. I mean, remember what we said the spirituality in France was very focused on doing. And here Elizabeth is saying, no, no, your first job is to just be, just be you and be loved by God, which I think is such a powerful message for all of us. And so I covered that in the book. Another one that I talk about is, it's called The Greatness of Our Vocation. And it was a letter written to her young friend who wrote to Elizabeth asking for help in overcoming pride. She was really worried about being prideful. And Elizabeth writes this beautiful letter to her talking about the two virtues of humility and magnanimity. And the idea that yes, we are called to humility. I mean, it's primary. It's just essential and foundational in the spiritual life to know, which means to know who you are before God and before others. And to have a proper understanding that without God and His grace, you really are nothing and are capable of nothing. But with God, which is where magnanimity comes in, with God to know that God dwells within you and calls you to great things and will equip you for them. We should not be afraid to step out boldly into the challenges of the world, into the challenges of life and know that we are called to not just survive them, but to thrive and to bring Christ into them and to transform the world, to dream big dreams and to believe that with God we can fulfill them and to know that He won't give us any desires or dreams that He also won't allow us and equip us to fulfill. So she encourages her friend to yes, be humble, but also believe that you are called to greatness and it's not pride to believe that as long as you remember that it's only through God that you will accomplish these works. That's another parallel with Therese, isn't it? Therese noted that her aspiration to be a saint is not prideful because it's God's desire, right? Right. She was going to be a saint not because she was great, but because God was. Exactly. That's awesome. Out of curiosity when you're reading and preparing for this. For me, you know, I'm working on a book on Saint Therese's perspective on spiritual warfare and I've been surprised a few times even though I've read her works. I don't know how many times through did anything about Elizabeth really surprise you this as you were reading this through and really strike you on a very personal level that you had missed before you started writing. This book. I think as I came to the end of the work. I had a, I had a realization that I that for me was very profound. I believe Elizabeth is prophetic. We have talked about this on a previous show too. She really anticipated Vatican II and the universal call to holiness. But I think she's prophetic because and I've worked in the church in various, you know, means for years. And I believe that within the church we've make make great strides and we've really come a long way in this idea of evangelization, discipleship and catechesis. And we really have this understanding that we cannot assume that because somebody is coming to mass on Sunday and sitting in the pew that they know Jesus Christ, that they have made a conscious decision to follow him and all of the teachings of the church and to sacrifice whatever they need to in order to do that. And I think we're coming to that and I think that we I know when I was working at a parish we were very intentional about that being a goal. However, that is not the goal of our spiritual life. The goal of our spiritual life isn't discipleship. It's union with God. Discipleship is the beginning of the journey. And so we have to be careful of this, you know, idea that, oh, you're a disciple. And I'm using my hands to, for quotation marks, you know, you've arrived. Now let's find you somewhere to volunteer because you're done. You've made it. But I believe that there's a certain restlessness in the faithful who really have committed their lives to Christ. I believe it's because they know that there's more. And I think the next great step in the church is going to be fulfill those desires by accompanying people into a spiritual journey that is much deeper and farther than they know. I think that's what Elizabeth's goal job was really in the church to be a prophet for the New Age of the Holy Spirit that we're about to see. And like Elizabeth, and this is another thing we can talk about her similarity and dissimilarity with Saint Therese. Like Elizabeth, it will be a wholly hidden movement because it will be within. And so maybe different than perhaps like the charismatic renewal or something which was a little bit more external. I think Elizabeth is a prophet for a new internal movement of the Holy Spirit that will come within the hearts of the faithful. I can say we're seeing that movement play out in the Avala Institute and spiritualdirection.com and all we're doing because our student numbers just keep going up. There's more and more people saying, I need to know the Lord. I need to come to union with him. I need to deal with this ultimate question of who I am. Why do I exist? Who am I? Why do I exist? Who is God? How do I find him? I think there's a deep, deep hunger out there that we're seeing and just constantly increasing numbers and demand for what we're doing. Do you see that stuff? Yeah, especially, well, even through our retreats and such that we do because there's this realization that we can't depend on the world and the flesh anymore. People are starting to come to the end of themselves through this dark time and I think that's also drawing them to who is God? Who am I in relationship to God? What is he asking of me? How do I get to know him? How do I say my yes? Yeah. What does it mean to be a disciple in the truest sense of the word? Not just kind of hobbling along beside him, doing a lot of Martha work, but rather how do I become Mary? How do I sit at his feet and receive his message and allow it to transform me and make me holy? That's really, I see a hunger for that. Yeah, and I think you noted something that's powerful and it relates back to what Claire said about St. Elizabeth being a saint of our time. We're coming to the end to the end of materialism, the end of political power, the end, and I mean the end, meaning people are realizing it just doesn't lead anywhere. You know, things don't lead anywhere. Money doesn't lead anywhere. Power doesn't lead anywhere. There's corruption on both sides. Yeah, it's totally corrupt. The healthcare system even is now corrupted and politicized. Yeah, it's tough. It's a very tough time. So I think you're exactly right. Yeah. So Therese, when she left us, she said, I'm going to go to heaven and my job is going to love and to toss down roses on everybody, right? And even Dr. Lillis found out his vocation through roses and Therese tossing him a bouquet of roses after a prayer. So it was really amazing, very specific way that she answered his prayers. So before she died, before Elizabeth died, what did she say she was going to do from heaven for us or for the Lord? We talked in another episode about how familiar that she and the nuns were with Therese's spirituality so early on. And so they were familiar with story. They were familiar with what Therese said she was going to do, which was spend her heaven on earth. So she was going to come right back. She was going to be, you know, she's coming back and she is very visible in the way that she intercedes. And she's filled with signs and wonders really. It's just her personality. I love the sense in the sense the saints are more themselves when they get to heaven. And so Elizabeth was asked on her deathbed by the nuns, are you going to be like Therese? Are you going to come back? And Elizabeth said, no, I'm not actually, I'm going straight to the heart of the Trinity and I am going to bury myself there. And then she kind of thought for a minute and she said, but if I'm allowed, I will come back and my job will be to draw the heart closer to God. She had been asked before this, she had been asked by a friend who left the convent. It was discerning whether she would ever return. She asked Elizabeth to pray for a sign, whether she would return. And Elizabeth said, well, that's not my grace. I don't do signs. So even before she was sick, she was saying that is not my personality. That's not my charism. And so when she died, that really was true. Elizabeth doesn't usually show herself. In fact, I think the sign that Elizabeth is in your life is that you're closer to God and maybe don't even know how you got there. She prefers to be hidden. They think it's so beautiful. The church waits a hundred years to canonize her and say, all right, Elizabeth, you've been hidden long enough. Let's just show everybody who's been interceding you, interceding for you all along. Wonderful. So may we all come to know the hidden Elizabeth. Thank you for this book and for our time together. 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. Amen.