 Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching Behind the Scenes Divine Intimacy Radio. Today, we're continuing our series on the Devil in the Castle and talking about the battles of the Fourth Mansions and how the enemy works at this stage of spiritual growth. So we'll start that in a minute. If you want to pre-order the book, you're still able to do that. Today is January the 25th. We have probably a couple weeks and then this will be over, but you can get a pre-order discount of 25% off from Sophia if you use the phrase Castle 25, C-A-S-T-L-E, then the number 25. If you want to pre-order, of course, when it's available, please use EWTN's Religious Catalog. When you do that, I'll send you the book. Every time you order a book, they'll send it to you and then you help the Ministry of Welfare. So I would do that. Can you believe that? Um, the summit. So 2022 Avala Summit on spiritual warfare. No, we don't have the name of the event. It just says summit. It's spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits. Is it? I believe. I don't know. Anyway, Father Ripper girl be there. Bishop Strickland will be there. Uh, Father McManus on senior Rosetti. Kathleen Beckman. Kathleen Beckman. You and I, we're speaking on discernment of spirits and spiritual warfare in marriage, which of course never happens with us. Well, with anybody, there's no such thing as perfect. We never argue. Everything is just okay. So July 15th through the 17th at the Catholic University of America. You don't want to miss this because it's going to be amazing. And we work hard to have good food and the beautiful venue, you know, we'll be worshiping our Lord at the Basilica. Basilica. Yeah, it's going to be amazing. So it's just don't miss it. spiritualdirection.com forward slash event. You'll see all the events there, but this one is going to be big. So we have some great news. What? It's sad for those who wanted to go, but I was really excited to hear that both the marriage retreat and our pilgrimish to the Holy land is completely booked. It's completely full. So, so for those who maybe had wanted to do that, just keep your eyes on events. And as those things come up, you know, don't delay and get on the list so that you go with us the next time because we're going to keep doing these things. We're going to do a pilgrimage next year to Portugal. I want to go to Spain again. I know, but, you know, that'll be next. You want to go to Poland, not Portugal. Why in Poland? Yes, I want to actually, I guess, I guess our lady, our lady of lords is calling me again. You know, perhaps, because I was right. Well, I'm good in Portugal. Yeah, I love Portugal. Portugal's amazing. You don't know anything yet. You didn't want to go to France either. And it was amazing. It was amazing. We're going to go and we're just going to see what the Lord has for us because he always blesses these things. And it's one big, happy, mysterious adventure. You know what I'm excited about? It seems like a minor trivial thing is I wrote a book just for pilgrims that we take on pilgrim pilgrimage. Yeah, that's the only way you can get it. Yeah, if you come with us, right, if you come with us, but anyway, it's full. So we're like selling something that we can't. Anyway, all right, devil in the castle. That's what we're talking about. On your mark, you ready? And your mark to go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of breath, 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 and to give us strength for the battles of the day. Yeah, someone got some sleep. I was thinking that. That's right. If you hear a little energy in my husband's voice, it's because he actually slept last night. I don't sleep much. Yeah, it's a big part of my own battles. Yeah, gotta be praise. So we're talking about the battles of the fourth mansions from the devil in the castle, which I think. So I don't know about you. I mean, I really like spiritual warfare and sermons of spirits, but this I think is my favorite book. I don't know. How come? I just think it has. I mean, those other books were just a lot of my books are summary treatments. I'm just trying to get people in the door. And so they're not they're substantive. They're very subs. I mean, they're not shallow. Listen, there are a lot of people who have never read any of what are in those books and it's life changing for them. So, you know, but this one's just got a depth to it that I enjoy. Yeah, you know, it allowed me to explore a lot more diverse issues and whatever. I don't know. Yeah, to go a little, a little deeper with Saint Teresa. Yeah, yeah. She really addresses some really difficult stuff about these. They walk with the Lord. And so this is about following. This is her fourth mansion or chapter. It's chapter four of the book. And just for context, what's going on here is that the person now that we're talking about is either at the end of the purgative way and heading into the illuminative way or well or early illuminative. And so that means they're living the contemplative life. One of the things that I noted at the beginning of this chapter was that, you know, most Catholics are not in this space. It's not because God doesn't want them to be. It's just because, you know, whatever formation or desire, I don't know. Well, explain like how do you get to this space before you make that assumption? So like, because some people go, wait, wait, wait, what does he mean by that? Like, what do you mean when you say that? What it means is based on, you know, poll data, most people who call themselves Catholics are living in habitual mortal sin, as an example. So you're not that means you're at you're like diapers, if that in terms of the spiritual journey. The person who's reached this stage has begun the practice of mental prayer. They're not struggling anymore with habitual mortal sin. They may be at the end of habitual venial sin or over it. They are very deeply or firmly rooted, as I should say, in the sacraments in terms of, you know, they'd never miss a mass if they if they if they could help it. So our producer made a weird noise. Sorry. I think the devil in the producer's hand over there. But so they've made a lot of progress in the interior life. Now, did I answer your question? Yeah. And I think to to clarify that, you know, and for whatever reason, this scripture verse was coming to mind this morning. So maybe it was for this moment, you know, but if we draw near to the Lord, he will draw near to us. Yeah, we resist the devil. He will flee. And if we draw near to the Lord, right? And I love that scripture verse because the promise is there. And so what we're talking about is the people that have reached this stage have done just that. They've resisted the enemy. Right. They've drawn near to the Lord and by his grace and his grace alone, they've reached this place, right? Because what they're doing is they're responding to the Lord, the Lord stirs in our heart. He's always calling us. He's calling every soul on the planet to himself. And so he calls them. And these folks have have heard the whisper. And they've responded. They've leaned in. They've suffered enough to where they say, Okay, I don't want to do this alone anymore. I can't do this. I need the Lord. And so therefore they start to respond to those graces, whether it's, you know, making a general confession, which I think we talked about last time, and make, you know, going at a regular at regular intervals or as needed to confession, going to daily mass, if they can, or as much as possible, you know, they're really drawing near. And especially in this practice of daily mental prayer, which is crucial, which is where we really seek him and we find him. Yeah. So the point of saying most people aren't here is that I say to the reader, why then keep reading, you know, and it's because the Lord wants you here and he wants you to draw deeper and to give you hope because there is encouragement in this. And I will also say, even though most Catholics aren't here, just from poll data, the most, I would say, we are surrounded by a lot of people in our life that are here in the community of Apostoli via and particularly those who were promised. There are many, many people who are in this realm. So it is possible in there. And there are doctors and lawyers and plumbers and, you know, busy moms, many children. Yeah. I mean, they run the whole gamut, grandmas and young, young, young folks as well. So it's possible to be here for everyone and God wants everyone here. But I just want to say this chapter, even though statistically, there aren't many, there is hope. And there is a way to get here, which is why I wrote the book and why I wrote into the deep and spiritual warfare and discernment of spirit. So these really, these resources really show you how to get here and then how to stay here, if you will, or to keep progressing in the interior life. Yeah. So there are some particular things that are important in this chapter. But what I thought I would do is just see what you thought was most important in your reading this morning. Well, there was a question that came up to me. And so here we are talking about how the enemy is affecting us in all these different stages, right? And so we've drawn into this wonderful place. And I want to understand from your perspective and Teresa's perspective is how is it possible that the work of the devil can aid a soul in this mansion? Yeah, because in this mansion, a lot of so mortal sin gives the devil gigantic handles on our backs that he can jerk us around with and wreck us and control us. Those are gone now. So in this stage, what the what the the angels were designed to help us to heaven. All of them were designed this way. At the present, at the presentation of this plan or whatever, however it happened, they rebel, a bunch of them rebelled. Well, God still makes them help us. Well, he makes them fulfill their purpose against their will. Yeah. So now at this stage, because we're much stronger against temptation, when the enemy comes and does tempt us, it gives us the ability to fight and get stronger, right? And it's sort of like, I don't know if you think about somebody who is in practicing martial arts or whatever. At the beginning, you just learn how to get strong and how to, you know, learn basic strikes and defense and, you know, grappling or whatever. But there's a point at which you're strong enough to get in the ring with someone and actually have them hit you. By the way, if you're in martial arts and people aren't hitting you, you're not in real martial arts. But because when they hit you, you learn what it's really like to fight in for a really serious, difficult fight. So it's like that. In this stage, you're able to be hit a little more. And it doesn't take you out. It just makes you stronger. You get hit and you go, wow, it's got hit. And I fought and overcame. And so in the case of the enemy, the Lord allows the enemy to hit you at times in terms of temptation and spiritual desolation and all of that. So that you learn what your weaknesses are, you learn where your sin is, where you still need to be healed, you know, a lot of different things. Right. Your greater self-awareness comes, right? Right. So if I understand that I have a particular weakness, if, you know, whatever it is, if it's lust or food or anger, you know, wrath, whatever the temptation that has a handle in me that has any kind of maybe not mortally, but it's my weakness, it's my nemesis, right? And I get tempted. Then I learn how to fight against that. And I know how I react. And I know where I need to guard my eyes and guard what I consume and guard what I allow in my life. Or, you know, I used to talk about what it felt like to me when we would get tempted and we'd get hit is like getting t-boned in an intersection because you're kind of cruising along at this stage and you're thinking everything's okay. And you've got greater peace and you're in love with the Lord and you've overcome so much and life is kind of beautiful. And then you go through an intersection and you get t-boned and you're like, oh my gosh, I fell for it. And it sends you reeling and you're mortified and you run to confession in your spiritual director. And, you know, I have directees who, you know, they've got their head in their hands and part of it is the pride of saying, I can't believe I fell for that, right? But that self-awareness helps us to guard ourselves, to understand that we're not to be self-reliant, that it's a good thing that we understand that we're weak and therefore we can lean more heavily on the Lord, be more surrendered to him and know that only through him are we able to resist the enemy and to make him flee, right? Good. Very great summary. You get an A. Oh, thanks. I need a button. Like, Jordan, can I get a That's Amazing button and just press it when she says something? That's amazing. No, don't. It was very good. So, a couple of the key aspects of temptation in this mansion or in this phase of the interior life are to avoid the near occasion of sin and then to cease pausing mental prayer for any reason. So, I think it's pretty important to discuss. We're about to go to a break in a minute or so. The near occasion of sin, so I'll define it for you. It's any person, place or thing that can draw you circumstantially or whatever, that when you get near it will draw you into sin. So, the best analogy I can use for that is that you have a magnet towards sin, which is called congupiscence. And when you have two powerful magnets near one another, there's a point at which even strong hands can't hold two powerful magnets apart. And you can actually injure yourself if you try it, you know, because the magnets will crush what you're the even the limbs that are trying to hold it apart. So, once you get to the near occasion of sin, bam, it usually the two magnets collapse and you're now sinning. So, knowing where that knows, we call it, I call it the no zone, near occasion zone, the no zone or the no fly zone, when you get, you have to learn to grow spiritually at this stage what that is in your life and stay completely out of the zone. So, that's not even, it's not even avoiding sin, but it's avoiding even getting close enough to where you could potentially be tempted into sin. So, after the break, kind of jump into some examples of how that all works. Okay, we'll be right back. Before we go to the back and talk about the near occasion of sin, we have events coming up in Nebraska, Ohio, New Mexico, and Colorado. Wow. So, you can go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. Another thing that's kind of interesting, if you are, if you live in the area of Montgomery, Alabama, we'd like you to come by and see the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Retreat Center, which is where we are now, it's where the new recording studio is, and we do free formation every other or second or fourth Saturdays of the month. People are willing, are welcome to come and sit in on that. We'll even give you a cup of coffee. Even give you a cup of coffee and that's right. So, the next one's February, the first Saturday in February, which is a little off schedule. So, if you want to come see us, a couple of great courses at the Abil Institute, Why All People Suffer, the Bible and the Revelation of Prayer, those are there, check those out at abiladashinstitute.org. Last thing I'll say and then we'll jump back in is spiritualdirection.com forward slash lent. We're doing a 40-day challenge and we've prepared a beautiful document for you. If you've never practiced mental prayer like we're talking about in the show, if you don't practice mental prayer, St.ophanse the Guru says you're going to hell, so does Teresa of Abilah. She said, if you don't practice mental prayer, that you don't need a devil to throw you into hell, you will drag yourself there by your own accord. That's what I was going to say. That was good for you. So, this is a, Lent is a great time to learn mental prayer as a spiritual discipline that you can exercise during Lent and then practice as you exit Lent. So, do that. Would you? spiritualdirection.com forward slash lent and you can sign up and we'll send you the PDF and help you along the way and do a show at the end and do a Q&A and meet with you and talk to you about your experience or whatever. Right. All right. Back to the show. On your mark, set, go. This is Dan at 70 Burke. Welcome back to divine intimacy radio. Your radio Haven of rest. Well, we already did that at the beginning. Okay. Well, we're back. Okay. So, we were talking about the no zone, the near occasion of sin. And I love your example of the two really super strong magnets. I hurt myself one time you had two of those magnets floating around. I picked them up. I thought, oh, this is kind of cool. Actually, they were in separate places. Like one was over here and one was over there and I'm going, and there was a reason I play. Right. And I, and I walk in, and I start messing with them. And I hurt myself because those two came together and it caught my finger in the middle. And I was like, wow, you know, but if you've ever experienced that, to understand that that's what the near occasion of sin does to you that if, if you have a particular proclivity to a weakness, you know, a frailty in your spiritual DNA. And, and we're all born that way. You know, we're all born with certain things that we struggle with. Yeah. And you see it when kids are really little, right. And so if we understand that, then we have to stay away from those things. In marriage, what I love is we, we call those things hedges. Hedges. Right. We, we talked early in our marriage about putting hedges around our marriage, understanding our own weaknesses. And we needed to keep those things outside of those hedges. Nobody got in those hedges, except you and I and the Lord. As an example, I don't do spiritual direction for women. I don't have, nor do I do spiritual direction for men. And I have, I don't have struggles with porn or, you know, haven't had a, you know, fallen in that way. And I'm not, you know, I mean, that's just a grace, right? But there is no reason it's so destructive when you do, or if you do, it's worth putting up extra boundaries too. And I don't even have private conversations with women as a norm. So, yeah, I mean, that's an example of staying out. I think maybe a better example, although there's nothing wrong with that one, is like a specific sin that you have to build structure or hedges around in your life to stay away from. So for me, you know, now that I'm getting healthier from my accident, my appetite's going way up. And I gained five pounds in probably a week and a half. You needed it though. You were kind of, you're getting kind of scrawny. Right. So I'm having to go, and even as a Lenten discipline, I'm having to go back to, I always weigh myself, which is why I know I'm five pounds overweight. So that's like a hedge to deal with the occasion near occasion of sin. But also I have to, I have to exercise a certain amount of day to burn a certain amount of calories. And then I have to watch that I only typically eat two meals a day. So I fast, and then I eat nothing until noon. Yesterday I had three meals. I'm thinking, why did I go up, you know, three meals? Was it Sunday? I guess. Oh, no, it wasn't. It was Monday. Yeah. So anyway, it's just building hedges so that you're, for me, that's in my rule of life. One of the hedges is that I'm awake and aware that this is a sinful tendency in my life. And I'm very careful about it. So I don't know what you have any examples of hedges you put up in your own life? Yeah, I mean, yes. And so we all have a primary sin, you know, and I will tell you that mine is pride. And I discovered that years and years ago when I started in spiritual direction. And so I have to be very, very careful where I interject myself. So what I have learned is to be very quiet and not to give my opinion unless it's asked for. So that has helped tremendously. And it was a tremendous hill to overcome, to understand where I would fall and where I would cross the line. Not that I would like attack anybody or force them to do whatever. But just speaking too much and interjecting myself into somebody's life, primarily yours, our children's or whatever. And even, you know, close family members and understanding that when I did that, it was even if I was talking about good things, the Lord, the church, the teachings of the church or whatever, it didn't always come out the way I desired, and it would actually push people the opposite direction. So what I've learned to do instead is to be quiet, to pray deeply, to intercede. And when I see something that I believe is a problem or somebody straying off the course, what I do is I ask the Lord, Lord, if you desire for me to speak into this, have them ask me. Right. And I wait on the Lord and I can tell you that He will use me and He will draw that person and they come in. And people are much more likely to listen if they're the ones that come and say, you know, I'm kind of hurting in this area. Do you have any thoughts on this? Right. And so learning to be prudent and keep my mouth closed and only speak where the Lord has either strongly prompted me to speak or somebody has asked. So that's a good way to stay out of the out of the no-zone for you. Right. Just for folks listening, if you're struggling with habitual sin and you're you're wishing you were in this area, because you're constantly in the no-zone or constantly falling into habitual sin, in particular mortal sin, and you want to get free, we do have a free course you can get to at apostoleva.org. If you sign up for the on the community website, you don't have to become a member of the community to join the website. And it's overcoming habitual sin. It's very powerful, give very specific illustrations and examples to help you overcome in particular the use of discernment of spirits. Because when you're in desolation or when you're tired, hungry, what's the acronym, Jordan? Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. But even becoming aware that you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired can keep you out of the no-zone because you're aware of it. And then you go, oh, I got to change my behavior because I'm weak right now. So the enemy wants to draw in you constantly into sin, but and if he's succeeding, you can be free. I promise you that. But in this mansion, of course, we're not dealing with mortal sin. We're dealing with venial sin or imperfections, that sort of thing. The second you have something I know well, yeah. And so I was I was going to bring up the other way that the enemy works in this mansion is the disturbance by the distractions or worrying over the way our mind wanders in prayer. So these are people that are going to prayer every day and have been for years and have been for years and they're having all these distractions and they start to be concerned and focused on the distractions and worrying about them. And so the first thing worrying does is it causes us to leap the Lord, right? We immediately depart from his presence once we start. Well, so our mind should be filled with the Lord. It's a relationship. It is it's a reason there's a reason that the church and all the doctors of the church, when they speak about prayer, talk about this marital covenantual relationship, the marital embrace, right? Nothing should happen during mental prayer except us and the Lord and this communion of love, you know, him drawing us to himself, us opening and receiving him, you know, in this exchange of love, right? Well, we don't stop to write our grocery list or think about the laundry or an argument we had yesterday or the failings of our motherhood or fatherhood or our business dealings, financial worries. We don't do those things during the marital embrace. Please, Jesus, don't do that. It'll ruin, you know, your marriage. So in the marital embrace of prayer, nothing else should happen. And so what happens is we will start to worry those distractions come in. They do come, yeah, they come. And what we do is we shift our attention. We start to stare at them. And it's it's it's our human frailty. We go and look at them and then we start to worry about them. And what the enemy will do is say, you know, you're not doing this right, right? You know, you might as well give up mental prayer because nothing's going on and you're not even paying attention, right? So he will he will berate us in mental prayer to try to get us to quit. And it's a fatal fatal mistake. Yeah, Teresa said that she Teresa Vabilis said that the enemy deceived her to quit mental prayer for how long I was a long time. I think it was it was years. Right. And she said she had gone to hell in those years because she was so confused and and it affected, of course, the way she lived her life and the convent. So, you know, the battles of this mansion are to help you avoid what she fell into and revealed as deadly for the soul. Right, right. We show up no matter what, you know, I that's one of the reasons I love getting up early. It's one of the I think the secrets of being successful mental prayer, I agree, is to set your time early before, you know, your mental monkeys and distractions are awake in your brain. The household's quiet. So I get up in the dark, I go get my cup of coffee, I always have my coffee, and sit down to my light my candles and I settle in before the Lord. And I love that time, because it's become habitual. In fact, I can even be on vacation or out doing something else. And my body will wake me up and go, it's time to pray, Stephanie. And I say, okay, I'm coming, Lord, and I'm up and I go to prayer. Right. And so in that way, I just don't ever miss. And I haven't missed mental prayer in years, years and years and years, unless I was deathly sick. And it shows that the fruits are amazing, which is a nice transition. Thank you. Okay, because how do we know that our prayer is from the Lord? And we know by the fruits, right? Are we growing in virtue? Our weakness is being strengthened. And the way we find out is ask a loved one. Yeah, like, I, there's a reason that you say it shows, because you can look at my life and you've watched the transition, the Lord has made, not me, but the Lord has made in me. And I can do the same for you and see, wow, look at what the Lord's done. You know, what's really cool is I was looking at my Lenten document from last year. None of what I put then, am I putting now? And that's also evidence. And it's, and it's really, and I don't want to reveal the details. It's not important. But the point is, grow its growth in love that has diminished the difficulties I was facing last year as I went into Lent. Well, God be praised. He makes all things new. If you want to learn how to practice mental prayer, if you're wondering and you're thinking, gosh, I really want all of this. I want to know love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. I want to know. I want to know Jesus. I want to know what it's like to be, to know him in this way. ApostleEVA.org. I'm telling you, free courses, community. If you want to run, if you want to be a saint, you got to find saints and run with them. Saints run in packs. And boy, do we have a lot of holy, amazing, good people in ApostleEVA. Priests, holy, good priests in ApostleEVA. We have holy, good laity, deacons, you know, all kind of flavor of humans. They all inspire me. I can tell you that. And we're out of time. Okay. Well, 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. And if you want to join us for the next show, we're going to be two shows at the time, at least for the live stream, head out to spiritualdirection.com's Facebook page. And we'll be doing the battles of the fifth mansion. And we'll be talking about how the devil disguises himself as an angel of light, which is more akin to the temptations at this stage. So we'll see you out there. God bless.