 the, uh, the, um, pilgrimage. Hey friends, this is, uh, Dan, Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio. We're about to start a show with one of the, uh, more important books of this year. If not the most, I don't have to be careful what I say. There's a lot of good ones. This one in marriage. This one in the marriage. They are really extraordinary. Um, Father Donald Haggerty, Saint John of the cross master of contemplation. You do not want to miss this show, but, uh, before we jump in, Stephanie and I are leading a retreat to Carmelite, Spain, uh, next June. Is that right? Yes. Date wise. And I will be, we, we only go with one bus, a small bus, and we do that for the sake of intimacy. It is not a fundraising project. It is to help you to go deeper in your interior life. And if you're stuck and you really want to change, or if you're a husband who's needing to, uh, restore your points inventory, give it to your wife for Christmas, we only have eight seats left. Uh, we had to fill this last week. There's only 50 total along with the priest and, and, uh, and the people are extraordinary. They go on these trips. They're all people of prayer and you will be blessed just being with them. If you're like them or you want to be. So, uh, I will also be teaching through my latest book, Devil in the Castle, Saint Teresa of Avila, a spiritual warfare in the progress of the soul, um, through that, uh, pilgrimage. So, uh, go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events or just go to the spiritualdirection.com and there's an events tab at the top and click on that. And you'll find all of our events there. And, uh, so now we'll jump in and talk to somebody everyone should know, an author everyone should know who cares about being an authentic disciple of Jesus. And that should be all of you out there. Uh, it's Father Donald Haggerty. So let's go ahead and let me get my timer up and then we'll go on your market set. Go. This is Dan Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your Radio Haven of Wraths. 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 help us to navigate the tumult of this life, the challenges of this life. And boy, are they challenging in our time. Right, right. You know, in our, uh, in our first show with Father Haggerty on this. This is part two. This is part two. Yeah. Um, that one of the things that I kept thinking about is I don't know how people survive in this environment without a prayer life. Right. I don't either. It's, it's just, um, how do you get up every day and hear the tumult, see it, um, understand what's going on, deal with the stresses of, uh, you know, the economy, the breakdown of the family, um, all the cultural craziness, cultural craziness, the demonic warfare that has just been unveiled. It's just out in plain sight. It's not hiding anymore. You know, how do you maintain your sanity without inebriating yourself, um, in, in stuff that's going to end up leading to death? You know, the only answer is our Lord, the sacraments and prayer. Prayer is, is just what brings grace and peace in this craziness. It reminds me of a passage in Philippians where St. Paul who's imprisoned says, you know, tells us how to get the peace that the past is all understanding and either he's a nut job or he knows something we ought to listen to, which is, uh, you know, he calls us to prayer and union with God and that in that reality, we'll know peace even if we are imprisoned, even if everything's taken away from us. I mean you, the list, anyone listening could list, you know, 10 things that have caused them great deal of pain and difficulty in their lives. Whatever the list is, uh, proximity to Christ is peace, right? And, and proximity to Christ only comes through, of course, the sacraments and prayer. And if you're not practicing mental prayer every day, I would say you're not in the game. You know, you're, you're not an authentic disciple of Jesus. And you may be suffering and carrying crosses unnecessarily. Unneedlessly, right? Yeah. I mean, because if you pray, which means you're an authentic disciple, because there's nobody in the first century who was a disciple of Jesus who just ignored Jesus and didn't talk to him, just didn't work that way. It doesn't work that way now. So our guest, Father Donald Haggerty, has written, I think the best contemporary work on St. John of the Cross, subtitled Master of Contemplation. Stephanie, you want to read a brief bio so folks know a little more about Father Haggerty and especially where to find it more information about him. Okay. Father Haggerty is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He is currently serving at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. He's been a professor of moral theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York and Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland and has a long association with Mother Teresa's missionaries of charity working with them and giving retreats for them. And yes, he knew her personally. He is the author of many books on the interior life, particularly the one that we're speaking about today, which is St. John of the Cross, Master of Contemplation and a bit of new news. He is, as of the date of this recording tomorrow, he'll be starting as a professor in our high calling program, helping to prepare men for seminary and to discern the priestly life. So I'm very excited to have him join our staff in that. So welcome again to this part two with our interview with Father Haggerty. Welcome again. So Father Haggerty, I think you're going to be, I'm really going to interested, I know you've taught in seminary before, so you know already what it's like, but I think you're going to be really blessed by the guys that you encounter and that experience of helping guys to discern and come to a deeper interior life before the interseminary, which of course you did, which I think had a substantive effect on your priesthood and the fact that you've really become a part of some of the best spiritual works in our time. So I'm looking forward to hearing that, but I want to jump into a new question with you Father continuing from our last show, which is there are a lot of misconceptions today about what contemplative prayer is. You know, some people think that centering prayer is contemplative prayer. You just do, you know, sort of a mimicking of Buddhist sit where you have a posture and you're a Peter sacred word and that's contemplative prayer, or you know, sitting and looking at the sunset is contemplative prayer, or making pottery with all kinds of fancy colors is contemplative prayer. I don't think any of those rise to what John of the Cross is talking about. So tell us about his conception of contemplative prayer. Well, there's a very, you know, precise understanding in the history of spiritual theology too, you know, dating of course from John of the Cross and after, but the misconception is that, you know, I can choose to practice contemplative prayer because I'm inclined toward that. That seems to be my option. And you mentioned centering prayer, that there can be a method, a how to method to practice contemplative prayer. You won't find that in this book. You know, there's not a, that's not a reality. This soul, I think the person begins to undergo contemplative graces, which because we're giving ourself more fully to God, he begins then to communicate himself more. And that will affect a time of silence and prayer. So it's not so much that I just want to quiet down and be silent with God. He is going to also have a hand in silencing the soul and the mind more. So contemplative prayer is, it depends on the way in which we live outside of prayer. You know, if you're generous, you know, the two of you, if you're generous in your vocation as a husband and wife and with children, and if we're giving ourself more fully to the will of God, that's going to affect the time of silent prayer. So, and I think that that is a key reality that it's God that takes the initiative more in prayer than with that grace. You know, what's, what's beautiful about that. And I hope our listeners who have not begun a practice of daily mental prayer, um, I, I want them to understand that. And I, and I, you know, correct me if I'm wrong. This is a grace that's available to all of us if we desire to respond to God's call, that he desires to give to all of his children the graces of contemplative prayer, but we have to avail ourselves to that. We have to, as you said, you know, being generous with our spouses, we need to be generous with God. We have to give him that time, that sacred time, sacred space, sacred attention, begin with mental prayer. And in time, the Lord begins to pour out those contemplative graces and draws closer and closer to him in that time. Um, so I think it's just so important. Yeah, absolutely, Stephanie. And you know, maybe people don't have, um, entirely knowledge of mental prayer. They may have listened to your program for sure, but you know, mental prayer means quiet time, you know, so that we're not just taking a book and reading in that time, or we're not just reading prayers, beautiful prayers, perhaps of the Psalms or devotional prayer, but we're giving that space of thought and reflection to God. You know, the best type of mental prayer is to read the gospel very slowly, you know, listen to those words of Jesus speaking as though he's speaking right now. You know, an example, when he said to St. Peter at the time of the washing of the feet, you do not know now what I am doing. Later, you will understand. And to begin to hear that he's speaking words like that directly in this moment to myself and then to be drawn, then we go into greater depth and with God as time goes on, if we're giving myself, as you mentioned more generously to him. So there are, so just for our listeners who are thinking, well, then how do I do that? I did write a book called Into the Deep, Finding Peace through Prayer, which just is a reproposal of a longstanding practice that's been around for more than a thousand years in the church called Lectio Divina, which is a process of an approach that, like Father Haggerty mentioned, where you go to scripture and you set aside time and attention and you come to know Jesus and love him and what happens eventually as you do that every day, as Father Haggerty mentioned, and as you begin to live in a way that's consistent with your desire to know God, meaning there's a moral dimension to relationships. Just like with Stephanie and I, if I go running off with the neighbor's wife in her view and then I come back expecting intimacy from her, she would look at me like I'm crazy, right? And of course, I would be crazy, but it's no different with God. He, to become one with him, to draw close to him, we have to honor him both in specific times, like when we go to Mass or when we set time for daily mental prayer, which you have to do to make progress in prayer. Regular confession. Regular confession, but also you have to live consistent with that. And I think that's what's missing, Father Haggerty, from non-Christian Eastern spirituality, is that moral dimension. And there are other problems there. But there's another challenge in our time, which is there's a, the popularity of Ignatian prayer can cause some confusion. It's all orthodox, but maybe you could talk to how Ignatian prayer uses the term contemplation synonymously with meditation, whereas Carmelite saints use contemplation a little differently. That's an important point because John of the Cross is going to understand meditation as a stepping stone to the grace of contemplation. He will speak of a transition that's necessary. Now that may be after some years of doing mental prayer, meditation, something with the gospel and scripture in a committed way daily. But then in time, God steps in and he quiets the mind. He inclines the person more to be silent, to be attentive, and love to him. John of the Cross loved this expression, a loving attention to him. So it would be like, you know, if you, if there was a very great film that came out, you know, on Jesus Christ now, you know, it's a beautiful thing to go to a film and watch our Lord on the screen. It's another thing to be actually with him in the blessed sacrament. And this is in a way, the difference between meditation can be very insightful, you know, even if you have a good imagination, great reflections, but to be actually with him, sometimes we're just quiet and with silence by the very presence of him. And without feeling, but that desire to want to give ourself to him, that becomes then everything. So the contemplation is a further step in grace, you know, beyond meditation. Wonderful. So as we take a quick break, when we come back, we're going to talk about what some of the initial graces of contemplative prayer. Yeah, how do you know if you're ready for that transition, which John makes very clear. So we'll look forward to talking to Father Donald Hagerty, who's the author of St. John of the Cross, Master of Contemplation when we get back on your markets. Go. Welcome back. This is Divine Intimacy Radio with Dana Stephanie Burke. And Father Donald Hagerty, who's written, I think, one of the more important spiritual books of our time, St. John of the Cross, Master of Contemplation. If you have a prayer life, and maybe you're struggling a bit, one of the things I found in this book is a great deal of clarity and encouragement regarding treatment about what hinders our prayer and what hinders our progress in prayer, which John of the Cross is a master at revealing. And so before the break, Stephanie mentioned, we would like Father Hagerty to talk about what are the signs indicating that initial graces of contemplative prayer are being granted to a person, like what is their life like? What's happening in their life outside of prayer? What's happening inside of prayer that we can understand? Maybe if we shift our prayer a little bit or yield to what God's doing, we can yield to these deeper graces of contemplation. Well, one thing, Dan, to answer that, I think it's good to be aware that if we ask why is that grace of contemplative prayer given initially to a person who is serious in prayer, and the basic answer to that is their will has become more aligned to the will of God. So that would be also the most common obstacle. If we are refusing stubbornly something from God, if we will not forgive somebody, if we are deliberately, voluntarily refusing something from God, we should not expect then a growth in prayer. If we are giving ourselves generously, there are signs that John of the Cross will explain in two different places in his collected works. And one reality of that too is that he's assuming a person is giving themselves to mental prayer. So the first sign is this difficulty that will take place in doing mental prayer, that a meditation that maybe had been very attractive, easy to do for a long time suddenly begins to freeze somewhat. And a person is unable to do reflective or imaginative prayer, that they can't really hear so much the gospel speaking to them. And so there is this difficulty in meditation. The imagination seems to turn off. But John of the Cross mentions it's not as though something else in our life becomes much more attractive, but in a general way that time of prayer is getting silenced by God. He mentions too the difficulty of aridity in prayer, losing any feeling consolation in prayer, but not finding consolation outside of prayer. It's not like now I have a best friend that now has become my great consolation in life. In a general way, aridity affecting life. He will speak of a fourth sign, a kind of self questioning. Why is this happening? You know, I've been praying with satisfaction for a long time. Why this is happening? And many times people have a scrupulous period in life then, trying to correct why am I undergoing now this diminishment seemingly in prayer. And then a fifth sign he mentions is an inclination of the person which should be followed if these signs are present to be quiet, to be silent, to be attentive in that presence of our Lord, to be receptive to him, you know, without trying to seek activity in prayer. Yeah. So what precedes, so just to summarize what you said, which is really important, the person has been a long time in mental prayer, daily mental prayer, at least a year, at least minimum of a year in our experience. And God can do whatever he wants to do, but generally speaking, they're in the Gospels every day. And then they're also conforming their, their, their sacramental life is very sound. And they're also working to conform their life to God's will in every sphere of their life. Right. So all of that's happening. They may have a lot of fruit initially in meditation, a lot of encouragement. But then it begins to dry up. Right. It's like they get, you mentioned the word aridity and aridity is a word that we used to describe, a desert. So where there were rich and lush, you know, sort of experiences in mental prayer. Now we're entering into this time where none of that's there. And it feels like God is not present to us. Like he's left. So, so the meditation, the mental prayer, the rich and lushness is very vivid. There's lots of consolation, maybe emotions, maybe tears, maybe journaling a great deal. Like I, you know, I've had directives and I know for myself, I just could write and write and write after prayer and then it, it starts to fade and there's, there's nothing more to be said. There's nothing more to, it just kind of, for me, it was more gentle. It wasn't quite as jarring. I find that the Lord was very gentle with me, maybe because he knows I need it. And, but there was this sense of something's changed. Something's changed. But the desire for God, does it go away? Even though he, even though you're not, even though it's not as pleasurable, if you will, as you interpret, you still want to pray. Right. That's one of the key signs. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Did we get the summary right, Father? That sounds very good. And I think a person will come out of prayer wanting God wanting to delight him, you know, and even in the trial and frustration of that, they want that much more, you know, to give themselves to God once prayer is over. Wonderful. So here's the big question. What is the meaning of the metaphor of the dark night in the teachings of Saint John of the Cross? Well, that metaphor, dark night, you know, refers to pure, at times of purification and, you know, certain blindness, that the certain confusion even, that the soul will undergo. He speaks of an initial dark night in what we were just talking about, that transition time, when the meditation is a cloud over it, as though we really did turn out the lights, and I can't really see my way to a more fruitful prayer. He will also speak of, in the famous phrase, the dark night of the soul, where a serious purification of God's, you know, seeming to disappear, or as though he almost rejected the soul. So that metaphor refers to a kind of a heaviness, a darkness that can descend on the soul, which is not actually a bad thing. It's a step into greater faith, greater certitude of God's presence, of his love, that much more deeply engaging one's life. Yeah, John says that he wants to move us from a base manner of loving, with, you know, that's limited by our own faculties and our own imagination, to this higher order of loving that only God can give to us. And it's in this very reality, isn't it, Father Haggerty, that gives us the grace to become holier in ways that we could never achieve with our own will. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And, you know, I think that all Lord's words to Martha and Mary, you know, there's one thing needful, and maybe throughout our life, God is returning to that point. You know, there's one thing needful myself, and there's one thing that I want to give you, which is myself. And, you know, that's what prayer is teaching us over the course of a lifetime, and everything else in our life fits into that pattern, to give all to God, and to receive all from him, that everything comes from the hand of God. Yeah, it's so beautiful. That's actually our motto for our community of Apostoli via the Apostles of the Way, who no misnecessarium, you know, everything for God begins before God on our knees, knowing that one thing is necessary, and everything else follows after that by his grace. So, is it correct to say, then, with the Dark Knight, or the Dark Knight of the senses, that it's not one event? Because I think that's the misconception that there's going to be one event or one situation, or one, you know, call, I'm sorry? One moment. One moment that is the Dark Knight, but rather, is that true, or rather, is it something different? We have to say something different, because living in faith itself, as we go on in our life, there is a, you know, a certain darkness to it. You know, John LaCrosse has a great understanding, I think, when he says that deeper faith, more intense faith brings certitude to the intellect, but not clarity. It can increase the sense of darkness, and he likes the metaphor of a blind man. You know, faith and love are like a blind man's guides. They will lead you down a path, unknown to you to the place where God is hidden. And the reality of a blind man, a blind man may know another person's there in front of them, but they don't see him. And that reality of our relationship with God that we don't see, but we know he is present, we know that his hand, and to be more and more sensitive to that reality of his hand there in all things. It's really beautiful and helpful to hear, certitude, not clarity. Yeah, that phrase stood out to me. Greater, greater certitude, but not necessarily clarity. We're not going to see everything, but we know our Lord to be true. We know ourselves not to be alone, that we are with the Lord, that he is within us and he's truly present. That's a beautiful helpful phrase. Good. Well, friends, please make sure if you want to grow in the interior life, like if you have never started prayer before, as I mentioned, into the deep is a great resource to start with courses at the Avalid Institute, Foundations of Prayer and Union with God is a great course to help you understand the beginnings of prayer. And then once you, but if you've been in prayer for a while or once you have given yourself at least a year to prayer, I think this book is absolutely vital for those who want to go deeper, because I do think John of the Cross is the best guide. He is a great gift to the church, the best guide to understanding how it is that we can transition out of what we can do, which is meditation and that's good, but into what only God can do, which is giving us contemplative graces, drawing us to a deeper holiness. And you can find this book at Ignatius Press also at EWTN's Religious Catalog and the great thing about EWTN's Religious Catalog, of course, is that when you buy something from them, they actually will send it to you and you contribute to the mission of EWTN. The other thing about them is that everything in their bookstore is vetted by theologians, so you can trust all that EWTN has to offer you. I strongly recommend you get Saint John of the Cross Master of Contemplation by Father Donald Haggerty. Father Haggerty, thank you for doing these two shows with us, which folks can find out at spiritualdirection.com eventually. They'll be both posted there or on EWTN radio. We're really grateful for your important work for the church. Well, thank you, Dan. Thank you, Stephanie. It was very nice to have this time with you and with your witness. Thank you. 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. Amen. Thank you again, Father Haggerty. Look forward to seeing you soon, if not this...