 You're watching behind the scenes with divine intimacy radio Stephanie works here, too. Really? Yes. I Like you that's what you're here So we just got back from spiritual warfare summit Avalos summit in Washington, DC We had 500 of our closest friends More than that then two or three hundred online. Yeah, we had a five hundred with us, right? We're all good. We have we've been on live since we started since I started talking Okay, so we're gonna talk a little bit about that today spiritual warfare, discerning of spirits, investiture, highlight, explain what I'm that word means investiture and I want to know from Stephanie what her like highlights were what were them what were the big moments there that really meant a lot to you and Then for everyone listening on the live stream really quick before we start the show I'll say it during the show, too But just so we can get it up there Subscribe to spiritual direction calm the next summit is going to be on the triumph of the immaculate heart of Mary Did I say that right? Yes, the Marian mystery and the triumphant of the immaculate heart the Marian mystery and the triumph of the Immaculate heart so it's not yet up on spiritual direction calm, but if you want to get a seat and We're gonna have the hopefully have the event at the Shrine of the most blessed sacrament in Hansell and as well. We usually have hundreds on a waiting list when we do it there and so subscribe to spiritual direction calm and you will have You'll be the first to know other than those who are at the summit themselves, right? so a spiritual direction calm become a subscriber what you'll get and you'll get a Notice or an email that'll note about the summit you can also check the events page that we have it's not up there right now But it will be up there shortly We'll go we'll do that. Okay. Let's go ahead and get started On your mark get set go Welcome to divine intimacy radio This is Dan and Stephanie Burke and you are listening to your radio Haven of rest your hermitage of the heart Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of heaven through The our great saints of the church and teachings and magisterium of the church and long-standing beautiful immutable tradition beginning with Jesus of course God from the very beginning and all of the the teachings that he's blessed us with so Today we are going to be talking about something really cool that happened to Stephanie and I this past week in Washington, DC at The summit and investiture so I'll explain the two things and then And then we are going to cover a very special opportunity regarding introduction to the devout life and for people to be a part of a What is usually a private study together? Why did you look over there? Because our son's cracking his knuckles. Oh lord Great producer behavior I'm pretty sure the chickens on the property heard it Well, there could be worse sort of noises right, so I guess it's the best of the worst But anyway, so first I guess let's talk about the investor I'll explain what it is and then what I want to know so I'll give you a minute because you didn't really know what we're gonna do Today on the show. I'm gonna give you a minute. I want you to explain your to tell your highlights from the investor So what happened is? This is the last year we'll do this But we have the community of apostolate VA which is our community which is a Catholic private association of the faithful It just for general understanding is primarily Carmelite spirituality The mission is to live the contemplative life light the way to others and then personally lead and guide those along the way and We have an annual meeting an investiture, which means new people are invested with the habit of Carmel if you will and it which is the the first Investiture is the brown scapular and it's a six-year process to become fully Invested if you will that's the right way of saying it sounds like I'm using terms related to health care or or stock options I don't know, but that's not what I'm saying So we come together Those who've already made promises renew their promises and those who are brand new are Invested in the brown scapular and in the commitments to the community which are daily mental prayer and The exam and I mean fundamentally in the gate Which is because the reason why is because Saint Teresa of Avila taught that that's the entry into the interior castle the beginning of the contemplative life is daily mental prayer and Examine assuming of course sacramental soundness all of that Following in the path footsteps of Saint Teresa of Avila. So we all come together It was awesome because we were in the Basilica In Washington DC. It's called the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Is that the exact title? Yeah, I know there's one in Denver of a similar Similar name I think But this is the national one the national Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. It is it is DC Absolutely an amazing Yeah, church. I mean there's nothing like it in the world and we've been all over the world It's incredibly unique all dedicated to Blessed Virgin Mary. There's little Shrines after shrine after shrine after shrine. I don't know. I don't know. You know how many are there Well, I don't know but they're all different renditions of how our lady is depicted for different nationalities Different countries. So it's really Chinese Right all kinds of different ways and then different Just beautiful beautiful little nooks and crannies where you can just steal a way to pray. Yep It's amazing. All of her apparitions are represented there our lady of Mount Carmel or lady of good Help of Christians. I mean just you could spend hours and Hours in there just absorbing all the beautiful art and everything. So Our masses were in there, which was amazing because the thing holds a thousand people think to be to God We filled up quite a bit of it with all of our friends From the community and those attending the summit. So let's just start with that What was the highlight for you of the investiture of the investiture? Oh It's interesting because as soon as you said it the first thing that went to mind was father Jim Boland Is part of our community and he has been invested and which is interesting I discovered that of all the priests saints all of them were Had some other association with the religious community, which I didn't know that who had you learned where'd you get that? Father McDonald and father Boland were were telling me about it. Oh, wow. So so Do you know what association? Let's say st. John v. Any was I don't I don't but like if you look about If you look at st. John Paul the second he was a Carmelite. Yeah, so, you know each of those priests. They weren't just diocese and priests They had some sort of secondary religious spirituality that they were committed to So that was interesting. Yeah to learn that But father Boland is just a beautiful uncomplicated holy priest and he gave He and father mcdonald both gave incredible homilies Yeah, and just the grace that was falling was amazing. You were weeping during father boland homo I was and I could not explain it. You know, you looked at me and said, are you okay? I thought did I offend her? I Yes, I have no idea what's happening and I just kept So in the dome right above the The sanctuary. Yeah is a depiction of our lady with all of pentecost So the flames are falling and I just kept looking up and I you know, I don't know I think our lord was Throwing down his graces upon our community because I wasn't the only one that was weeping So I got the gift of tears And it was just a beautiful extraordinary gift. What are the gift of tears? It's It's a particular grace that our lord gives us and we and we know that our tears are precious precious to him They cleanse us. They purify us and especially if we offer them backup So as I was weeping, you know, I I offered those tears back up. It reminded me of Dominus flavate and Outside of Jerusalem on the on the Mount of Olives, right that over it's a little chapel where jesus wept as he looked over Jerusalem And we longed to gather them as a as a hand gathers the chicks under his wing as under her wings and They have little well, they're not little they're they're depicted there, but I guess in and In jewish tradition tears of a widow or those that are suffering or I'm crying over a lost one that's that's that's died were so precious that they would capture them in little tiny glass jars So, you know, I gathered my tears and I offered them up It was just really extraordinary and to see so many incredible human beings coming and making commitments or remaking their commitments to the lord through prayer through The examine through self denial self giving these are extraordinary humans. I really Think that if we gathered them all in a room in some dark place and you know turned off the light They'd probably glow. I don't think you'd need any light because of the light of christ So those were I share those highlights both having both Priests who are part of our community Giving the homily in such a majestic place I think a lot of priests would be envious to be able to celebrate mass there Because I think it was a unique privilege grace to us. I think in part by mon senior rosetti Who's teaches at catholic university of america and really helped us Make all that happen The other the other one was beautiful to me was our friend joe I won't say his last name because I don't know if he wants me to say it on the air But his wife's name is christine And she's been part of the community for a while and he was invested and It's had suddenly Emotions are coming But what's beautiful about it is when husband and wife are united in christ And I don't care if you know, they're united as franciscans or as you know, benedictons or it doesn't matter to me But just seeing and I know that's his heart. He he loves his wife dearly and wants to be united with her in all ways And uh, it was so meaningful to me to watch him You know have his investiture and being able to pray I mean just the people in the community are just Some of the most amazing people I've ever met in my life. Yeah So I see a motion on you too. What's that? No, that was just really beautiful. Yeah, and I I It kind of pig, you know, it kind of leaps us into the summit. I don't know if you want to go Yeah, we to explain first. What is the summit? Okay. Yeah, the summit Was started by a couple of our friends in the community that said, you know People are just You know really clamoring for more you need to have conferences You need to draw everybody together because we need to see each other face to face We need to be in person because you know the avala institute, which is our our school of spiritual formation and graduate programs and The high calling program which which we can explain a little bit more But the avala institute is where we're folks all over the world draw together to take classes Related to prayer the interior life mystical The theology and etc. So We started having this avala summit. I don't know what four or five years ago. Yeah, and um In the avala summit we come together. We have speakers. Some of them are our Professors you and I Have spoken we spoke at this one And so we get together we pray together. We celebrate Mass together we eat together. We get to know one another and The reason I was making the connection about Joe and Christine, you know now being invested together into a pastel EVA Is that you and I did a talk at this one, which was entitled the the title of all of The summit was spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits, which is a huge draw as you can imagine And so we had some great speakers. We had Monsignor Rosetti himself spoke Father Dennis McManus who it's legendary. He spoke Um kathleen beckham and spoke You and I spoke Who am I missing? I think that's and we did and then we did uh, uh, oh bishops strickland. Yeah, this is strickland was there Which was awesome, you know to have him panel as well. We did a panel So you and I talked on spiritual warfare in marriage. Yeah, of course, which there is none But nobody would ever claim you know what can I can I tell you something that happened there? What's this funny? Which is where you're kind of going is Somebody said they loved the show and they loved our interaction. I said, can you tell when we're irritated with one or are they Said, yeah, we really like it. It's funny. Yeah I thought oh wow, they're you know, it's we have to be careful. No way. Yeah. Yeah, we have to hide all of our frailties Oh lord have mercy. Well, good luck there. Let's talk more when we come back. Okay On your mark get set go welcome back. This is dan and stephanie Burke You're listening to divine intimacy radio and stephanie before I rudely interrupted her was talking about the summit Yeah, so the connection was was that you know, we got to speak on spiritual warfare in marriage And it was interesting I you know, I had shared with everybody at the end that you and I anytime we speak about marriage about marriage spirituality and how to fight towards one another to god and To work on this this Oneness in our marriage that we're called to Oneness with the lord and oneness with each other Is that it's it's hard It's very hard. It's a means Of our sanctification our purgation here on earth We were called to this. We didn't go seek it. We didn't say oh, I think I'm gonna go speak on marriage because heavens, you know if you want to draw The attention and the ire of satan start to talk about How marriage needs to be saved and protected and fought for sanctified All of those things and so being able to draw together to Work on these things together, which was birthed out of this radio station really Yes, thank you for that But it was it came out of these conversations that we have of our struggles of our frailties of How How do we live out this vocation of marriage? In a way that is sanctifying for each other and Honoring to god, you know, and that's hard So anytime we draw together to write about it to talk about it Our divine intimacy and marriage retreats Has has had a huge impact and we've seen incredible fruit from that So we took all that and then spoke about spiritual warfare and marriage this time Still tons of warfare But it was uh, it was awesome. It was awesome Not because of the content or anything that we had to say I just felt the lord just come. It's the holy people I think that really all the prayer and the prayerfulness and all of that I need to shift gears because we got to get to st crisis to sales But before we do that last highlight, I'm going to share is we so this is a little bit Off of what we've been talking about but it's what happened at the summit We had to think 14 or 15 Vocation directors and we had how many priests can celebrated math 17 I think something it was So beautiful so beautiful say what you're going to say because I want to make sure I mentioned something Okay, but one of the things we the reason vocation directors are there Is because we always on we work with vocation directors in our high calling program To really help them prepare guys for seminary, but I gave a brief little talk on the state of Of vocations in the united states, which I think was chilling to most people According to one very Renowned study. There's only 13 healthy dioceses in the united states related to vocations 36 are borderline 76 are maintaining in 50 or over 52 or unhealthy 38 dioceses ordained zero priests in 2021 and Two very large dioceses in the united states this year ordained zero With huge catholic populations And so we have a program A high calling program. We both do priestly formation, but then we're coming alongside I mean our primary mission is to help vocation directors bottom line through the high calling program through The avala institute. Yeah, so nobody's confused. Yeah, right So we have spiritual direction.com which covers this radio station But then our radio program But then we've got the avala institute which has the high calling program in it, right, right? And so the high calling program is expanding is what we were announcing Right to give more help to vocation directors by designing a app for a phone To to reach guys through social media In a in a way that's designed by guys who were were early Pre and and early seminarians So it's designed by guys who are who are of that age group not a bunch of us old guys trying to figure it out So if you want to help us with that new program to find Priests find young men called to the priesthood head out to spiritualdirection.com and make a donation We'd be grateful for that But let's get back to the What the building is on this show Okay, well, can I say something about the summit before you go to that? Yes, we have a minute and a half I I understand that This is really important because it goes to the to the fact that we had so many priests there Sure that we had invited to be part of the avala institute the summit, you know, all these things Um to come together to get to know one another in the flesh, which is the the part of of why we do this But um, so we had a time of prayer ministry Oh, yeah, where the priests were just making themselves available to to pray with individuals They were there whether to take their confession or just pray with them, you know, father I'm struggling with acts, you know, and then they pray with you, right So we had this tiny little chapel that they allowed us to do the st. Vincent's chapel on the campus You couldn't hold but maybe two maybe a hundred people in there tiny thing We were going to put three priests up on the altar You know just up there where people could walk up and then receive prayer quietly and we had adoration going on and um That's what we were going to do, right? So we told people when it was going to happen And I kid you not all those vocations directors showed up. They're in the rafters. They're in the corner They're in the steps. They're out on the lawn. They were three or four hundred people to get prayed over Yes, and it was like and so I just knelt in the back after I kind of got everything Organized and I just thank the lord for the heart of The of his priests who were so sacrificial they could have gone and been Selfish and go watch youtube somewhere But instead what they did is they gave of their time As true priests and it was a beautiful thing to see I agree That was another highlight really was hanging out with those awesome priests getting to know guys Father Caesar and father memo They're from Stockton and Sacramento dioceses Our friends from the arse diocese of los angeles. We have 97 guys that we're forming and preparing for seminary Across the country a lot of people know all the things that we do we and we do need your help We really do we need to launch this Finding vocations project. I don't know what the best name for it is but the website will be launched In september. We're recording this in uh on july 19th, it'll be aired on eWTN in a different date, but just to give people a sense But september of 2022 the website launches, which is a phone Based site that also you can see on the desktop, but guys are on phones not on desktop Yeah, well the way they support us to make sure we drop that out there is the avala army Um avala army and uh avala institute you can go to that for spiritualdirection.com. That's the easiest one. Yeah. Yeah All right, so we said we're going to be talking about introduction to the development life. So this is important So let's get to that. Um, so historically we have done studies private studies Where we've led people through very important works And page by page word by word in depth for years. We've been doing this since 16 I think we've been doing it privately We've never opened it up to the general public But it's it's I I think it's time to do that just I felt very convicted about Allowing away for more people to join us in this we do it the second and fourth saturday of every month barring You know events like the summit That sort of thing second and fourth saturday eight o'clock a.m central time And but you have to have a link To participate in it. So this year we're this We're going to start soon. Uh in september of 2022 philithia Or an introduction to the devout life introduction to the devout life Um by st francis de sales, which is a life changing book Everybody talks about things that are life changing. Nothing is life changing if it doesn't lead you to jesus Right, but if it really does in a powerful way and this book has been used for I don't know Is it centuries now to lead people to a deeper relationship with jesus? So we're going to talk about one how to Enter into what it means to be an authentic disciple of jesus and then all the facets of how that how that works so it'll be The book by the way if you want to pick it up go out to spiritualdirection.com and hit the shop button And that'll take you to a web page where you can buy the book and introduction to the devout life We're using the tan edition, but it's especially available through spiritualdirection.com So I don't know if you have any thoughts. We have people who join us right now every saturday from Like 20 or 30 countries more than that. Yeah, it has to be more than that. It's everywhere Australia Yeah, japan ireland for ireland I'll just got someone signed up from lebanon which we've had people from the car Right, that's you know, i'll try to add to bago. Yeah, it's really beautiful. It is so beautiful Yeah to see god's people up on that screen another cool thing about the summit related to this is A lot of people we don't know, you know, personally directly They come to us and we see them as little squares on the on the screen You know as we're teaching and then a bunch of them come the these annual gatherings We get to see them in no squares and it's 3d or whatever But you know this year we've been we're I need to use proper english We are concluding a study on spiritual combat. It's been amazing scoop police spiritual combat. It was amazing book. Yeah, so the cool thing too is If you so there's two ways to do this one is go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash book study, is that right jordan spiritualdirection.com forward slash book study If I didn't say it slow enough spiritualdirection.com forward slash book study and you can sign up there The other way you can sign up if you want to get all the recording So let's say you miss a saturday because it's we know some families have you know kids in sports or There might be in a part of the country where it's too too early though The australians would call you sissies because most of them get up at you know midnight to to come But uh, but if you for some reason you're sick and you miss it you can get the recording So we have all the recordings of all of the of the uh The sessions we did on uh spiritual combat all of these will be recorded as well for posterity And people can watch them to do that go out to apostoleva.org and for those who are on live stream I think our producer has that handy apostoleva.org create a profile there that is a A private site for our community But you don't have to be a formal member of the community to take advantage of all the there's free courses and all of that on that website But no matter what so either apostoleva.org or spiritualdirection.com forward slash book study You will be able to join us on a very in-depth study of a book that will Absolutely 100% no doubt. I don't care how where you are in the spiritual life I don't even care if you're out of the purgative way It will have a huge impact on your life. I'm excited. You're excited. Yeah, I actually haven't ever read the book Oh, whoa, I mean you might even become a christian through all this Maybe there's always hope Please jesus, but it's a great, you know the other thing about this study in our approach You can invite friends to but it's open to anyone with a pulse And it's really Something that will will make it very accessible. It won't be highbrow. It'll be very very applicable We'll have our priests there with us many priests come Religious come from all over the world, but with that I think we got to wrap it up 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. Amen