 Let me just leave it over here. Hey friends, this is Dan Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio and I Didn't take the bait. Well because if we're not starting the show yet. I know So anyway, we are We're doing this show from our new studio. God be praised in Montgomery, Alabama Yeah, it's not very convincing either That's not no, I mean your your southern accent. Oh, I wasn't trying Why are you looking at me like that? There's something strange about me. I Wasn't trying with my southern accent so Yeah, the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Retreat and Center for Spiritual Formation 60 acres big old Lake beautiful place Why are you not talking I it is an amazing place? It is an amazing place. You're just staring at me. Okay, so today we're gonna be doing Q&A show on Spiritual warfare spiritual direction. Okay, and we're also gonna be announcing something very exciting. Yes, we are, you know Very exciting. Yeah, so so we want everybody to tune in especially right at the beginning, right? So All right Okay, you want to what do you got we have two more minutes? No, we're live What do so what do you what do you want to announce? Oh, okay? Yeah, okay? I mean we have two more minutes for the show starts theoretically, but we are already live Which is what our producer told us what's gonna happen 60 seconds ago. Okay? Yeah Maybe that's why you weren't talking. I you know, I'm just waiting for it to go live So anyway, okay big well second to last big announcement. Yeah the first one is Guys, are you listening? Oh? This is for men. Yes, gentlemen. Are you listening? But everyone knows that women are the ones who sign people up for these no no no no Gentlemen, are you listening Christmas is coming? I don't know how many they'd be nice to know how many days They're until Christmas. Yeah, but I have a one and done Christmas gift for your wife and like or or your fiance and it's like hit it out of the park Put it under the tree with a bow and listen you will be Points inventory you can be a total jerk for two years after this your points inventory will be so strong basically, yeah so What it is is we have a divine intimacy in marriage retreat where yours truly And the other yours truly my spouse will be leading a retreat at the beautiful shrine of the most blessed sacrament In hands fell Alabama the dates are February 11th through the 13th of 2022. That's this upcoming February. We're live anyway, sir No, you're a national Thank you, okay so Going back to the announcement so divine intimacy and marriage retreat February 11th through the 13th at the shrine of the most blessed sacrament in hands fell, Alabama amazing You can even go down into the crypt church and see where mother Angelica was buried is buried along with her mother By the way, who's a sister as well? Yes, and so Where can you find out more about this? You can go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events and When you sign up you'll get a little confirmation Information and you print that out you put a big red bow around it or put it in a box with a big red bow Put it under a Christmas tree one and done huge points inventory for the guys Sign your spouse up for this. Oh, can I say something about the event? Sure. So last year? Well, this year we had a guy come who is a Manly man He runs I think he may be the head of fraternus. Anyway It's a it's a I Know he hates the word programs. I'm trying to figure out a word around Program, but anyway, it's it's a thing that you do in your church that helps men and boys develop virtue man the guy did not want to come to the retreat. Yeah, and He's a friend of ours and still didn't want to come to the retreat. So but when he was done He was raving about it. Yeah, he said it was absolutely amazing Of course, the reason why is because we don't do kumbaya and make men do things that make men feel stupid Which is usually what happens when Retreats are designed by women and women like to do certain things and men like to do other kinds of things. So anyway Stephanie and I Stephanie was Stephanie's idea in the beginning and Developed the framework of it, but it we she understands men very well and as do I so It's a place where guys can really grow spiritually Learn a lot about how to have a deeper relationship with their life wife and the Lord both. Yeah, it's called a sent to oneness Yeah, it's based on Catholic mystical tradition. So it's not the typical stuff out there No, when you come away, you will you will have a plan of love is what we call it Yeah, you will have a way to move forward To take the graces from the retreat and take them into your daily life And we've had many that that have stuck with us on this journey because it's had such a profound effect Yeah, on their marriages. So God be praised. So, okay, so that's one. This is the number two big announcement Yeah, and that is that we are Launching we're launching the launch team launching the launch we're launching the launch team Is this it does a trebuchet involved with no launching of the no So I just see a bunch of devout Catholics getting flung into the air across a Broad field. That's just a silly dad joke. So So you have written a new book God be praised and it's called the devil in the castle and And they're to work progress of the soul and spiritual warfare according to Saint Teresa Yeah, and and it is such a remarkable book beautiful book So we're looking for launch team members and so if you would like to be part of that Then you can sign up through October 24th at spiritualdirection.com forward slash castle Did you catch that? spiritualdirection.com Forward slash castle to sign up for the launch team and so there's all these great little steps You can take to you'll get an advanced digital copy, right? You'll be able to review it. We want you to to help, you know Get it into the hands of others and get the word out about it So anyway, so join us there spiritual direction forward slash castle or forward slash events for everything else that we're doing spiritualdirection.com forward slash castle, right? Yeah. All right, so we start the show. Let's go Okay And your mark get set go Welcome to divine intimacy radio. My name is Fred That's not the intro is it? All right, let's stop. Let's start again reset And your mark it said go This is Dan and Stephanie Burke welcome to divine intimacy radio Your radio haven of rest your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven So that we might have the wisdom strength courage peace all that we need to navigate this challenging life Things are challenging. It's anybody unless you have your head in the sand. You don't know your hiding things are very difficult outside of the church and things are very difficult inside of the church and It's a time for saints. It's a time for joy. I have to say you know what it's interesting. I Don't have any hesitation inviting people to church. I have no Wayne I'm not frustrated. I'm not any of that. I And and I think the reason why is what we talk about all the time Which is when you center your life on Christ However imperfectly I do that and you focus on what he's called you to do You can navigate this storm in peace. Does that you do agree with that? Yes, absolutely In fact, I don't know how you navigate this at all without Christ Yeah, and I think you know, some people could say well, I have him and it's driving me crazy and I think If you don't have a prayer life, you don't practice daily mental prayer if you're not Firmly rooted in the sacraments. You're not living as an authentic disciple of Jesus Which includes more than just going to Mass on Sunday Then you're gonna live in fear and anxiety and you know all this other junk So we don't have to Jesus said my peace. I leave you my peace. I give you St. Paul said you can have the peace It passes understanding which he wrote as I always say from prison So you can have the peace that passes understanding when you're unjustly persecuted in prison And so anyway, that's what this show is about That's what spiritual direction is about Avala Institute is about our community of Apostle Evie is helping people to get free So today is a Q&A show. Okay, and we're gonna talk about spiritual direction first Maybe we'll get into spiritual warfare But I'll read you a few questions that we've received. Okay, I'm ready. What were the circumstances? surrounding each of your respective decisions to start to Begin participating in spiritual direction. You want to go first? You want me to? Oh, wow Our own personal decision. Yeah, yeah I Mean part of it a lot of it came out of my conversation with you. Mm-hmm. I didn't even know it existed I didn't even know what spiritual direction was I you know being a cradle Catholic Wait, wait, you're a cradle Catholic. You you know everything. No, no, no, no my Catechesis and and was terrible First of all and number two, you know, I heard a priest one time say that we've lost Generations to poor catechesis and that was certainly my experience because what I knew of the faith And what I knew of being a disciple of Jesus was Pretty miniscule and it was very To use of a word impoverished. It was very impoverished. And so I Had no idea what spiritual direction was you brought it up as we were courting and then after we were married and so we were Walking with the number of priests and good holy people and so we decided to Launch into spiritual direction together as a couple first and then later we separated and had individual Spiritual direction, but I you know, I knew how broken I was I knew where I'd come from I know I never wanted to go back there. Mm-hmm. And so for me, I needed to discuss What was happening in my prayer life? What was happening in my spiritual growth? And I knew it was necessary for me for my salvation. Yeah, good. Well, I think I was in direction prior But then we decided to go together but the the reason I went is I'm a convert and and in Protestant circles I ran in before I converted we had discipleship Disciplers, you know, so someone who would help you Grow in your faith that sort of thing not a formal thing Just happened to have it in my You know circle of influence or whatever. So when I became Catholic, I'm looking around for someone to help me navigate this new reality especially in the spiritual life and God be praised. I think it was I'm pretty sure it was that I was working at focus on the family and there were Some priests that came Mel Gibson came to talk about the Passion of the Christ and there were some priests that came along with that Father John Bartunek is a good friend of ours wrote inside the Passion and We met them and found out they gave spiritual direction So I think I started but then shortly thereafter we we decided to go together which we eventually split Why why did I go? I? Grew up in a pretty wrecked world and I didn't even know how to be human let alone a follower of Jesus, even though I'd been following Jesus for some time I just had a real awareness of my brokenness and the need for help and so That's what caused me to seek it out. So that was that's my why did that get it? Yeah, and I think it was one of the fruits of our our former lives, you know our brokenness and Coming together as a couple Having both gone through the annulment process and then getting married and and wanting to do it right this time You know really saying I know what it's like to live without Christ. Don't want to go back there Want to do it right this time. Yeah, and I Back then I had a sense of my own ability to self-deceive to see even rationalize I think I've qualified it in a what I would call a trifecta of self-deception which is that human person has an infinite capacity for self-delusion we We judge ourselves on what we aspire to be rather than what we are and we give ourselves credit for Good intentions, whether we fulfill them or not. I I've only codified that in the last couple years But back then I had the sense of the sense of that reality in me and I knew I just needed someone from the outside and of course We know those are Universal truths and they're we have blind spots that we can't see that's why they're called blind spots Frankly, I have no sense of how to get to heaven Without some objective person who knows the interior life helping me to navigate the way, right? Yeah, outside of just the sacraments, you know, there's just so much there Yeah, and we want to plumb the depths of what God has for us. We're all called to be saints Yeah, and we're not gonna become saints just going to Sunday mass and going to confessional once a year It's just not gonna happen not gonna happen. You may not even get to where you think you're going if you do that, right? Yeah, so the second quite well, there's a bunch of questions on spiritual direction Were you nervous or apprehensive when starting direction? if so and why and If you're comforting level increased over time What specifically did you or your director do that prompted that increase? So were you nervous? Let's start with that one or apprehensive when you first started your spiritual direction It's interesting like when I started direction I I liken it to being a little bit like a puppy that's discovered Something that's a lot of you know fun and that's giving me, you know a good sense of where I'm supposed to be So I felt a little bit like a puppy with my ears flopping around it was like, oh, you know Let's go to direction, you know, and I would just chase after it. I don't I can't say that I was nervous or apprehensive but I'm you know, I'm I'm a I'm a very comfortable extroverted introvert So it doesn't bother me to sit and have a conversation I mean the biggest struggle was trying to do it together and I couldn't get a word in it twice What? So that's why we ended up having direction Separately because it was like I really got to talk about all this junk That's going on inside of my head in my heart and my spirit. How do I deal with this? Well, we did it together because you wanted to and I agreed it was okay. Yeah, but you're right We I mean an hour long is not enough for one person. No, right is really growing So yeah, but it was good while we went together and then it was good when we separated right, right, you know And in mine, you know, our first director happened to be a priest So, you know, it was wonderful because we could go to confession We wouldn't discuss what happened in confession unless we personally brought it up. So that line was delineated there But it was just when we met at Wahoo's fish tacos No, no that didn't yeah, we did meet over we did have direction over a meal at some point So now that didn't happen. All right, but anyway, yeah, so yeah, I wasn't nervous either. I Have always had a sense of how broken I am and Just was excited about getting help. Yeah to help me overcome my junk Yeah, and can I say this because you know now that I give direction? I'm I make sure that I tell people to to set them at ease because women will come to me and they are Apprehensive, you know, they're embarrassed sometimes of some of their struggles or to admit you know, some of the things that they're struggling with and You know what I have told people, you know, those of us who give direction our desire to help others is is so Huge but there is no judgment. Yeah, you know There is little that somebody can tell me that I haven't even that I haven't either thought Done experience suffered Seen, you know, it's just the the enemy is not very creative. We're all suffering with the same sort of junk We just think we're alone. Yeah, we think We're by ourselves. We think that our suffering is is is just And the enemy wants us to think that he wants us to think that we're isolated and alone and ashamed and turned in on ourselves and One of the greatest gifts is to open it up to the light of Christ and start to talk about this is how the enemy is working In me or to have someone help us see how the work the enemy is working in us so that we can resist it You know, we can resist the enemy so he will flee and we can draw near to Christ Because we know he will draw near to us real quickly a spiritual warfare aspect of what you just said is of course revealed in one of the rules of St. Ignatius and he points out that the enemy always likes to hide and Keep you isolated and one of the ways that you get free is that you reach out to a holy person and Talk with them, which is like turning the burglar lights on or around the outside of your house When the enemy is prowling about trying to get in and it weakens his resolve and takes away some of his power to harm You and deceive you So spiritual direction is a powerful antidote to Very dangerous Isolation that the enemy is always trying to draw us to when we come back. We'll continue talking answering questions about Spiritual direction and maybe we'll get a little more on spiritual warfare there, too If you want to follow us regularly go out to spiritualdirection.com and you can find out about events and thousands Literally thousands of articles on the interior life and what it means to be an authentic disciple of Jesus and follow Jesus So we hope you'll pop out there and check us out. Thank you to EWTN for Allowing us to do this show and we'll be right back on your market to go. This is Dan of Stephanie Burke Welcome back to divine intimacy radio where we're doing question-and-answer show on spiritual direction spiritual warfare and So you ready for another one? I am Okay If you had to name one grace you receive through any these are like all really personal questions about us interesting If you had I don't know if it's interesting But it's interesting to me that they're all aimed that direction If you had to name one grace receive through any one of the spiritual direction relationships you have had What would that grace be? The question is longer like what have you learned about God through this But let's just do that and I'll break it up Why don't you answer first on this one? So, I mean I struggled with I could name a bunch to struggle with scrupulosity and boy in one session the priest blew it up for me and I never I've struggled with edges of it, but not you know Scrupulous, you know, I know it hasn't owned me because he basically said That scrupulosity is narcissism He didn't actually say that he said it's my way of saying it It's a focus on self that cancels out the grace of God as if His grace is not going to in essence break through your human frailty Because you did a crummy confession or because of whatever the reason is So that was a very powerful grace that happened early on Yeah, um, I think for me the greatest grace that I get from spiritual direction is self-awareness um, a greater self-awareness and an awareness of What God is asking of me, you know, like What's the next layer? You know, it was interesting because I I was talking about this the other day you kind of get to a place where you go, okay well, you know done a lot of of Work here and You know, there's been so many graces and you can look back over your Time in spiritual direction over the years and you go, you know, I don't struggle with that anymore Or I used to you know do this all the time or struggle with this or whatever And and those layers get peeled off, you know, it's a little bit like an onion it just keeps going and going and I always know that when I'm getting a little comfortable and complacent that The Lord's going to start working again that we're never finished and That but in in the most beautiful sense, right and the Lord is so gentle with us and his timing is perfect and this understanding of how he works in and through the the relationships that we have and our in our Interactions with others and our interaction in our the way we pray and how we talk to the Lord and How we see God how we see our Lord And it's just this unending Love affair It's an unending love affair With Christ Jesus and God the Father and the Holy Spirit. It's so beautiful And I just you know, I can't imagine where I'd be without it It's just done so many so many things for me as an individual For my prayer for my devotion my my faith my hope Um, I you know, there's moments when I think you know, I wouldn't be able to breathe if I didn't have The faith that's been gifted to me That I'm aware of that I've been able to to fan into flame and um nurture Because of spiritual direction because I I'm aware of it Otherwise, I I think I would just kind of be walking around Um in the same cycle kind of spinning around the drain like we have one of our friends that you know, how are you doing? I'm circling the drain, you know, we're not we're not supposed to site and circle the drain Well, if you're circling the drain, you're not following Jesus because he ain't nowhere near the drain, baby you know and and so We're we're called to be saints Yeah, and if we don't know what's going on in our head and our heart and our mind and the wounds that we have and how we You know Misappropriate some of those wounds to God and we decide who God is and who we are in relation to him And how we have to earn our way to heaven and all of these things that would just You know, we're we're not going to get very far becha becha. Yeah, so anyway My husband has left the Left the conversation. No, it's good. I'm like I'm wanting you to keep going. No, it's good Yeah, for me, I Had a pretty well developed theology before I entered into spiritual direction. I think What strikes me now like if you said what's my predominant view of God? now as to then It's I'm overwhelmed. It's it's actually emotional for me to say it I'm overwhelmed with his kindness and his gentleness um, I think that uh Maybe because I'm not What he is, you know And how he still he doesn't leave me anyway, you know and maybe the sense of the His presence regardless of what an idiot I am Is is very powerful. I don't know if that came through spiritual direction But the funny thing is is God keeps giving me directors That are kind and gentle with me and I'm always looking for someone to go You know to whip me into shape and you know, so I'm always suspicious to my directors I not like I trust them, but it's like you think way too highly of me I don't know how to get this You know get the you to see what a sinner I am So that you will you know I don't know Whip me into shape But maybe it's just because God's trying to teach me that's not a proper way to see myself Yeah, I mean, I think that's where the enemies at work Because he's he's the condemmer He's the accuser. He's the liar, right and Like the last time I was in spiritual direction one of the greatest gifts that my director gave me And she is a lay person. I've had you know priests as spiritual directors And I've had religious as spiritual directors and right now it's a it's a lay woman and she's wonderful. She's incredible And one of the things that she was able to unpack is I was dealing Feeling very locked up in a particular area of my life And as she started talking to me, I realized I couldn't even speak You know What what was going on inside of me? You didn't have a voice for what was happening Well, I it was just almost like a block And her guidance and her patience and her love and her insight And and her holiness and her own prayer and sanctity She was able to see through that And and to help me gently gently gently until I was able to speak the lie and it was broken It was broken and it was just such an extraordinary Experience and and we both praised god we praised god because it was broken. It was out And and we could see the lie Um that was there that was permeating You know this particular air of my life and it was it was doing harm Yeah, you know the lord doesn't want us to be locked in on ourselves. He wants us to be free He wants us to be running his children You know running down the beach with our arms up feeling, you know the The sea mist coming up off the waves and joyously running after him You know just shedding the brokenness as we go awesome um, I'll I'll answer this one first and then you can go but Uh, regarding spiritual direction, how has it helped you to be closer to god now than before? And for me that I learned to pray I prayed as a Protestant Even in some ways close to what I pray now, but I didn't really understand Catholic view of meditation like cio divina has been very powerful for me And then just the progression of prayer into deeper kinds of prayer That have come through exposure to catholic mystical tradition But I think You know and I think of father john budke who was our first director And he gave us the better part by father john bartonic When it used to be in a one volume now you can get it in a four volume set which is it's awesome, by the way Uh, I think you can get it through tm's religious catalog or spiritualdirection.com shop. Yeah, but um It helps you to meditate on the gospels and draw near to jesus so best one out there in our opinion. That's why we Oh, yeah, there's nothing better. It's nothing better for daily meditation. Yeah, I mean divine intimacy is a different kind of book It's it's up there too the same level of quality But it's divine intimacy is is spiritual theology and topical The better part is about Encountering jesus So in terms of how are you and he closer now than before I think uh I've come to a greater comfort with my brokenness and my difficulties in prayer and Just have learned that you know, whatever the weather is in the day. I can't control it. I just need to be there with him And so that has helped me to be drawn near and to pray more throughout the day than I had before I mean now you can't pray throughout the day if you don't have a specific time during the day people Say they do and it's always I'm always like, yeah, whatever. I've never met anybody who really did um Because you can't the intimacy has to come out from meeting him In the morning really usually and then that flows out. But anyway, uh, so how are you closer to god than before? because of spiritual direction um The self-awareness is huge. It's huge um Part of it part of the gifting that I had was that I I went through the 19th annotation The spiritual exercises of st. Ignatius with my current director And that was tremendous to spend 40 weeks every week Um, she was so generous with her time to help me do that. That's why I help others do it now I helped them go through the 19th annotation because that That purposeful Prayer focused on christ focused on, you know The life of christ over 40 weeks was amazing and helped me really unpack some Um misconceptions and lies that that were floating around on who god was who I was in relation to god um his His incredible generosity gentleness um ever deepening call to conversion and Just this drawing forth this real understanding of he's constantly calling to us It doesn't matter where you are. How far you are from god. He is constantly calling to you He longs to set you free and bring you home. Amen. Well said can't improve on that Right spiritual directions have been a huge help to us. We never Will I will never not have a director. Did I say that right? I will always till the day I die have a spiritual director said more positively. Yeah, okay. All right. Well 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. God bless head out to spiritualdirection.com. We'll see you next time. Okay Thank you