 Okay, you didn't hear that? I am, we're live. So, ready to roll? Hey, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke, behind the scenes, you're watching behind the scenes Divine Intimacy Radio. And if you notice, we're in a little bit of a different scenery than normal. Stephanie and I are at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Retreat Center, which is the new, in Montgomery, down to the new headquarters of Avala Institute and also be a community and a retreat center. So, and we're in the process of building a new studio here, but we are, things don't always line up in terms of schedules as we would like. So, we're making dues. Stephanie's in her office in one part of the building, I'm in mine. And so, we're gonna do this. And apologies if there's any audio issues. I think, you know, the quality is okay. Not as great as we'd like it to be, but we're grateful for your patience. So, before we jump into the show, Steph, did you have, do you have opportunities for folks you wanted to talk about? Yes, we've got a couple of classes coming up in the Avala Institute. I wanna let you know about them. One of them is a course called Exploring Theosis by the wonderful Dr. Michael Gamma. And it's the characteristic of the early ancient church and our understanding of salvation. It's an incredible course. You know, together you will explore the salvific promise investigating as you do into the mystery of the Holy Trinity and what it means to be partakers of the divine nature, which we all want to do. So, you need to apply by October 28th and you can find all that information at Avala-Institute. That's the School of Spiritual Formation, which is a little lighter work for those who are busy and cannot take the graduate program. We also have another opportunity. It's called Saint Benedict and Saint Therese, the Little Rule and the Little Way. What a brilliant title. So in this incredible course, you'll learn how two extraordinarily different saints join forces through their writings, lives and prayers who enrich the whole church and each one of us. So, awesome. Those classes will begin. You need to apply. Pardon me, you need to apply by October 20th and you can find all the details at Avala-Institute.org, Avala-Institute.org unless I leave this out, the Saint Benedict and Saint Therese course is taught by Father Dwight Longenecker. So awesome. So head out and check those out along with all the other courses that we offer at the Avala-Institute. All right, well, are you ready to jump into the show? Mm-hmm. Okay, your mark gets set and 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 to draw upon the wisdom of the saints and the magisterium of the church to help us navigate this very challenging life that we live in. So Steph, one thing I just have to say, I really missed you the last two shows. I did them with Dave Nodar and I had to do the whole intro myself. So I said, I had to explain that I was doing your part usually. So, but I much rather I like it, prefer it when you're here. And the cool thing is our new studio has a capacity for four people to be in studio plus multiple guests live on screen. So I'm glad you're back. Oh, thanks. Good to be back. I kind of like you. So the first question on the show is this a Q and A show today. And the first question we're going to talk about is on liturgy. And the question is, where what authority say that lay ministers can't give blessings in the holy sacrifice of the mass? And it's a question that came during webinar we did with Father Altier. But and the answer isn't brief, but I'll try to make it as brief as I can. One, that there is no such thing as a title lay minister and informal reality in the church. And by the way, just as a side note, those who are in Latin mass communities have, this issue doesn't come up because the only person who distributes communion is the priest. So in ordinary form or the nervous ordo there can be something called extraordinary ministers of holy communion. But it's important to note that there is no, there is no designated in the church of lay ministers as a formal office. They're not ordained and extraordinary ministers are a lay person who has been commissioned typically by the bishop or the vicar general to distribute holy communion in the mass when needed. So this is often abused. It's actually one of the most abused things in the liturgy and the ordinary form in the sense that if we believe that we should follow church teaching, the general instruction of the Roman missile describes the functions of the extraordinary ministers in articles 162 and 163. And essentially the extraordinary ministers to approach the altar only after the priest has received communion and then received from the priest the proper vessels receive from the priest the proper vessels and many of you are sitting out there going, well, I've already seen a lot of that not done appropriately. And every action in the masses is for a reason. So anyway, so lay persons who are called upon to distribute holy communion are not called lay ministers if they are called that it's a misuse of the term and it's confusing and it shouldn't be used but they should be called extraordinary ministers of holy communion. But in the end, they are not to give blessings because they don't have the position of being able to give blessings. So there was in 2008, there was a letter to the congregation for divine worship in the discipline of the sacraments asking this question. And the first observation and the response was that the liturgical blessing of everyone at Mass is given after the distribution of holy communion. So when the priest makes the sign of the cross and says, may almighty God bless you in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. And another authoritative note is article 18 of the book of blessings. It says, even though lay persons may give some blessings whenever a priest or deacon is present, the office of presiding over blessings should be left to them. So in summary, the one thing I didn't mention is extraordinary the guidance regarding the use of extraordinary ministers, which is also very frequently abused explains and this is in a redemptionary sacrament in paragraph 151 that extraordinary ministers are only to be used out of only out of true necessity in quotes. And when they are used, special urgent prayers of intercessions should be multiplied so that the board may soon send a priest for the service of the community. So paragraph 158 says that they should only be used when the number of the faithful coming to communion is so great that the mass would be unduly prolonged like for a half hour or something like that. So we have a misuse of the function which then creates this problem where you have so many lay people up on the altar and because we're worried about getting out of the mass a little bit too quickly or maybe giving people a place of status. I've seen that where people are made extraordinary ministers in order to make them feel good but what it does is fundamentally does damage to understanding of who is the minister in this context and it's the priest, not the lady. The lady is purely an assistant to the priest and it also notes in church teaching very clearly that the lady should never, the lady should not use any kind of gestures or actions that would blur the distinction between the role of the lady and the role of the priest. And this is not clericalism by the way, this is the teachings of the church because we as lay people don't stand in persona Christi and always sacrifice at the mass. That is uniquely given to the priest. And there are some, where the boring comes from and the false teaching comes from that's behind all of us is those who would like to see no distinctions between priests and laity, no distinctions between men and women, no distinctions in any way. But of course that is not what Jesus established in the church. So I don't know, this is kind of a technical question taking me a few minutes to answer but you have any thoughts about any of that? Not really. I mean, before I had really looked into this and in our own studies and discussions and stuff I was an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in part as an employee of a Catholic school and helping out with that kind of thing but I can see the necessity say is it that a people mass? No, when there's people everywhere if they don't have the priest doing that but beautifully I've seen the priest go out with the umbrellas and that of course is the most appropriate way to handle that kind of situation. So it's really beautiful. Yeah, and there is some discussion and concern expressed by many on the traditional side of the church that says that the council of Trent and documents previous to the council indicated that only someone whose hands have been consecrated should even touch the blessed sacrament. And I agree with that church teaching. Yeah, and that's certainly why I stopped. It's once I stepped out of that role I no longer served in that capacity because I was uncomfortable doing so. Yeah, I was with Cardinal Renzi who used to head up that the congregation that we mentioned before that made that ruling. And he's a very holy and devout Cardinal of course and he did an event for us and somebody asked about even the allowance of communion on the hand which is part of all of this. And he said it's been an absolute disaster in the church in terms of Christ being desecrated. A little bit separate issue. One thing I do want to say to those lay people who are extraordinary ministers this is in no way criticism of you. This is certainly, you know most people get into that role because they really wanna do something good and participate and they don't necessarily understand the teachings and they rely on those who preside over the mass to teach them but that doesn't always happen. So hopefully this answer is helpful. Next question is also a liturgical one. Why don't parishes place a pre-do in front of the priest in the communion line so that we can choose what we want to do in receiving the Holy Eucharist? And the reason is, you know, many fold but go ahead Steph. I think we're coming up on a break. Yeah, I show we were at nine minutes. So we had at least three minutes. Okay, so I appreciate you telling me because that means you're worried about making sure we all do all this right. So why don't, and a pre-do is just a French word for a kneeler that we understand in English. Why don't parishes do this? And fundamentally the reason why in the ordinary form is that, and I actually saw a homily on this recently from Bishop that they see this as a throwback to previous time and a desire to go backwards. And I think that without criticizing anyone individually, it's a misunderstanding of historic teaching. And in fact, in Memoriale Domini, which was promulgated by St. Paul VI, which allowed for communion in the hand standing, he actually argues that the more humble approach is kneeling, that the normative way is kneeling, that most of the bishops of the world disagreed with allowing that practice. And then he went ahead and allowed it anyway. So I think even those after the council who tend to be come from a different perspective than we do regarding the liturgy and who, you know, we don't see it as going backwards. We see it as just being faithful and humble and being reverent toward the Lord. And in no way are judging anyone who disagree, but that's our position. But our position actually is the position in the document that allowed for communion in the hand. And that is that it's the norm to do that. So that's why they've just been taught that that's, you know, they've just been taught poorly. I'll just say that, that's my opinion. So Steph, you wanna pull me out of the weeds there and make sure I don't get into too much trouble? I think, you know, church, we should adhere to church teaching and then we should also err on the side of compassion. And that's why I like what you added at the end, that we need to consider that, you know, for the most part, and I say this fervently, having been on the other side, people come to serve the church and do what they do and be on one form or another out of a desire to love. And we're just, we can only do what we understand and what we've been taught. And so we have to err on the side of how the Lord prayed and he said, Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do. And then teach when you can and love and serve and be gentle and meek and humble. All right, good job, we're gonna go to a break and come back from the break. We're gonna be answering questions about marriage and family, so get off the liturgical topics to marriage and family and tough stuff. So we'll be right back. Okay, so folks, while we're at the break, I wanna tell you about a couple of things that are coming up that you are not going to wanna miss. One of those is a webinar on the contemplative rosary that yours truly will be hosting with Connie Rossini. So this was going to be just in just a couple of days and that is on September 30th at 7 p.m. central. It is online, it is free, it'll be live and you can find all the information on this webinar on the contemplative rosary at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. So join me and Connie Rossini this coming Thursday night for this webinar. And what's so big about the contemplative rosary, by the way? Well, I mean, it's remarkable. And so we're gonna be discussing how, through some of the writings and the fleshing out of St. John Paul II and St. Teresa of Avila and this book called The Contemplative Rosary, how we can pray in a better way to enter fully into the rosary, how we can prepare ourselves for contemplative prayer and how in entering into each one of the mysteries, we will love God more fully and prepare ourselves to be loved fully by him or to receive that love and set our hearts and minds on the Lord through those mysteries. So come learn how to pray the contemplative rosary and why it's so powerful and important. The second, another event that's coming up is the Rosary Crusade. This is so cool. You're not gonna wanna miss this. Thursday, October 7th, beginning at 6.30 p.m. Central Standard Time. Please join Bishop Strickland, Cardinal Arborellius, Archbishop Gomez, Archbishop Cordo Leone and many, many more awesome lay leaders, celebrities in the Catholic world as it were and all of that. And we're gonna be coming together to honor our lady and pray the rosary together. So don't miss this. It's so awesome. And it's gonna be online free and you can also find that at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. The bishops and cardinals and archbishops will be providing reflections in between the different mysteries. So come check this out. It's an awesome way to honor our lady of the rosary on her feast day. And then the last one is we are going to have a virtual silent auction and there are some beautiful items in this. And it begins on October 1st. It will run for two weeks. There are sneak peeks now. So you can check out what's there. And that is also online and you can find it at spiritualdirection.com also on forward slash events. So virtual silent auction, rosary crusade on the 7th and contemplative rosary. This Thursday, September 30th. Join us. Awesome. Awesome. So we'll jump back into the show and your market set go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio Haydn of Rest coming to you from our lady of Mount Carmel Retreat Center in Montgomery, Alabama. And so we're a little bit, mics are different, visuals are different. We're working on all that with a new studio. But in the meantime, let's jump into some questions, Stephanie, about Ephesians five and about marriage and parenting and the spiritual dimensions of all of this. So I'll lay out the questions kind of sliced up into two pieces. But I'll try to put them together because I think they should be together. Can you address Ephesians five and parents or in-laws who want to dictate to their children, adult children, of course, how to live and when and where to vacation, spend all our vacations with them. And this idea of leaving and cleaving, how does a wife navigate possessive and controlling in-laws? This is a tough question. So, you know, there's so much here, but, you know, I think, so ideally a lot of these conversations should have happened prenuptial. You know, it should have been conversations of how are we gonna live this life, this new life of coming together because just because you marry someone, the families don't go away. In fact, in the realist sense and in a really beautiful sense, you should be marrying the family. But sometimes that's not ideal. Sometimes the situations are difficult, but those are your crosses and when you marry your spouse, you are marrying their family. And so you have to consider all those things. If it can be semi-healthy and worked out with the normal bumps and bruises of family life, then there should be some balance of, maybe one year we do Christmas with my family, another year we do Christmas with your family and these alternating back and forth because let's face it, children come into play, they need to know their grandparents, they need to know their family members. We're not built to get married and then just go live in an isolated way because that's just avoiding the cross and it sends a very powerful message to your children that family is to be pushed away and discarded and you have to be really careful the messages you send. And we are called to love and serve. So that's one thing to consider. Now, if there is an issue and if there are parents on one side or the other that are being overly possessive or whatever, then that comes down to communication between the spouses, right? Because if I step out of my proper role and start to lecture Dan and say, your parents are controlling and blah, blah, blah, blah, then I create damage in my marital relationship over his parents. So again, it comes down to conversation, to communication, loving patiently and bearing your cross, dying to yourself a million times for the sake of the salvation of your spouse, your children and all of your extended family. So there's a lot there, but we don't live as men on islands isolated away from all the difficulties. We need to kind of shift our paradigm of thinking and understand that it is through the difficulties, through the challenges, through the messiness of family life where we are sanctified, purified and brought to the fullness of who we're being called to be. So understand it's all cross and embrace that cross and praise God for the trials and lean in and become holy. This isn't, you know, some people think, well, this is the realm of psychology and I wanna remind people though, they're good Catholic psychology psychologists. Psychology is done as a great deal of damage, you know, psychology inconsistent with our faith has done a great deal of damage to the church. So when we talk about this, we're not talking about psychology. What we're talking about is what is scripture teach? What are our roles in marriage? What is holy and unholy? What's inappropriate and inappropriate? So Steph, I think it's really important to repeat this or maybe explore this leave and cleave thing. So when we got married, you and I became a new authority structure within the context of the Burke clan and the, you know, the McKinney clan or the, you know, the clan that you came out of, if you will, your family, your birth family. So it says leave and cleave. That means that now there's a new structure which is one, it's a blended structure. You and God, most important, me and God, most important, right, for us. Then there's a circle around us and it's me and you and we're the new authority structure. We are the ones who determine together in unity and holy where we, how we spend our money, how we worship, what we do on vacations and no one should be allowed in that intimate circle. Am I making sense? Yes, absolutely. I mean, that was the point I was stressing on the communication that the communication between the husband and wife has to be healthy. There has to be great communication there and decisions are made. You and I make decisions all the time of where we're gonna spend our time, our money, our vacation, are we gonna go see family? I mean, and in some of those, you know, we do die to ourselves and there are choices that are made that aren't necessarily perfect all the time. Otherwise, I think we'd always be on a beach somewhere in Barbados with a tropical drink and an endless buffet, I don't know. So we have to make those decisions but you and I make those decisions. In-laws don't make those decisions. Now, we certainly listen to on either side. We listen to family members who make requests and invitations, we receive those in love and in good spirit and we understand they desire to be with us and they want to be with us. Very different than somebody saying you will spend all of your holidays with us. And so you have to, again, husband and wife, leave and cleave, you make decisions together. There should be some sort of balance and understanding of what's healthy and what's not and then make those decisions together but there shouldn't be others on the outside making those decisions for you. So I wanna lift up a few things you said that are really important. So you and I make the decisions, we take the input of others but that doesn't mean, right, that we allow an in-law into our inner circle into that decision process, right? Practically speaking, what it means is you and I make the decisions, we listen to input lovingly from the outside which is what you said, but they don't get in the circle. So we listen and then we talk and pray and decide. It's a violation of a healthy marital bond and boundary and all of that for someone to come into that inner circle with the same level of power, authority, decision-making. Like if I allowed my mom to come in, just let's just be really clear and she would directly influence and add more influence than you. Then we've got a problem. We've got a real problem. Yeah, yeah, and vice versa. You know, if my mom did that or if your dad, God rest his soul, my dad, God rest his soul, you know, anything like that. So, I mean, once you get married, you enter into adulting, you become an adult and you need to fully live in that adult world in Christ Jesus. Look at others through love, receive their requests in love, but ultimately husband and wife are the adults in the room that make the decisions for their marriage, for how they spend their time, their money and their children. And, you know, you take all the input, you decide what you can do, what's possible, what you'd like to do and understand that they do want to be near you and move forward. Sometimes I wish we had a moral theologian who could just sit within reach of us when we have these shows because I want to make these proclamations, but I don't want to over stretch. But I, to me, if I did that to you and then I caught myself and realized I had done it, I would take it to confession. I would say I allowed my mother to take the place of my wife and that is a violation of the marital bond and I shouldn't have done that. So I don't, is it that? Yeah, and knowing that this question came from a female, she was under a lot of distress and pain in this. It was very distressing to her. And that's a tough place to be because unfortunately in the world, men have forgotten how to lead their families. They've forgotten how to leave and cleave. They don't know how to do that. There's not enough examples of it. And so yeah. I think we have time for one more and I want to give this one to you. We both know this suffering, but did St. Monica have a critical spirit when she couldn't stop crying and praying for her sons? I wonder if I have a judgmental or critical spirit. I used to feel I had to do everything perfect or my mom's love would be removed from me. So maybe I'm passing that onto my kids, I don't know. I keep coming back to St. Monica. How can we be fully joyful when we know our kids are in such a precarious state? So a minute and a half, just. A minute and a half. Wow, that's a huge question. Critical spirit, you know, critical spirit is looking at the actions of another, not in a spirit of judgment as in related to truth, but rather as in that's not my way, right? So they're not living the life that I want them to live or they're not living the life that I think they should live or that's not according to my opinion, my feelings, my thoughts. When we judge actions of another, of our children through the light of truth, church teaching, right? What's good and holy and what's right, then that's not a critical spirit. That's the truth of Christ burning in you and it will cause tears and prayers and supplications and we have to suffer and we have to offer up that suffering. But in the end, we are to remain as Mary, standing by the cross and supplicating for our kids. Once our children move into adulthood, it is not our job to fix them, to criticize them, to try to control their decisions, to interfere in their marriages and their life choices. And neither should we fund sin, which is something that you and I have held to. We do not fund sin. We do not pay for our adult children to go live together. We don't, you know, things like that. And I've seen that unfortunately in too many good people where they actually, in order to keep the peace, they fund sin. So you can't do that, but truth is truth and it doesn't change according to the seasons. Church teaching on truth, on morality and contraception and all those things, those still remain. They are still true. It's not a matter of opinion and feelings. There might be feelings and opinion on it, but it's not a matter of feelings and opinion. And so when you see that, you're to pray and to sacrifice for them, but that is not a critical spirit and that suffering can be offered for the salvation of your child's soul. All right, Steph, we're over time. So can you take us out? Okay. And I don't have the final prayer. What is that? So may the God of peace grant you holiness and all that other good stuff. And we'll pray for you and come back and see us next time. All right. Okay, God bless you. Good to have everybody.