 Honing. Okay. Hey friends, this is Dan Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes by the intimacy radio Okay, it's gonna be one of those shows I guess one of those shows so we're gonna do some Q&A today We're in the middle of the series on Devil in the Castle. Yeah. Yeah, who's the author of that book? I don't know Teresa Vavola really Well, yes, but she had a helper on this one, right? Well, but she helped me to become Catholic So I deserve I I she deserves my my You know, whatever attention. Okay, so before we jump in I Want to tell you about? Free oh very cool free webinar for lent a path to deeper peace Is gonna have Simone Rizcala Christine rich and Stephanie Burke You're gonna be on a webinar. I know why did they let you do that? I don't know. Okay. When I just happen to be in the right place at the right time and they're going Hey, you know what you right for every way 15? So you want to tell folks who suppose Simone and Christina? Yes Yes, real briefly Simone Rizcala. Yeah, I don't know exactly what her title is, but she works at endow education for the nature Nature dignity of women. Maybe I should help you out with that. What is it education? Educating on the nature and dignity of women I was I was being funny There because you needed a woman to help you. I go I for sure. Okay, so and then Christine rich is She is Awesome human being awesome human being Entrepreneur extraordinary leader in the Catholic world in general. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah, all those beautiful So February 15th, 2022 7 p.m. Central It'll be recorded, but you have to sign up to get the recording spiritualdirection.com forward slash event And what's very very cool is we are talking on Teresa of Avila and the interior castle cool and the study that we did For endow on their podcast. So very cool. And we have two Courses coming up that I'm pretty excited about at the Aval Institute. Yeah So one is liturgies and devotions of the Byzantine, right? So what's so cool about this is it's being taught by father Joel Barstead. He was one of our early professors when we founded the Institute and When he started he was not father Barstead, but he is now he is now and he was the academic dean at St. John Vienny Seminary, but anyway really beautiful soul and very deep and very rich. This course is gonna I Mean depends on how tight you wear your socks It'll knock them off if they're not super tight and maybe anchored in some way and then Yeah, he's a great scholar and just you know lives the life and he's awesome the neck the other one similar But it's something we've had for a while transformation in Christ, which is Taught by dr. Michael gamma he did his dissertation on divinization, which is on the Christian Eastern understanding of how we become or partake in the nature of God. So he's an awesome professor too So anyway, both well, let's see school. Well, both they're both are school of spiritual formation. Wow That means everybody and their brother can take those courses. They're not even graduate. Yeah. So wow, so that's gonna be awesome Deep water, right? Yeah. Anyway, we you don't have time. I do not have time. That's true I do not have time. All right on your mark. It said go. This is danis deafening Burke. Welcome to divine intimacy radio Your radio haven of wrath 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 storms raging storms I think you had your weedies this morning. I slept last night. Oh That's the change. Yeah, because like you're on fast. I don't eat weedies. They have gluten, I think That's right. Your wife won't let you I don't I don't eat weedies ever. Oh, well, so anyway, uh, no, I'm excited about this show Funny way it came about but we won't reveal that we'll just jump in Why don't you have some questions on spiritual warfare? This is the topic of uh Devil in the castle of my new book spiritual warfare the progress the soul and say terry savabula Right. So these are some questions that are related to that. Sure for those that are Are reviewing the book and for part of our way. Yeah For our launch team cool, which is really great, but I want to start with her prayer Her famous prayer. It's called the bookmark prayer because uh, it it I woke up and it was ringing in my head this morning Sure, um, and then I listened to view beautiful. Um There's a virtual choir from 2014 I think you can find it on youtube And you look up, uh nada titurbe, which is the spanish, uh, let nothing disturb you You want to say it spell it n a d a n a d a t e t u r b e which means let nothing disturb you nada titurbe um, it is a it is a virtual choir of Carmelite sisters from all over the world and they're singing, uh, this This prayer Together and it is exquisite like it'll give chills down your spine and everything so anyway Like i'm living and breathing st. Teresa right now because I did the podcast for And down the study and now we're doing, uh devil in the castle So I feel like she's coming at me from both sides. She is like you're immersed. I'm immersed I'm I'm going through some of the challenges that she's writing about um The graces and the challenges gotta be praised And so they are all graces and I just find I'm I am falling in love with her and a whole another level. In fact, I told you last night I really wish I could speak to her. I just want to talk to her Can you help me out here st. Peter of alcantara? She wanted to speak to him and he came and right and he was her spiritual director, of course, right? So anyway, I'm gonna pray for that. But anyway Yeah, you ask her for me because I think you have a little more of an in So anyway, here's her prayer that I just love and I'll do it in English Let nothing disturb you Let nothing frighten you All things are passing away God never changes Patience obtains all things Whoever has god lacks nothing God alone suffices. I feel like there should just be this silence for 20 minutes Right, I mean we could just talk on this prayer. I know right we could just break this down I do love that prayer, you know When I was Working in the church, I won't say where or how but I was working in a very difficult assignment Really in so many ways behind the scenes in the church and a lot of people don't know what I was doing or going through but I was going through Deep powerful purgation Because of the sin I was dealing with and I had that prayer under the glass on my desk and at the time I was living in a seminary because I I had you know, I had the opportunity to do that and it was traveling I didn't want to live in a hotel and so I Negotiated we were married We were married. It was tough But she was spending three weeks of the month away and I was at home with the kids Right, so talk about double purgation in our marriage And it was all just a mass dealing with sin. Yeah in church and just in our own In our own sin, right? Yeah. No and gosh that that that prayer just Was really something I read very often and spent a lot of time in adoration sometimes weeping over the sentence of Yeah, yeah, I was um It's it's uh, it's a beautiful prayer. Yeah as I was um Praying through it this morning it kept ringing in my head. So I finally went to the music To listen to it before I got out of bed this morning and um It was interesting because I you know, I just kept Going back to All things are passing away. Yeah, like this too shall pass and you know what be not afraid This too shall pass. It's gonna go away Just hold on. Yeah, keep your eyes on christ. You're on the water Don't take your eyes off of him. Just keep walking, you know When I was dealing with terminal illness and terminal stupidity Um, which I didn't die of either yet Um, but it it was really wrecking me at a certain point in my life I remember getting on a whiteboard and going, okay Trying to get my head around what this was all about and I drew this birth line And about an inch To the right I drew death and I drew this really jagged line in between them and then the line from death Went and this is a huge whiteboard. This is the bottom left hand corner of this tiny little space I took the line from death then I drew this huge line, you know all the way to the end Tough right into the whiteboard and it caused me to sigh with relief Because I'm like, you know what? However tough it is Who cares? Just keep rocking and rolling just keep fighting. It's temporal You know, stay with Jesus stay close go to confession You know follow him and you're going to be fine And then this all this junk is going to be over and one of my favorite passages Which also could cause me to weep in the book of revelation is no more sorrow no more tears No more pain No more suffering God be praised and eternity is a long time it is and it's yeah, and this is nothing This life is nothing. Yeah So we should get to questions or else we're going to get people are going to get mad because we're not answering Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know. I could stay on that prayer the entire time. Yeah. Okay. So here's a question Um, how can we discern if we are taking on too much? And the devil is disguising as an angel of light and this is in reference to I think it was uh chapter Five. Yeah, the fifth mansion. Yeah. Yeah um So, you know, so dan yeah, so This is a really common deception used by the enemy as Teresa reveals In the fifth mansion, but the there's a number of ways that the temptation comes about Usually it's too more. It's too good that it's not God's will so, uh, you know As an example You know, you have a I've talked to this Talked to this before and Father Gallagher uses this example in one of his books But you have a priest who is a very strong homilist and orator And because of that he begins to get requests for him to become a retreat master And then he does that and then he gets more requests and more requests and eventually His what seemed to be a good thing at the beginning Um and did have it was objectively good Uh was destructive to his primary state, you know, we could give other examples of he got too busy He could you know, he he was tempted to you know, oh, I just have too much of this good to do Right, therefore. I'm not going to follow in obedience what I'm Bound to do your primary state under the bishop as I asked him for being obedient or Just even in the prayer life, which is the first thing that's the thing That she cautions against the most she says do not give up daily mental prayer for anything It's the devil's tactic to get you, you know Yeah, and of course, it's also easy to describe how you could do it as a parent or as a wife or Our husband in the sense that you know, you're on fire for the faith You know, uh, you're in a church Like we have now love the pastor Needs needs a lot of tender care the building and there's a lot of things going on There's a lot of ways to volunteer And if I was my old self I'd be Up there already building scaffolding to fix the leak in the ceiling and I'd be painting and you know But I'm really aware that I'm happy to contribute. We're happy to contribute to the fixing of those things But it's not my vocation. I'm not a carpenter. I'm not a repairman You know, my vocation is husband And a father or leader of a community President of the abla institute abla foundation You know, and I don't if if I Followed the call to do those things it would be it would cause me to fail and these other Clearly assigned things from god. Yeah. Yeah the one I like the most is is Because I just thought it was such a huge Way of I mean and I I spoke to this woman. In fact, I was I was guiding her and The wiles of the devil were so intense And when I talk about what she was struggling with you'll understand that that could even enter the mind of a person so Beautiful holy woman very devout very committed to prayer, right? So she's somewhere in this mansion and she Has the sense that she needs to become a nun that she made the wrong decision and mind you She's got a bunch of kids right and they're beautiful kids very devout family Yeah, she's she's got a husband that's equally yoked. They're both, you know committed to prayer and discernment and all that And yet she's going, you know, I just keep going back to this moment when I was called To be a nun and I said no and I chose this path and I think I may have made the wrong decision Yeah, and and I love her priest because she went to confession with it And he said, uh, that's of the devil. Yeah, like he just went no That's not true. You know, and so then we unpacked about how that got in so that that Temptation to the by the enemy as an angel of light can be very intense That's why we have to be so discerning and especially as you progress in prayer It's really important to have a holy priest that a regular confessor that knows you knows your family and your state of life And the good spiritual director that can help you discern like how did that happen? Where did that come in? You know, what's going on here so you can unpack how you think, you know And of course that is in the book because we both know the person or maybe there were two were there two I don't know. There may have been more than one because You know, yeah, because I helped a woman in a similar in a similar. Yeah, I think it was I think we've known two women that have gone through that. Yeah, that's a common thing. Yeah, yeah Um, yeah, so you want to go to another question? Yeah, okay. So here's one What are some resources and uh, we can we can begin this we'll probably finish it up when we get back from the break But what are some resources or strategies for combating the habitual sin? Of anger and I think there's some key words there habitual Yeah is important to note uh anger And then, you know, how do we combat that? So I know nothing about that Are you being facetious? I am being facetious. So we get back from the break. We'll continue Uh, uh, talking about devil in the castle q and a from the book Uh, spiritual warfare in the progress of the soul and we'll be right back Um, so let's just take a minute to so how many more do you have over there besides that one? I've got two We can wait Yeah, yeah I have one over here that I I have two I can use One goes back to the first mansion this one's just Good stuff. So, you know while we're waiting, uh, let me see if I missed anything else That's going on. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh For anybody who wants to come to the summit Yeah, uh our theme this year and we have amazing speakers amazing speakers And it is july july what are the dates somebody give me the date? Yeah. Yeah, something like that Yeah, um, you can find it on our site at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events in the summit um Is the theme is a spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits D to part two. Yeah part two. We're gonna do it again in the future, too Yeah, we'll do a part three at some point But we have amazing speakers like uh, father denis mcmanus will be back He was the first one and blew everybody socks off. Yeah Probably one of the best speakers i've ever heard. So hold on bring that high cap knee-high socks Yeah, that's a theme today blowing socks off, right So he'll be there. Um, monsignor rizetti who did the Diary of an american exorcist. Yeah for sofia for sofia that just came out. So if you love reading his stuff, he will be there. Yeah Kathleen beckman. Yeah, we'll be talking about spiritual warfare in the family You and I will be talking about spiritual warfare in marriage go figure. Yeah, that doesn't happen though. We're perfect So anyway, it'll be awesome. Good. So, um, we have limited seats left And uh, it'll probably sell out it has in the past So don't delay. It's in beautiful Um, well, you know the towns might be beautiful. It's beautiful to some people But it's in dc. It's in dc at the catholic university of america, which is beautiful Would you get to go to the basilica? We will be worshiping our lord in the basilica one of the most beautiful catholic buildings in the united states Yeah, top top five easy Honestly, the venue is really amazing the hall that will have our speakers in and where we'll be worshiping together is just amazing So don't miss it. Um, we'll have a time for prayer too Individual prayer like we did last year, which was really powerful. Cool. So you ready? We're ready. Market set go. Well, where where do they find it spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. Yeah, all right And your market set go this is dan stephanie burk. Welcome back to divine intimacy radio Somebody's gonna call me from ewtn and say stop doing that Uh, speaking of ewtn by the way, if you want to buy the book devil in the castle Um, you can find it at ewtn's religious catalog two very cool things happen when you buy books from ewtn one They send the book Yeah, it's so cool and two You help the ministry of ewtn, which is really important And uh, the other thing too is if you wanted to buy books in bulk I think so fia will be given a 50 off Which is very cool because this Um, the book if you wanted to do a book study on it It has uh questions and answers at the questions at the end of every chapter for reflection That can be helpful for that. Yeah, I think it's an awesome book. I'm you know, it's just really fed me I think you're just partial. No, I'm actually not No, I'm I'm I'm very Honest she starts her drinking very early folks Stop That's not true. Not true. Um, okay Okay, you ready for this? Yeah, we're we're answering this question, which you said you knew nothing about So what are some resources and strategies for combating a habitual sin of anger? Yeah, so I have I used to have a habitual sin of wrath Which is anger anger, um At a mortal sin level Uh, I'm not proud of it But I was my nickname at focus on the family as a devout evangelical was nuke And what did that stand for it was short for nuclear? Because it described the way I would talk to people if they were stupid That's that is just so awful. I I guess there was you know, that was laced with humility, right? Right, of course No, I mean, you know, I grew up I I grew up in a tough situation and And the only way I knew kind of had it. Well, yeah, there's no excuse, right? No, it was a it's a coping mechanism. Yeah. Yeah, and what's behind the sin of anger Oh fear is one of them fear is a role can fear well, and I think fear is the root I mean, we all talk about pride and I mean all the sins have pride in them, right? Yeah, but if you look behind most of them, especially behind something like anger and control Which they're related and generally angers about controlling. Yeah, the underlying Issue is fear. Yeah, if I don't control this Things are gonna get out of control things are gonna go bad. I'm responsible. I I have to fix this It's up to me. Yeah, which is rooted also in self-reliance, which is also a sin Right, and I mean it just goes layers and layers and layers, you know, yeah, yeah, so I think, you know Dealing with this sin is the same in many respects to dealing with every habitual sin That the antidote is becoming or being or living as an authentic disciple of Jesus So I didn't have the sacraments back then so I only made a certain amount of progress I've made way more progress against it as a Catholic. I mean you could speak to How much it's waned. I wouldn't venture to do that on my own. I'm not perfect But um, it doesn't come out anymore in terms of wrath. It comes more With rare exceptions It's just irritation is now what I deal with internally whether or not somebody knows or externally Right, but it used to come out all the time. So so what are some of the ways that you doubt? How did you get to this point? Because I know that it That it ruled you and yeah, so I mean I you know I was open to God and when you're open to God and you want to get rid of a sin He he answers the prayer. I mean he wants to purify us, right? So I had somebody in my life who who said something from the Holy Spirit. He said And you you actually repeated it accurately. I may have forgotten exactly. He said Will you always be motivated? Will you always allow yourself to be motivated by anger? Was that it? Yeah, it's not allow yourself. It was just will you always be motivated by anger and it was you know It was just a moment. I was open. I wanted to be free and the Holy Spirit just ripped into me and said You need to this is the question for you and I actually spent a year thinking about it And wondering what I would be like because I knew the fruits of my anger and irritation were that I saved the company millions of dollars Right millions of dollars. Yeah, and that's donor money that I care very much about. I was very effective Yeah, I don't want to blow past something that you just said that is so important And I heard it from other loved ones in our family when they're confronted with oh, I got a change You know with their sin and they're just kind of going, you know, I don't want to deal with this This is painful Is that moment when we say I'm afraid of who I'll be without it, right? And it reminds me of uh the great divorce love the book Yeah by CS Lewis and I mean I I probably go back to that book. I don't know. I haven't reread it But the storyline, you know, uh reverberates in my mind and there's this beautiful moment when The sin of the individual is on their shoulder And it's a lizard. It's a lizard. It's depicted as a lizard and there's an angel in front of it That just keeps saying let me kill it. Let me kill it. Let me kill it and the and you know, the lizard says You need me. Yes, you know, you need me You know, what would you be without me? What would you be without me and all these consoling words, right? Because it gives that person it gave the Uh protagonist in the story the sense of the I am my sin, right, right? And we're not our sin. Yeah, that's it And and the thing is is god is calling us to who we are designed to be I mean you were designed to be a patient Humble gentle gentle soul. Yeah, not an angry Wrathful vengeful person that's controlling and you know trying to fix everything and be self-reliant You were called to be completely open to the lord, right, you know Yeah, so in the end of that story, of course the angel keeps saying let me kill it. Let me kill it And the angel is essentially an agent of god to free the person of the sin Any when and then the moment the person goes yes an angel just in a flash, you know in this furious Speed of light flash before the person could take it back and they start to take it back Yeah, before they get too late. It's too late. And then and he decimates that stupid little demon And then this person emerges into this glorious being and you know, well in the sin That's that's the other cool thing is he kills the lizard it falls to the ground and it trans it it Manifests it I guess or whatever you want to call it it changes it goes through a metamorphosis and it turns into an It's a majestic stallion Right and so the lizard Is transformed because it is rightly ordered because that's the thing is our sin is is A virtue that's gone awry and it's on the opposite and it's become destructive when it's meant to be Harnessed and Rightly ordered towards god according to his design, right? So so what does anger become? Anger becomes zeal for the lord sure and and and and gentle, you know gentleness, right? st. Francis to sales was one who Was extremely gentle in his writings and in much part of but he had also had a problem with anger Yeah, so so here's the thing So being open to god he will work and he'll give you a ron wilson the guy who helped me Over these moments, you know, he'll work with you. He'll lead you but also The sacraments he's already gave his life to give himself to you In the holy sacrifice of the mass so but what if nothing's changing dan? What if I keep going to confession and i'm confessing this in over and over and over again And i'm just decimated because I I go and I come back and I do it again. Yeah, so it's it's really important There's something preceding that but I that is an important question It's really important in hebrus It says you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood And there's a lot of people who run around addicted to sin Who are like, oh, yeah, I sinned again. I feel bad. I go to confession Then I come back out and they don't ever They don't ever it's like we talked about in the last show in Mansion which mansion was the no-zone for I think right Where the church also has other teachings about how you Keep yourself even away from the near occasion of sin Which is that place where the the magnet of the sin and the magnet of your concupiscence Pass too closely and then clash together and the sin erupts in your soul But even beyond that the church gives you so many means to keep us way out of that zone But you have to be it can I just yell at people with angry you have to be diligent You have to you have to say Look, there's nothing more important than me Not offending my god and wrecking people around me And you have to have a plan and you have to wake up every day and say This is exactly what i'm going to do to overcome this sin And i'm going to fight in these specific ways and this is the person i'm going to call when I get into trouble And you know these are the i'm going to read these books and i'm going to see healing and i'm going to see Deliverance ministry whatever But if you have a bitual mortal sin friends, you're going to hell Okay, now maybe you went to confession and right now you're fine But if you're living in a bitual sin that means you're constantly going back So i'm telling you you're constantly saying to god to hell with you. I got my own plan It's better. I want it and the indy's gonna go. Okay, not making you come to heaven You won't like it here because you don't get to do that right You know, sorry for the ranting. No, but my point is that you you you can't I mean You can't mess around with sin. I mean it it Hell is real like I you know, you and I have been in many exorcisms We've we've been in the presence of demons Who have reeked the most evil havoc and who say the most evil vile things that you could never even imagine that we wouldn't even repeat In this show or in public You want to go spend eternity with those guys tormenting you right are you insane? Yeah, I mean just for your own sake. Don't go to hell, right? But let alone that what what has god done for us given? He created us for for an eternal relationship of love You know, we fall he gives us his son to redeem us and reconcile us so So you you you've got to deeply immerse yourself in the sacraments. That's the that's the power The greatest power available to you is that daily daily mass if you're fighting a bitual sin Yeah, if you can get to daily mass, it's a game changer And I know a number of people from that who you they see their passions start to calm to wane And it's like, oh wait Just so we don't run out of time number two confession But you must have a firm purpose of amendment If you go to confession and you're just doing it to ameliorate your guilt You're not even probably absolved You people don't realize you can go to confession and there's no real effect absolution But I don't want anybody to be dissuaded from going. No, no go anyway But make sure you have a plan that when you step out of the confessional about how you're going to fight the sin That got you in the confessional Confession gives you strength not just forgiveness, but strength to get sin. Right. The third is daily mental prayer Daily mental prayer is spending time with jesus The proximity to jesus is distance from sin Please Can you repeat that the proximity to jesus is distance from sin proximity to jesus is distant The closer you are to jesus the farther you wait you are away from so he will strengthen you a free course on Overcoming habitual sin at apostoleva.org aposdoliva.org Anyway, we're out of time. Yep. That's it. 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 So now we have to go tell heather that we uh correct everything, okay