 Hey friends, you're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio. Can you do me a huge favor a huge huge favor Could you like this video and subscribe? And then help us by spreading it on social media. We'd be so grateful. Yep share share share subscribe like we have to Work against shadow banning We do we do All right Let's go ahead and start the show you mark sick. Oh, welcome to divine intimacy radio This is Dan and Stephanie Burke and you have stumbled on or purposefully tuned into 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 the saints the Magisterium the teachings of the Catholic Church long-standing insight from across the ages to help us to Navigate this challenging life that we're in. Yeah, so are you ready for the show? I'm ready for the show. You got some rest I got some rest Unusual God be praised It's funny because when you when you have a rest score that's low But it's way higher than it usually is you're just like on the clouds, right? Very grateful for what I got. Okay Today we have a few questions that have come in about this one secret of The spiritual life and it's a one of three and I'll give the three and then we'll talk about the one in the three necessary conditions which means they're Maybe structures that we can have in our life their Relationships aspects of our life that really help spiritual growth to go like a rocket ship and the three together are clarity which is speaks to Constant formation the saints and studying the spiritual life of the faith all of that community as The next one and the last one is accountability Community is the one we're going to talk about today because we've received questions about community now The thing about community unfortunately most Catholics don't know what it is and the reason is Is because there used to be dense populations of Catholics all over the world Where you'd enter into that community and you would have like if you looked back At I used to run the national catholic register And if you look back on the register or a or a church bulletin from the 1920s and 1930s You will see more resources and more activities. I actually have seen it myself Then you could ever imagine possible in any parish. What does that give you the opportunity for? constant connection with the faith in whatever way you want For young and for old for fun and for serious and for liturgy and for worst of all manner of things Now unfortunately, uh, that is dissipated dramatically in most places of the world and so community intentionally rebuilding community Is one of the secrets to really growing spiritually and trying to solve the problem of Catholics being isolated like you could be a faithful Catholic in a parish and you might be one of five who are faithful, right? I'm not picking on anybody. I'm not judging anybody, but everybody knows this to be true we're having difficulty in our time with The data itself just the surveys you know, I didn't have to be judgmental Is that 70 percent of Catholics don't even believe in the real presence of Jesus and Eucharist, right? And this is in ordinary form churches Uh, the most common kind of Catholic worship if you will Seven out of ten of the people who attend those parishes or a part or claim to be Catholic don't believe So why does this happen? It's because the in part the dissipation of Catholic culture. So the The necessity of community of rebuilding that in our lives, which we can do is super important So this is the first question And I'll let you take the first shot at it. Okay, Bernie Burke. Okay I've heard you speak about the necessity of Catholic community for spiritual growth How do I find and choose a community? Wow Okay, how do you find and choose a community pray? No, that's the first step right need to pray you need to pray a lot ask the lord And and and our lady, you know tucking that into your rosary The lord, you know, we have that beautiful scripture verse that says resist the devil and he will flee Draw near to the lord and he will draw near to you And and and so if that desire has been placed on your heart or you've heard this and you go, oh Yeah, I think they're right. This this sounds important and I'm isolated, which is the devil's playground. He wants to keep us isolated and alone I need to draw to others. I need to find my pack and run with it. I need to find Other saints and run with them To strengthen me encourage me keep me on the right path How do I do that? If you're truly disconnected from any other community, I think the first is to pray is to pray and ask our lady Bring me My tribe as it were bring me the people that are going to help me grow in holiness I think the other One of them is is to look and see what's going on at your own parish. Yeah, or in your diocese That's exactly right to see where there are groups that are gathering where and and you know, that can be hit or miss You're going to find some really good things. You're going to find some milk toasty Um water down things that aren't going to do much but at least connect you to some nice folks. Yeah Um So that's a good place to look what's happening already near me um I think also Looking to what kind of faithful resources are out on the internet Yeah, um, because there is a lot, you know, we have we provide a lot of formation and and it's Some of it is strictly online others of it is in person, you know where The online piece is the the entrance through spiritualdirection.com So that creates a kind of community at least in that you're drawing forth to others that are creating content That you can start there. So you're not just Winging it and so you can take and absorb that you can draw a little closer into classes at avala institute Where then you're in a class with others and you're communicating that way and then we took it To the ultimate step, which is is then we created the community of apostole vie or the lord inspired it brought it forth and we have both local prayer groups and then we have a Time where we gather for formation, you know twice a month Uh online and that creates community as well and we have a site where we all communicate It's the anti facebook site where it's really about drawing together supporting one another in prayer and formation and Encouraging one another So, you know, those are some ways that I can think about Of how to find community. Yeah, if you're interested in apostole vie you can it's apo sto li Vi ae work. You can find it there. It's it's it's uh, I think it's pretty much spelled as it it sounds Did you have something else? Okay, so the next question is it relates to this and I'll take a shot at this and see what your thoughts are How can I deter discern which spirituality should I pursue in community life? So this is a good question So what does that mean? Well, there are all kinds of beautiful spiritualities in the church and they're like different facets of the diamond, right? They're all good in the elbow all the different emphases So you have franciscans dominicans opus day Carmelites, you know, all benedictons all of that One of the ways you can discern which spirituality you should pursue Is to begin reading saints deliberately in specific spiritualities, right? So if you're going to read uh in the dominican spirituality, you could read Like garagula grange. It's a great idea. He's not a saint yet, but he's very holy. He's a scholar in that Realm, but of course you can read about the saint's lives in there Um, if you're interested in franciscan spirituality, I'd read saint peter of alcantara. There's a great book called Finding god through meditation that I brought uh back into print by saint peter of alcantara who was a franciscan that Um influence saint therese avala So there are And in in the avala institute it's interesting our goal in the avala institute though we the founders Dr. Lillis and I Are carmelite primarily in our spirituality We are trying to represent all the spiritualities as best we can through faithful teachers who who are good in those spiritualities so We have benedicton that teaches for us of father boniface Hicks we have A dominican father ignatius schweitzer from the east coast province of dominicans and you can take courses Through that also cover all of the Spiritualities in general, right? We have survey courses in graduate level so so so you can read books by themselves. You can take courses Uh, the other thing is you can go visit those communities in your area. I'm pretty sure It won't take too much time in any major population area to find A dominican third-order dominican group or a third-order carmelite third-order franciscan And uh, does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's good. Well, no I was just thinking back to my own journey and figuring out who my tribe was and You know somebody who knows us now may think that's funny, but at the beginning we didn't have the epistole v a community Right. Um, and and you and I were figuring it out. We were in spiritual direction by good holy priests and um, you know, we were You know dabbling in in a number of different aspects of the catholic faith that were kind of Awakening things in though in us, but I think you always pretty much knew since coming into the catholic church that you were carmelite I wasn't so sure, you know at at the time. I was reading st. Catherine of sienna Reading the dialogue and it was At that time it was exploding in my head. It was setting my heart and mind and spirit on fire And so I was I thought I was going to be, you know, third-order dominican and But I'm carmelite through and through So, you know that that just came in time. So we just you know, we continue to explore and read and study and Um, and then we let the lord lead and so often another beautiful aspect of find finding your tribe or your Your community is that so often that the saints choose us. We don't choose them And so as we read and study we will find that we keep being drawn keep being drawn and our hearts get set on fire And then we realize oh, this really feeds me every time I pick up st. John of the cross I'm I'm inspired. I'm encouraged. I'm so drawn in and it really it really Moves me versus maybe when I pick up another saint Um, it doesn't it doesn't as much, right? So that's one of the ways to to also figure out kind of where your spirituality is going by how The writings of those particular saints Um move you inspire you feed you and and where you can Where you know that you completely Get where you get so much of your sustenance every time you go back to them Whereas I can't get enough of teres and john john in particular You know, that's that's another good indication Cool So when we get back from the break, we're going to talk about a few other questions that folks have Given us on this incredibly important topic because if you get community clarity and accountability all together It's like rocket fuel for spiritual growth. So when we come back, we'll talk about dealing with issues of the magisterium faithfulness we'll talk about um Somebody who had difficulty going through to a local community that seemed a little dead or distant from Their their roots and how do we deal with those things? So We'll be right back So basically 1240 we can do another one at 1240 things, right? On your mark. It's a go. This is danis. Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to divine intimacy radio. We're talking about one of the three uh secret conditions the secrets Uh of different conditions or within which you live or environments within which you live They can really make a huge difference in your spiritual life And those environments or those realities are one of clarity, which is Uh a deliberate and consistent study Of the interior life. So you know what's true and you know what's false and you can cling to what is true Community which we're talking about on the show today and the third one is accountability and the different forms of accountability but uh and in community interestingly enough you get Accountability as and clarity if it's a good community you get all three in one bundle So the question is How can I know if a community is faithful to the magisterium? And this one is challenging because you're going to have to ask some questions that could be uncomfortable The the unfortunate reality is well the the fortunate reality or the good the blessed reality is There are faithful expressions of every one of the major Charisms or all the charisms in the church There are faithful expressions out there that you can find that are vibrant and that you know I've done retreats for uh carmelite groups and and uh, I know Third order franciscan who's on fire for the lord and very faithful So they're out there But how do I know if they're faithful to the magisterium? Well, what does that mean? What means that they're actually Going to teach and within the bounds of What the church has always taught or the founders of those particular charism have taught And the way you deal with that is you ask them what I would call bellwether questions There are questions that tend to if if they don't get these right, they're not going to get other ones, right? Right? So what are those? one of them is What does your group teach about? Contraception and they might say well, we don't teach Contraception about contraception you can say but what is the leader or the you know the order that sponsors your group believe about it? You know What does it believe about? the priesthood You know it does it believe that the priesthood because Jesus its founder And and the one whom the priest represents is male And thereby and there's many other arguments, of course That are proper that the male that the priesthood can only be male. Do you believe in only male priesthood? I don't know any other questions come to mind stuff that that are really kind of Reveal a lot about a particular group that you could ask Um, you could ask do you believe all the teachings of the church? Right, right. I mean that that was that was huge for me. I mean just even waking up as a catholic and and I want to To say you know to those because I've been there listen. I was very Uh lost and confused in in my own understanding of catholic teaching and who I was Supposed to be as a catholic all the way up until I was 38 39 years old. Yeah Because I didn't understand. I you know, I had a priest tell us that we've lost generations to poor catechesis So if if you're not clear on those matters either Take courage and lean in and figure out what the catechism. Yeah figure out what the answers are read the catechism You have a responsibility Not only for your own salvation to figure it out, but for those that you care about and you love To to say, okay, you know, do I believe what I've heard about the catholic church or what I think they teach? Or what is it that they really teach? and You know figure that out, but the these are a couple of areas that are really important Because every it's truth, you know, and and if you don't Hold on to the truth Everything else starts to kind of unravel because if it's okay To contracept if it's okay Um to you know, select, you know, kind of how you're going to accept life and you're not open to life And then if it's okay to pick and choose what your priest looks like and what gender They're gonna embody then everything else starts to unravel because then Then it's mad deciding what's going on instead of we must stand in truth Right, and when we stand in truth, we're safe And and everything else builds life around from that We don't want to face the god of the universe At the end of our life having made up a totally different god and worshiped that god, right? Yeah, yeah We don't so when we want to worship the one He is Jesus the second person of blessed trinity He's given us a magisterium and teaching since the beginning of the church That we can rely on and and is tested of course by time and is clear and true and beautiful And we need to adhere to those things So the next question is Uh a little different. Let's see I have tried to go to a local traditional community I won't name and they just seemed more to be a club Versus a true community, which is interesting When I read that I went and looked up an article that I wrote called Club or charism that you can find out at apostoleva.org in the blog section. You don't have to be a member. You just Go to the site and search in the little using the little search And I wrote it because many people I don't want I want people to know ours is not a spiritual club. What does that mean? And I don't know if you feel free to jump in on this but a club is is an association of persons who Come together for a common purpose and they meet periodically, right? And so you can have a club that isn't a true charism. What is a charism? A charism is a gift from the Holy Spirit Given in a particular way to an individual Or to a group for the purpose of building up the kingdom of God So it's imbued with The power of the Holy Spirit the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, right? It's evident. It's alive. It's vibrant, right, right But a club so you might have a club That likes carmelite spirituality and that all gets together and they're good people and they talk about good things But they're not really Living the carmelite charism. They're not learning how to live it. They're not being challenged to always go deeper There's not constant formation A charism is going to have all of those vibrant, you know lights in it A club that is kind of a spiritual club will have spiritual things But you'll notice pretty quickly That it's going to go Dry or it's it's shallow. I mean We won't say which group that we visited when you and I are first looking for a charism But it was a traditional one. We don't mean traditional list. We mean like the older orders like carmelites and dominicans and fascist And we visited this community and there's some folks we knew or wonderful people But it was just like that. It was very dry dead Not vibrant, you know, I I was actually pretty devastated and it caused some pain, you know for us both because You were you were just trying to help us find, you know where our place was And I came away going if that's what that means I don't want nothing to do with it, right? Because I could feel the lack of life in it. Um, there was no light. There was no There was just oh, I can't do that. So this is not right, you know, you know in your core That there's no life going on in that in that situation. And so That's that's a that's a red, you know a red flag It's it's not going to change. It's not going to get better If you don't walk in and feel the light of christ and see the light of christ in people's eyes and in their lives And if they're not growing in the lord Then it chances are it's just a club drying together of good nice people Who are maybe reading or they have a particular bent towards certain saints or spirituality But that doesn't mean it's changing them or changing the world around them And that is very very important if it doesn't change them and change the world around them And they're becoming just kind of insulari Turned in on themselves. They don't grow. They don't grow. They don't they're not on fire And and here's another thing is if they get defensive When people try to leave that's a problem. Yeah, well, that's a little more cult. Yeah, yeah Yeah, no, we've had folks We had two folks who recently just turned out of a possibly because they both felt called to dominicans spirituality And they still take part in some of our formation and they're still friends Well, if you're interested, I didn't you know, I didn't anticipate making this a commercial, but If you are drawn to the carmelite saints Or drawn to deeper prayer and you're interested in a true charism god be praised Check out apostoli va.org aposdoli va.org So the degeneration of a charism, which is also in this article I wrote about clever charism Comes when the Intensity and this kind of gets to your point the intensity of the life of the founder is diminished Like for instance, if you go join a franciscan group And they and you don't uh Learn about poverty and living a deeper kind of poverty Which means even if you're wealthy or if you're you know, if you have a lot of means Learning to give away more than the average would give away Learn to implicate yourself in the lives of the poor right then it's probably not a true Truly sacrificial. Yes. It's lost its way from the charism. Well and and what I found that was really beautiful because we have a connection Beautiful friends in the franciscan friars of the poor of jesus christ. They're awesome beautiful beautiful community I just love them love love love you wherever you are um And when they when they when I leaned into them just as a community just as as friends walking together and They had Explained to me a little bit more about st. Francis and when you truly find out who he was Oh my goodness like incredible saint incredible saint um, if he has been reduced in some group as Uh as a garden figure That holds birdseed and and it's just about kind of living a safe, you know soft kind of cushy Um overweight life that that's not st. Francis Um, so anyway, I don't know where I'm going with that but that's where No, you you you were just building on What I was saying is is the degeneration of the charism. Yeah When you read the saint you should ask the question is their vibrant life If you go to a carmelite group, do you see people on fire for prayer? Wanting to teach others about prayer Seriously committing it to it themselves. You go to a dominican group Do you see people people studying moral and dogmatic theology teaching and preaching on fire? Right, right. That's what it ought to be So check out the article if you want to learn more club or charism out on a possibly va.org And if you want to find out we have local groups all over the world, australia and canada All over the u.s. All over the u.s. Um, and it's carmelite spirituality primarily so With that our show has come to an end on community And how to find one and this great secret of growing In the faith and I think you're going to take us out. Okay, 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