 Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio About ready to start the show. We're gonna be talking about spiritual warfare questions and answers that you guys have submitted to us on spiritual warfare and So as folks are logging in I wanted to just remind you of a couple things Related to Christmas Uh Christmas presents that would be awesome the Divine intimacy and marriage Hansville, Alabama Is a marriage retreat Stephanie and I are putting on February 11th through the 15th 13th over of course Valentine's Day and the great shrine of the most blessed sacrament. It's an amazing place No goof for the guys. It's a very powerful Retreat for marriage too and if you guys if you want to get enough points to last you a few years In your point your guys points inventory Get that for your wife sign up register and put in the little envelopes that we were telling folks to do stuff Yes, please and and don't mind my my husband's Flatness right now. He's not feeling very well So listen it is it is really a beautiful beautiful weekend and It it'll just it'll change your marriage to the extent that you embrace it and run after it So please do this for one another do it for your spouse You know print that out roll it up put it in a boat under the tree You're done and listen. It'll be like, you know one of the best presents ever. We watched a beautiful couple friend of ours give each other a gift of sorts and the glow on her husband's face it was a gift of to draw them closer to draw Yes to draw them closer marriage in their time together and their love for one another. I Have his smile and his glow at receiving that from her was so beautiful Listen, your your wife is gonna faint when you especially if you're not prone to doing these kind of things It's it's a guys guys kind of retreat and a woman's woman's kind of retreat. So Try it out do it. You won't regret it. I can assure you that so the other one and then we'll go ahead and jump into the show I'm spiritual warfare is pilgrimage to the holy land. So our new dates are May 30th through June 6th or June 8th and That's gonna be amazing. There'll also be an opportunity and during that pilgrimage to renew vows On the sea a galley, I think or something like that anyway But it'll be an amazing pilgrimage regardless. Yeah, I'm excited you've been I have never been So you get to watch me just like fall apart at every Every location because I'm just gonna be beyond myself, right, you know If you've been before and you're kind of humdrum about it Just come and watch me be amazed by everything because I'm so excited. Well, and our pilgrimages are pretty deep in terms It's deep water. Yeah, and I even wrote a book for all the pilgrims. Yeah, just for this trip Yeah, so everyone will get a book. It's not about having a spiritual vacation. This is a true pilgrimage Come it's it's really beautiful every time we go on pilgrimage. We see so many beautiful miracles Yeah So if you want to know about our events and stuff spiritual direction calm forward slash events or just click on events So we have, you know, a bunch of different events coming up in terms of speaking events and Opportunities we have a spiritual warfare summit next summer. Yeah In at CUA at CUA the location has changed. Yeah, so don't buy your ticket. Don't buy your airline tickets Just yet. Yeah, so we'll have all the information coming out later this week, but it has been changed to CUA. Yeah, yeah All right, very good, I think we're Ready to start the show. Let me pull up the questions and I have them All right. Do you ready? Producer man new market to go. This is Dana Stephanie Burke. Welcome to divine intimacy radio No, I didn't I messed it up. Didn't I already This is why you get to watch it behind the scenes you get to watch me mess up. Okay, ready new market to go I don't know how like people who do radio every day Do it, but you know, well, I actually think one of the reasons you mess up is because we only do it once a week I think if we did it every day, you wouldn't forget. All right, I'd figure out little ways to recover or something Yeah, that makes me feel a little better. Okay on your mark. It's a go. This is Dana 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 help us understand How to draw near to the Lord in the midst of these difficult and challenging times through the wisdom of the saints the spiritual patrimony of the church Through the mystical tradition of the church, which is all life-giving Life liberating, I mean, it's a beautiful journey. That's what we call it divine intimacy intimacy with God Intimacy with Jesus. He is the the way the truth and the life the light our love. He's everything So draw near and let's see what we have for spiritual warfare questions to awesome awesome Okay, so the first question we have is How does one know for certain when they're being deceived? Reading scripture. I'm increasingly aware That my heart might be moving away from the Lord even without my true awareness I know this is a fascinating question. Yeah, and Actually, it's it's so I haven't read these questions. I don't know anything about them so I haven't seen them yet, but what's interesting to me is I've been in this discussion recently with this dear priest friend of ours Father Luke and We were discussing that like how do you recognize God's voice, right? And the way that you recognize God's voice and now Father Luke is an exorcist while you're looking at up Just sure. No, that's what he does all day every day. Yes So so all all he does every day every day all day every day Other than pray, he's a religious as well, right, but he he's very practiced in how do you perceive God's voice? How do you know when the enemy is is influencing you or when when the Lord is and This is the way because the Lord's voice is this love joy peace patience kindness generosity faithfulness gentleness and Self-control So if whatever is influencing you is moving you towards love joy peace patience kindness generosity Faithfulness gentleness or self-control you can be at peace the Lord is leading you and those are the fruits of the spirit found in Galatians Five Galatians five at the end of it. So yeah, the the enemy is not going to lead you toward those generally You know, there are some Well, let's see let's say this the effects the lasting effects of those things can only come from the Holy Spirit, right? There can be simulation Simulation, but it's simulation as a result of sin, right? It's short term. It's also sinful Yeah, right. So so if if you know having If fornicating with your girlfriend brings you joy, that's not of God. That's not a godly joy No, it's not a godly joy What we're talking about are that are the spirits those those fruits of the spirit that lead us to heaven? Yeah, they draw our heart and mind to God our spirits to God and they bring us peace and This this lightness of spirit, you know, if we have this darkness and this heaviness You know, we can get drawn into the sorrow of the world You know the sorrow of God leads us to repentance and it leads our hearts and minds to be drawn close to him And what repentance means turning to him. So you know when you when there's deception it leads you to the opposite of Love joy peace patience goodness kindness general self-control. I'm just speaking out of a different translation It leads you to the opposite of those to doubt despair or narcissism self-focused to sin pride It also any deceptions will always lead you to do or believe something contrary to the authentic Magisterium of the Catholic Church as well Whether it through the be the highest form of public revelation in scripture or whatever But this is why you have to learn to discern, you know, though the one exception that I was making reference to is that the the bad spirits can use Consolation or good Temporary good feelings to seduce you to thinking that you you are doing the right thing and they can lead you to good things in quotes That they want you to do that are not the primary good thing. I'll give you an example So my primary vocation is your is your spouse You know aside from my relationship with God, there's nothing more important your spouse Huh your spouse not my spouse to be your spouse, right? You said your primary vocation is your spouse. Oh I need to personalize it, right? So if we all sound a little stuffy by the way We're all we're all a little sick under the weather. Sorry, but um, so my primary vocation is to you in this life So if the enemy the enemy can propose that I do so many good things and give me a kind of false Consolation or encouragement to do them that that I don't spend any time with you and it begins to deteriorate my marriage so right that's it so Some there are obvious immediate Deceptions that lead you away from, you know, love joy peace patience. Goodness kindness. Gemma's and Then there are more subtle deceptions Especially as you make more progress in the interior life That can lead you to to doing good things that are not God's will right does that make sense? Yes So the way now, how do you the question then is how do I learn to discern and that's why I wrote spiritual warfare in the discernment of spirits book, which is a very small easy to read book We sold I think close to 40,000 copies. It's really gone like crazy You can find it at spiritualdirection.com for its last shop Out there and a good easy read easy read, but very powerful very practical, right? We use it in our priestly formation as well. So lay people love it You guys who are heading into the priesthood really like it as well So check that out spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits that'll help you learn how to practice. Okay, okay? This one's definitely for you Well, I'll try first and then you tell me if I'm wrong. I'll talk about just curious you'll understand why How do we explain spiritual warfare to our children without frightening them? So what I think you should do is the dad should dress up as the devil and And with the kids in the room and the mom should then fight off the devil in Front of the kids to help them understand with the rosary in her hand Like beating the devil. Yeah, she's playing around her rosary. I think that's a bad idea. That's weird. Sorry. That's a little strange Sorry, so so the question again is how how do we explain spiritual warfare to our children without frightening them? Mmm-hmm. Yeah, that's a that's a fascinating fascinating question. I mean What about the Watson stuff on that? Yeah, I mean Father Watson has a whole seer and it's not necessarily about spiritual warfare It is but it's not right quietly about it. It's quietly about it and it's age appropriate Yeah, right because it's not age appropriate To tell a three-year-old who is completely wide open to the Lord and innocent and beautiful and start to put scary things in their head You know I personally Being an educator what I would do is fill our children so full of light and What's good and holy and true and what everything that is beautiful that the church has to offer and just fill fill fill fill and teach and love because that pushes out the darkness it does push out the darkness and then as they get older as They're in middle school and you're already teaching about temptation You're already teaching the things that they need to know and and you're using life Experiences and you're using proper catechetical materials That's when you can start discussing those things, you know sort of you know I don't know third fourth fifth grade on into middle school Then I think there's more capacity to kind of deal with that, you know, we deal with it in younger years a little more Lightheartedly, but not flippantly, right if that makes any sense. Yeah, and I think This happened in our family a couple times The most memorable one is with our daughter Ariel who was having nightmares and experiences And this was in her, I don't know pre-adolescent stage or adolescent around there and What I did is you know went as a father and prayed over her and then I taught her how to Renounce it and pray the archangel Michael prayer. I think for younger kids even when they get afraid So you in the moment you can say oh, you know what the Lord has given you and your guardian angel and The archangel Michael is special protection, right to fight these things. So here's what you do Use and you teach them the archangel Michael prayer, but you're not focused on the enemy You're focused on the good that the Lord has given them, right, right? So I'm extrapolating back from that time with Ariel of teaching her how she was in middle school middle school Okay, yeah, so so during that time that was completely appropriate. It's beautiful. Yeah, we're talking about the little ones, right? Yeah, you know and and where kind of that starts to work in so going back To resources. Oh, you know check out sacred story Institute dot net. Yeah sacred story Institute net They're one one of that one of the two. Yeah, so father Watson William Watson created a bunch of stuff. That's for children particularly for children I've seen it be incredibly effective in the classroom. We piloted his program elementary school, right? Yeah, when I was in middle school when I was an elementary school Catholic principal So it was beautiful It was really wonderful meditations and the kids would draw as they listened to meditations and prayers So you were really learning how to pray The other one who has incredible Catechetical materials is Sophia Institute for teachers And all of their materials are wonderful, especially if you're home schoolers It's really great in particular with father Watson stuff. They he he's he's a Good Jesuit and he teaches in a very subtle ways Ignatian spirituality to children in the sense of becoming aware Aware of the movements, right, which it teaches them without the scary part, right? He's them to become aware of the consolation and desolation. Yeah I mean he he teaches he'll help to children learn to discern the good spirits and The bad spirits right using that kind of language. So that's I think that's appropriate, you know I I watched a mother I was talking to a mother one time and her children started to squabble in the other room and they were little little She's in the kitchen. She starts praying to our lady out loud and Her children stopped fighting One of her little ones ran in grab her grabbed her legs and said thank you, mommy Now you tell me that that baby didn't have a sense of a sense of what was happening because they went from squabbling and fighting to Their mother praying and all of it lifting. It was really beautiful. Yeah, well about ready to do a break folks just head out to Spiritualdirection.com to find out you to get past episodes of this show all the past episodes of this show Thousands of articles on the interior life It's a doorway into courses graduate level courses at the Avalon suit whatever We really got whatever you need and then the last thing I'll say is check out a possibly VA to work For a strong Catholic community and as we head into the break when we get back We're going to talk about Deliverance prayers for lady and priests and which which are which and how to find them Okay, we'll be right back and the market said go actually stop Reset and you mark is that go this is Dana Stephanie Burke Burke. What's my name Burke Burke? Welcome back to divine intimacy radio We're talking about spirits of warfare and so this question comes from Kimberly and She says what deliverance prayers are for lady and for what are for priests? Also, should we pray to our angels allowed or they hear us if we pray silently so For lady and priest so there's a book produced by father Chad Ripperger called deliverance prayers for the lady He didn't write the prayers But he assembled the book and it's out of a larger book of deliverance prayers used by priests But he assembled the the subset is A subset because they're different than the priestly prayers the fundamental differences That they do not contain as a norm command prayers So prayers that you speak directly to the demonic as a norm There are some exceptions when you have authority But they all of the prayers for the lady are supplication prayers They're prayers to God or to the archangels or to our angels to fight on our behalf Rather than speaking directly to the demonic priests even exorcists of course, but also priests have authority to speak directly to the demonic in Given certain situations at with exorcism. They have to have a special Faculties from the bishop But outside of exorcism and not people who are not fully possessed outside of the right They do have authority to speak directly to the demonic as well So there the there are also two other Sets of prayers and I want you to tell them about the exorcism app is that where you're going next awesome But there are two other Sets of prayers axillium Christian norm prayers. You can very very important. Yes, we pray them daily without fail without fail Yeah, we mental prayer and axillium. We don't miss But you can find that at AUX IL I U M C H R IS T I A N O R U M I don't know how I remember that axillium Christian norm when you go out. There's an app for that But if you go to their website, they'll be you'll it'll be clearly marked Downloads for priests and downloads for laity and you do not pray the priestly prayers because you do not have authority to do that But now tell them about that. Okay, this is really cool In fact, I was just I just spent some time this past weekend with these incredible priests and beautiful team so there is an App that is from the st. Michael's Center for Spiritual Renewal They are the the exorcism team up in DC, Washington DC So you look for the app It's a free app st. Michael's Center for Spiritual Renewal app and it's it's also says Exorcism out because it's called exorcism. I think it's called Exorcism. Yeah, it has it has a little blue Background and a white shield and just says exorcism under it And so you'll you'll be taken to the st. Michael's Center for Spiritual Renewal and you'll see prayers resources and favorites So if you go to the prayers and it also says learn more in context So you can even contact them through that if you have any questions So you go to the prayers and it says prayers for priests exorcists deliverant prayers Deliverance prayers to be used by any priest Prayers for those assisting priests and exorcisms Blessings used by priests and at the very bottom it says Deliverance prayers for the lady. Yeah, so you can go to that section and at the very top of that It says before you say these prayers They have a little section where they give you a little bit of education about what your authority is a little bit of formation And you know, what's your authority? What can I do? What can I not do? And there are extraordinary prayers here I I just love it one of them that we use on a regular basis is the umber leaner prayer for technology when we have issues Either in radio or whatever. That's a great one Deliverance and blessing of the bedroom daily prayers that you can pray for your priest Breaking of occult ties binding prayers, you know, rosary of liberation You can even decommission your tattoo on this thing. So it has yeah No present company included Neither one of Dan and I do not have tattoos just so you know, not yet We're not doing that. So anyway, it's a great resource there, especially for your priest if your priest Has not Does not know about this This will be really really helpful to them because we are hearing Right and left from priests that all kinds of darkness all kinds of stuff is showing up either You know through phone calls to the to their offices or in the confessional or whatever and they they're not necessarily trained What to do, right? You know only certain priests are trained as exorcists and they have to be They have to be assigned by their bishop, but every priest can do minor exorcism every priest can do deliverance And what's beautiful about the st. Michael's center is they will help them. They will train them They will ask their questions answer their questions, you know And they have entire sections that are just for the priest to deal with the day to day Stuff that they have to deal with awesome. They're a wonderful group of priests very holy wonderful. All right next question This is a little bit relating to the other one about you know Deceptions in the positive Fear is it possible for the devil to do positive things in one's life? In order to keep one in a state of complacency and sin and wow is the answer. Yes. Yeah Yeah, the the You know The enemy it so as an example So we already talked we'll go over what we already went over but as an example if you Are not practicing daily mental prayer, let's say And you are very dynamic speaker. This is actually a case that occurred in multiple actually multiple cases. I'm aware of Um priest or lady doesn't matter. I'm aware of two cases Um the the enemy will pump you up in your ministry and get a lot of people following you because he knows That you are not sound spirit sound enough spiritually to overcome whatever he's going to throw at you Whenever he wants to at the at a most opportune time Like when everything's kind of at its height and then he'll reach in he'll pull that lynch pin And tempt that person and they go down and guess what that scandal takes down Thousands right people's hearts are broken, you know, they're discouraged. They're struggling. How is it possible? That father so and so did this and oh my gosh and you know the the fallout Is horrid. Yeah. Yeah, so so the enemy can bless in quotes Your efforts and how do you deal with that? How do you make sure that doesn't happen? Get a daily practice of mental prayer and learn discernment of spirits. I mean and there's two books simple easy books to get to deal with this and get these things in your life Into the deep on met daily mental prayer and spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits Get those in your life sound sacramental life, you know Kling to jesus kling to jesus regular confession And you're going to be fine. It's just that if you don't have that daily mental prayer I will tell you that is the secret. I mean, there are a lot of devout catholics in quotes Who don't practice mental prayer and are struggling with habitual mortal sin. It's very common in the traditionalist movement And I don't say that as an outsider Uh where people are struggling with habitual sins because they don't Practice the the foundational disciplines. They're good at devotions. They're good at novenas good at the rosary You know all of that but not drawing daily intimately with jesus And gaining the graces that can only come through mental prayer that of course Even heighten our ability to be properly disposed to the holy sacrifice of the mass And all the other graces that the lord wants to to give to us in the divine economy Yeah, I think one of the primary ways that the enemy Unders good people is he gets them really really really really busy. Yeah really busy And so they so what's the first thing to go? Oh, well, I'm exhausted. I really don't have time to get up and pray I really don't have time for adoration. I really don't you know, oh, I meant to go to confession But you know, oh, you know father will be there next week and we keep putting off These these devotions these sacramentals these Sacraments that we need to really really be embedded in And everything like we see in apostole vie anything for god begins before god on our knees Right anything for god begins before god on our knees. So we must stay Deep in prayer Very low very humble and if you are too busy to pray guess what you are too busy And you need to start stripping back some of these activities that you're doing And slow down and be fed by the one Who is going to guide your steps because I can tell you something if you're out Changing the world in your perception and doing all kinds of really really busy stuff But you don't know the person who created you the god who created you It's for nothing. Yeah, and it's you're building your house on sand. You must build it on rock. Yeah, that's a recent gospel passage I know So as we're coming to a conclusion on the show, I just got to say something that's really important to all of you Things are getting more and more difficult out there and we all know it and I I'm not a downer I'm a actually pretty positive guy But it's not going to get better anytime soon. It's not going to get better politically economically spiritually It's not going to get better in the church anytime soon. What can get better Is that you can draw near to the one who has all the answers to all of these problems You can draw near to the one who can set you free from anxiety Who can give you all that you need to grow spiritually and to be a light in the midst of the darkness Which we're all called to be we're not called to be victims We're not called to be curled up underneath our desks and worrying in fear and we're not called to have anxiety We're called to live in peace and joy And I'm going to extend a personal invitation to you to a resource that Is I think the most important resource we offer? And that is the community of apostole VA This is a community of worldwide Catholics Catholics who are on fire for the faith There's no negativity in our forums. There's no attacks There's only people who are just saying how do I draw near to jesus? Will you help me? There's local groups all over the united states in the world that are gathering together to encourage and strengthen one another thousands of members Head out to and it's free. It's all free 100 free apostole va.org. That's a p o s t o l i v i a e dot org By by we meet several times a month for formation. There are free courses There's a prayer chapel people are constantly interacting about the interior life Conversations about the interior life encouraging supporting one another It's a community for this time. I think the lord has risen it brought it to fruition To help the people of god learn how to live the contemplative life light the way to others and then personally leading guide others So I want to personally Invite you. I know Stephanie Stephanie and I are both of course out there all the time you have any thoughts about that before we Oh, no, it's just so important. You know if you're out there by yourself and And um, you're you're struggling in any way spiritually or even if you're not and you just want to go deeper Drawn near because there's there's so much beauty there. Yeah apostole va.org a p o s t o l i v i a e dot org Why don't you close us with our normal prayer? 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 and and and do you want to tell them? Where'd the what we're doing? Yeah, so uh, what we're doing next is We're gonna pop out. We're gonna have another show That'll be a little bit more fun. I mean not that this wasn't fun, but it's on spiritual warfare, right? It's kind of heavy stuff. We're gonna do another show And uh, it's uh, we're gonna be at spiritualdirection.com facebook page Yeah So if you've enjoyed the show today and you want to keep hanging with us head out to spiritualdirection.com facebook Is it also youtube or is that are we live streaming on youtube spiritualdirection.com as well? So hopefully we'll see you guys out there Okay