 Hey friends, this is Dan Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio Having a special guest with us today. I'm sighted. I haven't seen him in a long time. He's a father ever Ezra Sullivan He's studying it or he's a you're not studying in Rome. You're working in Rome as a in your studies I don't know how to use that but a Wonderful priest of the eastern province of Dominicans. We're gonna be talking about the priesthood today and if you're a lay person you're gonna want to listen up because If you care about the church and you care about your priests, I promise you By the time that this show is over you're gonna buy a particular book and give it to your priest Yeah, and share it with your priest. I mean if you're one of those Folks that they have a really great close relationship with your priest You might want to just say hey tune in right now Or get them the broadcast later the recording later. Yeah, because I'm really like I'm just really excited about this as well Yeah, you know very dear to my heart. I will say this too, you know, we have a lot of traditionalists in our audience so Certainly just orthodox Ordinary form, you know, just that that spectrum of people who are faithful Catholics if you want to put a broader Umbrella over it and one of the one of the problems with faithful Catholics in our time is There's just a lot of complaining and wrangling about priests and bishops and whatever and This show will give you an opportunity to do something that isn't complaining But that's constructive nurturing part of the solution, you know, and so that's that's why I'm excited to have Father Ezra on again I Think before we jump in I'll just tell you about one thing. We'll start the show Etche homo Why does he etch a homie isn't it homo It is okay Somebody I think it autocorrected and I didn't say etch a homie. I think and maybe they were from California Corrected etch a home. Okay, there it is etch a homo prayer and Pasco mystery. It's a it's a retreat that we're putting on for For lent March 30th through April 1st virtual and we have 50 Catholic speakers Including me dr. Lilas father Mitch Pacqua. I don't know a bunch of amazing speakers that most Catholics want to hear Yeah, some of us will be doing direction. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, spiritual direction online So it's gonna be a pretty crazy event and nothing like it's been ever done ever been done Which it's tough the spelling error got me off whack out of whack boy. We're gonna have a fun show today. Okay So you can sign up at spiritual direction comm forward slash events Or just go to spiritual sec direction calm and click on the events tab and isn't it free? I have no clue Is it free Jordan? Yeah, it's free. Oh, how do you do that? How do you get 50 major speakers and make it free? That's just what we do. And there we go. Oh, you hear that father Ezra. He says we don't do Simon That's pretty good response. All right. Let's go ahead and start the show We don't do Simon Okay All right in your market said 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 draw upon the wisdom of the saints the spiritual patrimony of the church That we might better understand how to navigate this two volts of life and help others to do the same And that's what this show is about. And so we have a guest who I would say is an exemplar of what it means to help people Navigate the two modes of life. Yes. Yeah, and we're going to be talking about Navigating the tumult of priestly life recently life right today. Yeah difficulties. Yeah, so our guest today is father Ezra Sullivan The book will be discussing his altar Christus priestly holiness on earth and in eternity. You're not gonna want to miss this He is a Dominican friar of the province of st. Joseph in the USA and Professor of moral theology and psychology at the University of st. Thomas Aquinas in Rome at the angelicum He has published numerous articles on bioethics artificial intelligence moral theology and Ecclesial history in addition to alter Christus. He is the author of habits and holiness ethics theology and Biopsychology From CU a press in 2021 and heroic habits discovering the soul's potential for greatness So he's also written for us at this Direction right when he wasn't so busy and shipped off to Rome and he was still on the east coast Welcome back father Ezra. It's great to see you great to have you with us. Thank you. Good to see you both So I when I picked up this book I was I thought wow is this not needed in this time I want to read just a handful of things off the back cover that are extracted out from From from Sophia as they put the book together to virtues to cultivate when combating a messiah complex Why you should never become a buddy Jesus? How love is irreplaceable in a priest's life What hell will be like for unrepentant and sinful priests? What heaven will be like for holy priests and the four keys to powerful preaching Um what I mean, this is a powerhouse work I think I'd love every one of our priest friends to read to be encouraged and inspired Why what what motivated you to write it? well, I received a phone call and There was an Italian voice on the other line and it was a Monsignor who who works in the Vatican and He invited me to give a retreat For priests up in Verona, Italy That wasn't my plan I had other plans, but I dropped those and you know when the Vatican asks you to do something If it's virtuous you say yes, and so I so I went up to Verona and And I created talks that eventually I Transformed into the book and so this was originally for ordinary diocesan priests And and I wanted alter priestess to cover a lot of the material that you know I I myself was interested to learn there are a lot of books about the priesthood I wanted this one to be as it were comprehensive And the aim of the priesthood is so the subtitle is priestly holiness On earth and eternity and I you know Stephanie and I do a lot of ministry work For priests and sent in the realm of healing. It's just been something God has Designed for us. So we see a lot of really good men who are struggling in one way or the other and they're They're all going from good to better But at various paces and with various challenges The diocesan life You know, you're a religious poses some very unique and difficult Issues for even the best of diocesan priests How it seems to me you've tapped into that even though you're religious and maybe it's because you're forming Diocesan priests, right? Where did the sources of inspiration come from beyond your your own personal interest in in priestly formation? How did you derive some of the key points because knowing your writing? I'm sure you you've seen what we've seen and right, yeah well, I would say first I have a number of friends who are diocesan priests and In speaking with them in helping them out in various ways. It's helped me to understand What some of my brother priests go through when they're in the diocese? Yes, and then also here at the angelicum. I would say a majority of my students are either seminarians or diocesan priests and You know and in addition I've I've just read a lot of materials about this and try to understand Some of the history of the diocesan priesthood. Why is it the way it is now and what did it look like in the past? And that sort of gives me a broader view outside of our are, you know Very small view within the world in this particular present moment Yeah, yeah father as for what do you think is is like what if you could encapsulate what's the Difficulty of being a diocesan priest like the top here. What do you mean? What what are the things that happen or that are placed upon our priests or they fall into that really turns Their ability to be holy it really puts a cross on them that makes it very difficult If you could name some of those things that that you see as some of the difficulties that work against our priests Right, so they're gonna be external and internal difficulties that a diocesan priest is gonna face and some of the external difficulties are definitely loneliness yeah, because Now may often they live alone in a rectory or maybe just with one other priest and And that wasn't always the case that in fact, you know after the Council of Trent it the the bishops tried to encourage priests to live a common life and In fact, they always preferred to have a rectory with five fellows who would go out missionary style Rather than to have a man who's living alone by himself. So so I'd say loneliness Certainly is is one of the top now, of course, you know married couples can be lonely Also, even together. Yeah, but but it has of course a different character. So so loneliness is one secondly the secularity that The world is now undergoing and and a priest is always challenged to know how to live out his own Life not having a religious structure and having you know the sort of this secularity impinging upon him for instance You know for me, it's a lot easier to live as it were a religious life I have all my brothers I wear my habit They were their habits and a priest has to ask himself. Well, am I going to wear my collar? Am I going to make myself available in some of those ways? But also this secularity that can arise within his own life So those are two external forces. I would say internally I would say one is Certainly immaturity Unfortunately, there's there's a large amount of Emotional immaturity and and a lack of full autonomy and what I mean is, you know, I'm using psychological language, but what I mean is Sometimes a priest can go through formation and and not be treated like an adult not to have full responsibilities And and this kind of limits his his own apprehension of his priesthood and then he sort of cast out into the wild and And it leads to a lot of difficulties as he sort of stumbles around and tries to figure out how to lead the flock of God alone Alone alone. That's right with very little assistance Yeah, and and and then the other internal difficulty I would say and this is chief of course is a minimal prayer life and And not having the interior union with Jesus Christ with the Holy Trinity Mm-hmm that actually impels him to Continually give him himself in a holy way to the people so so that there are four causes and and I'm sure there are more Yeah, yeah, no, that's a that's a fascinating seminar if you'd asked me the first one would have been isolation Which is the other side of the coin of of loneliness and it what's interesting a number of priests have come through recently one who's establishing a Community of diocesan priests and in a in a particular diocese to mitigate some of these issues another Recently expressed to us an interest and and that sort of thing but I but I also want to say this to our audience and ask for your prayer We are now working with in priestly formation in 40 dioceses in the United States And one of the first things we teach guys who are heading into the seminaries how to pray and how to how to What how to understand who is this Jesus to me personally? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus disciple of Jesus and I think that's going to go a long way But I I think the other three that you noted are all mitigated by community and a priest can form intentional community in their dioceses And even share a kind of diocesan priestly spirituality that has some directionality to it would go a long way to Creating a more constant rhythm of spiritual life and encouragement and so a beautiful Summary, I think that's very helpful. Yeah Good, so we're talking with Father Ezra Sullivan OP and he's written an exceptional book alter Christus priestly holiness on earth and in eternity and We'll be buying this for every single priest to pass through Our retreat center down in Montgomery, Alabama from now on is the book only for priests Well, the book is for everybody When when I wrote the book I wanted to provide a way to understand Both the priesthood and so if somebody wanted basically a summary of the sacramentology And of you know the role of the priest you get it here But also there are a lot of principles that are applicable in every way of life I've received feedback already from some laypeople saying hey, this is great. All you I can apply this to my life immediately Like all you have to do is just take out you know the paragraph That's about a priest and plug-in family and really a lot of the principles are the same Very beautiful. That's very good. Well the the next thing I want to shift gears to Dive in a little bit more to the holiness Issue right so you mentioned that in terms of prayer is the big barrier We're almost ready to head into a break when we come back from the break. I want to talk about your admonitions to prayer I noticed I think you quoted one of my favorite authors on prayer Well, there's a couple in here, of course, you're gonna lean on the grunge But I think I saw a gorey if I remember right in this realm and he's so hard hitting on prayer We just brought a book back to print called prayer a great means of salvation through Sophia Institute Which I think would convince any priest to pray so father address as your soul of an altar Christ is priestly holiness and On earth and in an eternity we get back from the break We're gonna talk about holiness in the life of the priest. We'll be right back So friends before we go back from the break so we got we gotta add it needs to be in that you want to do 1315 sure one of the courses that we have coming up at the Avila Institute This is a graduate level course. He knows the professor and and his father Ignatius Switzer He's a huge favorite at the Avila Institute and one of our beloved priests. We just love him He's just awesome. The course is called Bible and the revelation of prayer So we're still talking about prayer that begins Thursday, March 9th. You'll want to check it out go to have a lead-institute.org and check out By the Bible and the revelation of prayer. Yeah, we have a lot of priests by the way I know we have a lot of priests listen on Sunday morning to this show on EWTN as they're vesting as their vesting And We have a lot of priests do who study in just the spiritual theology program as well So for our priest friends out there We're wired to support you both spiritually in terms of our community of possibly VA and our commitment Daily to pray and sacrifice for priests but also for our apostle at work with the Avila Avila Institute so check it out and know that we're praying for you We love you and we appreciate all the hard-working priests out there who's struggling And but making it to a huge difference in the lives of the church in the world So we're gonna jump back in okay Is there not a show do I not do a radio show let's see Can't be irritated if I leave my phone on on can I Okay, on your mark. He gets get set go. This is Dana Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to divine intimacy Radio your radio haven't brass. We're talking with Father Ezra Sullivan about a very important book That you need to buy and read and buy it for your priest alter Christus. You should read it for yourself, too Priestly holiness and on earth and in eternity. So I want to shift gears and kind of get down to brass tacks on on prayer I I'm I'm it's clear to me that you have a deep commitment to prayer. I mean everybody thinks Or will they just do but necessarily always the case The how important is mental prayer to the priest and maybe maybe start with what is mental prayer And why is it that every priest ought to be engaged in it? Well, the the general definition of prayer used in the catechism Comes from st. John of Damascus where he says it's the raising of the mind and the heart to God and and mental prayer then will be the focus of the mind upon God in In a way in which the body is at rest and so, you know, typically you're sitting or you're kneeling and You're in a place that's undistracted and then your mental prayer can either use imagination It's best if you transcend the imagination and then you move to the acts of the will to To love God and to accept him and all the acts of the will that flow from your understanding your faith Yeah, very good in the end the end in in a brass task tax brass tax level We're talking about entering into the richest source of that knowledge of God and at least in the sense of what we can Comprehend by our own discursive action is in the Gospels right meditating on the person and work of Jesus we're this You know around different times of the year We focus on different aspects of that like adventurer lint but What do you propose for priests? Well, how important is prayer this kind of prayer for priests? And do you propose a regimen or just an encouragement? What do you what do you want to say the priests listening about? The or aren't they just too busy to pray? Oh, you know what? Yeah, that's right. We forgot We're just putting too much on them. Yeah, I mean I that's you know, I hear that they've got too much to do Well, you know, I discovered a book by Santa Alfonso's Liguri when when I was in college and I remember being in the rectory of a redemptorist church and they had a shelf of Santa Alfonso's Liguri's books and it really changed my life and and one of the books that I found Was this book called the great and necessary means of salvation? And and there's Santa Alfonso's the doctor of the church, you know, he was a Neapolitan saint so just full of that Italian emotion and And he he taught me how to pray more intimately to Christ and of course, you know I had prayers memorized and in fact a number of scriptures and yet Santa Alfonso says waves speaking to the Blessed Virgin Mary speaking to Jesus as you would speak to your friend Really helped me to understand that prayer wasn't simply asking God for something Nor was it simply, you know saying I'm sorry But it was also pouring out the love of my heart to Christ knowing that he's listening and Asking the saints to come to me in the particular power that they have as intercessors so So the first thing I would say is everybody has time to pray. It's a matter of priorities and Frankly, if you don't have time to pray, it's because you're putting something else before prayer and that might include work, but often frankly, it's going to include entertainment and Just to just to be very honest about things I know that people work hard and you know, they we all need a virtuous Recreation undoubtedly, you know, Saint Thomas insists. This is part actually of virtue. Nevertheless Prayer should come first and and that means we pray when we wake up We pray throughout the day, but then there's certain times that we have to set aside There was an old missionary and diocese and priest He once said to me before he died. He was in his 90s He said that one of the things that helped him to be faithful When he was in Kenya for many years working out in a diocese with a bishop He said one of the things that helped him be faithful to his life was having a regular schedule of Prayer that he said I set a time the same time every single day. He says I never let anything interrupt that and I think that's absolutely crucial, especially now that priests can be Accessed by the telephone text email So many constant ways for a person to be distracted. If you don't say to yourself, I'm going to pray at this time then Often you'll wait until the last minute or you won't pray at all So simply having a regular schedule itself is going to be kind of a foundation in a concrete pillar So that would be my challenge to some any listeners, but especially priests over Lent is not not just say to yourself Oh, I'm going to pray, you know Half an hour a day or something but say I'm going to pray half an hour a day at this time 7 a.m. Or whenever it is. Well, I wrote a book called into the deep finding peace of prayer and in it trying to resurrect a Form of a blend of lexiodavina and Ignatian imaginative prayer But in it I have three pillars sacred time, which you just described Which is we dedicate specific time to God and we promise it to him And and I think I don't want to get my theology wrong here but I like to say under pain of sin that level of promise and of course Aquinas says that That if we don't pray we have sinned right so it is necessary to pray sacred attention or sacred space is What you have that's unique as religious, but everyone can create Which is a place to go both of those if you go at the exact time and you go to a sacred space It can it trains your body in essence to be your friend You get your body becomes habitually in rhythm both in terms of the Visual aspects of prayer the benefits of beauty and icons and candles and then of course the rhythm of time And then the third is sacred attention, and that's what we talk about a specific matter to pray about the Gospels are going to be the best place and St. Teresa of Abola says of course as with leguri that the graces that come in mental prayer suppress sin and increase virtue by nature and dispose us Then thereby more fully to the sacrament. So it's like it creates this virtuous cycle upward For anyone who undertakes the discipline and and boy you want your you want your priest's life to be much more than a temporal Gain for the kingdom you want it to be eternal Working with Christ in you through you because of your union with him is going to magnify Everything you do to the glory of God and to eternal consequences not just temporal So we got and we you know as lay people I'd we have to fight to help our priests if we're working in the parish get stuff off his plate and Encourage him and give him space to pray as well Well, you know and and to that point, you know, we we as lay people can do this as well So I don't want anybody to come away from this broadcast thinking well That's only for no reason was to do that. Yeah, because that was a turning point for me I like to call it first fruits and To father's point clearing my calendar. I would start with a brand new calendar That was the the game changer for me because I kept trying to fit prayer into my life Yeah, but when I started with a blank calendar decided what I was going to give the Lord in my week in Ink and everything else was in pencil. Yeah, it was it changed my life Yeah, absolutely transformed my life and it was just an extraordinary gift So then then our life becomes an outpouring of that prayer Yeah, and we're being filled with the Lord and then our work becomes an outpouring of that grace that we've received So it's just a beautiful thing that sacred time sacred space and then the sacred attention of turning off everything and Starting, you know at the beginning of the day and giving the Lord our first fruits well said I want to go back to Father Ezra so you recommended a book which I said that you discovered that we just brought back into print one of the things he says in the book I'll find this degree is if you don't practice mental prayer you were not making it and then he makes an argument for why You won't stay on the narrow way. You'll be too Controlled by sin you won't have clarity about your own defects You'll you know, so he beautifully and powerfully as you noted makes those arguments but in in there's a point in in alter Christus where you talk about Considering our last ends and I think that's what leguri does so well in terms of how he deals with The call to eternal activity if you will I don't know a better way saying that so why is the remembrance of death? Why did you why did you find that so important to put that in the book alter Christus? Well for one thing You know the book of Syriac says that in everything you you do remember the end of your life and then you will never sin and and Aquinas picks that up and He says essentially when we keep in mind heaven then that provides both a motive for all the actions that we're performing as Well as it provides us with an ordering goal Because now I understand the relative value of all of these things in light of heaven some of them have eternal consequence and some of them are temporal and they will simply pass away and So what I wanted to do was to help my brother priests to consider that if they don't repent from their grave sins and And make this firm purpose of amendment that they will suffer more than other people Because of the gift that they've been given Whereas at the same time I think we you know this sort of false egalitarianism of the world Would suggest that oh well if priests gets to heaven, you know, we're all we're all going to have the same kind of gifts and rewards Well, not necessarily They're they're appropriated according to our cooperation with the grace that we've been given And and so that that also is a kind of a motive where you know the person who's been given one city our lord says Well, you know if he if he's faithful to that you you have it doubled and but the person who's be given five well now they'll have 10 so So I think that um, I wanted to both warn as well as encourage priests to think about What um, what might happen whether for ill or for good depending on their cooperation with god's work in their life Excellent father esra, sullivan op everything he's written and I don't say this about every guest Not that I discriminate, but Everything he's written is worth reading including on our website spiritualdirection.com on the topic of yoga has written some of the best work there But this book is important. I think it's for the laity also for priests. Please go buy one for your priests and um spend some time reading it and as you read it Pray for your priests because dios and priests priestly life is extremely difficult in my Work in our working with priests. It's just clear to us That they're assailed from within and from without They're isolated typically they need Lay people who don't have political agendas, but who are faithful and want to support them And invite them to dinner not to manipulate them but to love them You know all of these things we need to surround our priests with prayer with love with good formation You can send them to the avalanche to you can buy them courses here Hey, you can tell them about the retreat center in montgomery alabama and tell them to reach out And we provide a place for them to rest. It's beautiful. It's 60 acres. They were specific prayer And it's just Remarkable. So come rest. Thank you father. Father esra. Yeah, when you come when you coming back to the united states I'll be back. Actually for holy week awesome. Well if you want to slip down to To montgomery. We'd love to see you but either way. Thanks for being such a good priest And for spending so much of your life to advance the kingdom of god Thank you, and thank you for all that you do 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 Thanks again father. Great to see you