EP 9 - A Personal Journey
00:00 No, no, peace, domine, domine. No, no, peace, domine. Se domini, se domini, tu, da rolinna.
00:27 I've always been particularly attached to blessed Angela of Follinio. She was a Franciscan mystic born 22 years after St.
00:40 Francis. In an awful epidemic it would seem she lost her husband and all her children and her mother almost at the same time.
00:49 Seatly afterwards on a pilgrimage to a seaside, she had a dramatic and public ecstasy in the great basilica of San Francesco.
01:01 Conversion was complete and she gave up everything and gave all to God. Haleinnahut indu гaivお luna tua na hiic o stubiün unzen.
01:14 Haleinnahut indiu gāiri haleitzterrorostari am aminoestors straibarum s.
01:30 I was smiling because the truth of the matter is, it was only after her canonization thanks to the efforts of Pope Benedict.
01:43 It was only after that that I really came to understand what I'd been preaching and teaching others for years, namely, the prayer is the school of the Divinian Morris, the school where we learn to long God.
02:04 ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― � But you learn how to love God, as he loves us, it is the school of divine loving and what is taught in that school is divine loving, namely the pure, selfless, simple, unadulterated, Unconditional love-ing with which he loves us
02:58 . That's what is eventually taught in this school. And that's what I had to learn. Last time I told you have in the division I began this journey by learning to love God in and through his presence in our Lord Jesus Christ while he was on earth.
03:19 Hadas case so, he earned comfort, prepared to prosper, particularly in meditating on the Last Supper and the Passion of our Lord.
03:28 What he gave to us. But then towards the end of my Niss Teshart, all of a sudden, an ecstations, all the further- all the FEELing left me and I found myself in a dark, black, wilderness, full of dryness, Iridity, temptations, distractions, it had all gone.
03:59 What is the purpose I thought? What's the purpose of continuing? And even when I asked somebody, they said, oh, well, you know, we all go through first further.
04:10 After that, you, you just get on with your life. But somehow something had happened in my meditation, and this is why you must never try to bypass meditation, meditating on the love of Christ, what he gave us while he was on earth.
04:27 While meditating on his passion, I came to see and understand that he could have called an end to everything, the terrible pain and suffering, ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― Eto tere kual du mure hanna, Suí fri mern Angela verdume kual srea y Tore i mrei sem ow equations, Mrei sreja reform' sreja
05:31 dermine hi Exactio kijken misimuites esGu. Sit beid, when hur r ya vaio capacitor However the mip servi ke piele sciputi vaio su pe tишiri Aiko m compyanjere a gibum earns Aiko di visu Aiko per sami Aiko veru Tai min or zen ―I was sad to see that no one else was there after completion, nobody else joined
06:27 me or very rarely at any rate, either on the staff or the students. ―Yes, the literature was performed well and devoutly, but no one seemed to see the importance of personal prayer.
06:41 ―I was there predominantly on my own, as I journeyed on, thanks to the meditation on the passion of Christ. Believing that I was doing the right thing, though I had no feeling to support me at all, and so I journeyed on.
07:03 Without realizing it, I was practicing, and this is why this moment in prayer, of prayer in prayer, is it so absolute importance.
07:15 I was beginning to practice for the very first time. The pure, selfless, undiluted unconditional loving with which Christ had loved us.
07:32 And it was only in practicing this, that it could become a habit in such a way that my love would be changed so that it would be at least similar to the love of Christ, poaller users station a price shows for us on the cross paying taxes as anun ceremony l'am cannot be united, so it could only be in
07:58 this form of love, his form of loving, could be generated that I could be united with him, but I didn't see it at the time.
08:08 I only saw it with the hindsight. If I'd only realized it at the time, of course, it would have been given me further strength to go on, but I didn't.
08:20 – but nevertheless, the Holy Spirit though it that I did persevere persevere persevere, after this particular moment in the Spiriture life is absolutely essential.
08:36 – Yes, I did ask one or two students even in confession, but they said the similar sort of o c'est-ce que my confessor in the novice, oh, yeah, we all go through that, but then you've got to get over and get on with your life, which meant get on with your studies for ordination, so that when you are
08:58 ordained, you can go out with a body of theology in your head, in your mind, to teach to other people, but something more is required.
09:09 and that's something I would have to learn in many years of journeying on in prayer. As everybody must eventually learn it, learn it before they can be united with God in this world or in the next world, because I was beginning to journey on in what you could call, if you like, pergaterion earth, purification
09:38 , refinement, refinement of our loving, us to be brought to perfection in this world before we can be united with the perfect love of God as manifested in the life death and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
09:58 But let me go back to the beginning, Btw, we first see this love for the first time. Let me go back to the beginning of what is being called Salvation History.
10:11 You can see that beginning behind me, the three angels at the Oak of Mambra, representing God, the three divine persons of the Triune God, appearing to Abraham to tell him uld She is going to be the father of a great nation.
10:31 There they are. And they also make a covenant and agreement with Abraham and with his people to come and it is this.
10:49 It is not a unilateral agreement. Dimitarianismen, jajat, jā, tayedoom. Mietestiamenence tisiina beire miet �ic si edi, salfladas unpricillino incompution, jajat ytство ong de, jajat streicio, ka Ahmada, jajat ya ytip 😗 jajat rokov Hawaiian en turn against him, time and time again, but he never stopped
11:30 relentlessly loving them with this utter selfless, unconditional loving. The key moments in the life of in a story as a salvation history unfolds.
11:46 At key moments, this covenant is renewed time and time. I am your God, …and I will love you, whether you love me, or whether you do not, …and my love is unconditional.
12:01 The great profit of God's unconditional loving is the profit, O say. Not only preached God's unconditional love, …but he embodied it in his own life, …for he was married to a faithless wife, Goma.
12:20 她 was so unfaithful, so adulterus, that he didn't even know which of his children were his, and which belonged to some other man with whom she had committed adultery, but he never whey, but he continued to love her as God loves us.
12:44 Da te cobr found that he came to the greatest profit of all, Jesus Christ our Lord, shed to him now, praying in the garden of death, semanny, in those what he is about to undergo and knows what he is going to suffer.
13:05 but it's going to be the manifestation of the height and the depth, the length and the breadth of his love that surpasses all understanding.
13:18 But as he is praying, he realizes that hundreds cube, spuntisu, tu toundur.
13:45 Mert of all that he was doing, all that he was giving, all that he was suffering, was going to be thrown back in his face by so many, and yet he continued to give himself and give himself to the last drop of blood.
14:08 Now that ultimate gift, that ultimate sacrifice was celebrated in advance as it were in the upper room, when Jesus took the cup and transformed ordinary wine into His blood, leia aif, leia aif leia aif leia aif, leia aif leia aif leia aif plastics,maar Aif leia, leia aif plastics män wasp滅ili i n breathi'
14:51 neddi. Aif leia aleia again è stato Every time we go to the mass, our mass, to receive God's blood, the blood of the new covenant, to strengthen and to charge our weak human loving so that eventually as we journey on in the spiritual life we will be able under the Holy Spirit to generate that simple
15:34 selfless unadulterated, unconditional loving river — la satisfactory point— le challenging for our Akka diving will be made to begin inscribers of …in to me and go with me into the mystery of the three in one.
16:22 It was not at the time, it was only much later, and with hindsight, that I came to see that this was the sort of loving that I was being taught in what I believe was a purposeless prayer in darkness the well had indeed run dry.
16:49 I was a slave battered, berated. By battalions of slings and arrows, the slings and arrows of my outrageous fortune as I tried to pray, I could get nowhere.
17:05 But try again, turn again again and again. I didn't realize what was happening. I was practicing repentance because at least I did turn again.
17:19 I tried to turn back to God, though I received nothing. Isn't this the love that God experiences? ― ― ― githin¦tul agaddurее ve s' jedes dw ecalm poṬhな fo GöChái ozięhna ca akthi anchamhi why githin pumkarear ca aja boee royi mer place tyn As bod'e Ca'g ― en t regen O Hera … mi Ca'g n'est-ce qu'est-ce
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19:00 – «I was taught a prayer that I and Neta came to understand had been called by the desert father, the prayer of the heart – and more precisely, the prayer of naked faith et, just sort of came to me, no it didn't just sort of come to me.
19:32 It was given to me, it was a credecker. And it did really come from my heart and it's important that at this time, your prayer a Headhardhahahahahahahahahahahah.
19:47 He is the simple prayer. He is the simply the Just. He was single. And this shall us may be taken away from me, Lord.
20:02 But—ド to my meditation, on Christ in the Garden of Getsery million, I am enduring my couple with, but not with with you.
20:13 GOD WILL BE DONE – – and this became the FIRST… PARE OF THE HAART THE McLE But I used IN THE DARK NESS YOU WILL BE DONE YOUR WILL BE DONE YOUR WILL YOU WILL BE DONE AT TO THE MOMENCE IT BECom princi hard THAT I CRY Jer MY GENT WHY February FOUR SECOND ME or leave an out of the depths I try to you Lord
20:46 , but always in the end, your will be done. Now why I call it white was called a pre-decure because it does come genuinely, perhaps this is the first time we've really prayed genuinely.
21:01 You see when you say with our heart, in the Bible the heart is the centre of our whole being. It sums up the whole personality.
21:11 I therefore when I say I'm praying at the prayer of the heart I mean with my whole person body, blood, soul and divinity.
21:19 I'm sorry, body, blood, soul and humanity. It was a dark and difficult time. But gradually, after about six months, I suddenly, No, I suddenly became aware that I was actually drawn to this prayer, suddenly came to realize that I couldn't actually function properly without it somehow, or there are experienced
21:58 nothing, I was somehow given strength in this strange mysterious sort of prayer that I couldn't do without, and I was pulled.
22:09 And I was receiving a strength. ―I didn't know what was happening. ―And so I was led to the library. ―This time it was a really good library.
22:21 ―And I was drawn to a book that somehow ―that had come across it before, ―but somehow it's very title-seemed to speak to me.
22:29 ―It was called The Dark Knight of the So, ―by say, John Lotha Cross. ―I took it, I read it, and I couldn't believe it.
22:35 ―Couldn't believe that this man living 400 years before me at somehow understood exactly what was happening, what I was going through, and why, to my embarrassment in those first nine chapters of the dark night, he outlined all my false and failings, all my sinfulness that had been hidden covered up
22:56 under the euphoria of first purpose. Why didn't see it? They say love is blind, and first love is blind too.
23:04 And that is also true of the spiritual life. I hadn't seen what was going on. I was self-centered. We'd general the cross if you want to read what was wrong with me, and at the same time we'll let much wrong with you.
23:21 My most of all, it was my pride. I actually believed in first further than come a few months more. I'd be by locating.
23:28 I'd be levitating. I'd be having all sorts of extraordinary mystical phenomena. I thought I had reached the peak, but now that had ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ale 그런데, now, Felt there was some meaning of it.
23:56 The great term psychiatrist, Frankl said, you can bear almost anything if it has meaning, and suddenly this darkness had meaning, I was receiving strength from it, and so I continued with the help of St.oton of the cross.
24:13 He didn't show me much in the way of light, but he explained my darkness. But then, gradually, as I persevered in the spiritual life, and here, before going any further, I want to make this point.
24:30 But because all my prayer was dark, I couldn't pray as before. I couldn't read the scriptures as I did before.
24:38 I couldn't, they didn't fill me with further. Even the divine office left me flat. ― ― ― ― ― ― ― Mi indirecteon e le nν modify おelna mene mene mene nν see na meneän ، sta e le mene li nn schaadoch站 k bustbeag Pontnideed on tre greet li´ydnion o Umiliол!* Si ti b in the dark night of the soul.
25:26 But then gradually, after about 18 months, gradually I began to experience something so nebulous that I couldn't put it into words.
25:44 But as it gathered momentum within me, ― ― ― ― ― i by youth but before I joined the order, I had experienced God in his creation as the romantic poets had done in this beautiful mountain scenery, all this ecstatic seascape.
26:14 Somehow the beauty of the creator had born in upon me and had been drawn in such a way that ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― � ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― sebe Šath ũummaraочnino end appeared that brought when he gained excellent help before thegi, when but then
27:00 he began to gather mementum and became stronger and stronger, faster stronger than I'd ever experienced before, The experience of what the Romantic poets called, the Luminalus became so powerful that I realized this wasn't the luminous this was God, or at least this was the love of God and in some distant
27:23 measure I was experiencing that and at one moment it became so utterly powerful spiraling up that I thought I was going to lose my senses but I didn't thank God but these experiences came and went and I didn't know their meaning so once again I went to the library a di found another book, or if you like
27:53 , probably initially I was led to another book, it was The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avala. And what St.
28:04 John had taught me about darkness, she now taught me about light. It seemed I was on the right path at last, thank God for that.
28:13 ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― � for the Gabriel Ride, O FM.
28:50 He convinced me that I was on the right path that I should not fear, but I should continue. Though he had never had the experience himself.
29:00 He said it was authentic, and I must continue. And I remember saying to him, but father, honestly Father, I'm a better than my fellow students, ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― � ― ― ― ― ― ― a man hares terrified, but at least I knew that
29:50 what was happening was authentic and real and that I was on the journey. But then, after about a month ago, these experiences subtly went as quickly as they came.
30:08 And incidentally, when they did come, they were totally i cappricius. I couldn't produce them, I couldn't sustain them, I couldn't maintain them.
30:16 They came and went. This was the love of God. He comes when he chooses. He was working in me now through light, as he'd been working through me and darkness before.
30:31 But it was only the beginning of a lifelong journey in which he would come and go. вставив, не вставив, renewable life job was to carry on in darkness all right.
30:43 in Whatever game,llbrраш trance Whatever happen next in the rest of my life is, Of course, deeply personal to me and It is not appropriate that I share it with you or anybodyempt ― ― ― ― ― ― ― herself sented reasons, not because she was self-indulgent.
31:19 And what am I doing it here for reasons of self-indulgent, but for teaching? Why? Because there is no other teaching out there at the moment.
31:29 And so people have to know and be taught to encourage them to journey on in the darkness. That's the only reason why I've told you what I've never told publicly in this way, at least before.
31:45 Dei, in such a mess in the church at the moment, we need saints, and saints are only created by the Holy Spirit in the crash, which is the dark night of the soul, which is in the scola Divinia Moris, where selfless, pure selfless loving is learnt.
32:04 as God's love comes and goes when He chooses to prepare, refine and refine us. In such a way that our love can become selfless, unconditional loving to unite us with the selfless, unconditional loving of God in Jesus Christ, Risen and glorified so that then we can go with him unto the Father.
32:34 To gaze upon him in contemplative loving, to receive the fruits of contemplation in return for our personal salvation and redemption, but then through us for the personal redemption and salvation of the world.
32:53 Vigil? We must be prophets to in our way and our time, when we can go out not uncertainty but filled with the love of God to preach what we have received to others by whom we are.
33:10 By whom we are. By whom is a live within us. This is why I have told you as much as I have told you i am going to tell you it is to encourage you to journey on.
33:27 Now finally, and what i want to say to you is this, to encourage you. When after meditation therefore, the Holy Spirit leads you on into the beginning of contemplation into what is called the mystic way.
33:44 It is called le e in mystic way. Why? Because it is the way to the mystereon, while St Paul calls the mystereon.
33:54 And what is the mystereon? It is God's plan to share his life. And love that he expiereances in the holy trinity with us by drawing us up into Christ who will take us there.
34:12 la plana de God from the beginning, la plana de God from the beginning, St Paul calls the mystery on from the Greek word meaning secret hidden unseen.
34:29 It is God's secret hidden unseen plan, the mystery on and the person who is prepared to go on unbe on first beginnings in the mystic way is called a mystic because they are journeying into the Mysterion.
34:47 It is a hidden secret way to which the Holy Spirit is calling us, luring us onward to follow our mother Mary.
35:01 I say to follow our mother Mary because she shows us the way On that first pentecost day, when the Holy Spirit filled the apostles, it simultaneously filled our lady.
35:18 But they had a long way to go on the spiritual life before they could be united with their risen Lord.
35:27 Mary did not, she was immaculately conceived, and so immediately received the fullness of the Holy Spirit, She was immediately united with her beloved son and with the three in one through her.
35:43 That happened immediately. And she shows us the way that we are going when we set out on the mystic way.
35:54 When we are prepared to go on giving when we do not receive to be purified and refined for union with Christ.
36:08 So to end with now, I want to say to you this, when you're alone, when you're in darkness, when you prepare to give that time to God each day and if it's 5, 10, 15, half an hour, whatever that time is, stick to it to the letter.
36:28 ―ie, vete satisfied, the sacrifice you are making. ―and did that time, whether you receive ― but whether you do not ― and, when you are not receiving, ―you are nevertheless continually turning ―to God, why?
36:41 ― ―Because your old friends' ―distractions and temptations ―are always there trying to pull you away. ―As you try to turn away from them, ―you are dying to self.
36:54 ―You are dying to self e preklusi aks of repentance, preklusi aks of repentance. In that very act, you are practicing the first of the great commandments, which is to love God with your whole heart and your whole mind and with your whole body with your whole soul, and you are doing it without even realizing
37:28 that you are doing it, realizing you whether you do it or not is irrelevant. You are doing it, and that is the greatest of the commandments.
37:42 Simultaneously, you are practicing the new worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus Christ our Lord came to introduce to us, first by practising it himself and then by handing it on to us through the apostles.
38:04 In other words, the new worship in Spirit and in truth what we offer are not material things made in a physical temple but in material things are loving which is offered to God in and through a new form of high priest which is Jesus Christ our Lord to offer Himself continually to the Father in His new
38:35 temple which is nothing other than His transformed, transfigured and glorified mystical body.
38:47 Now we have been drawn up into that, whether we feel it or whether we don't. It is a worship in spirit because it is a spiritual offering down, offering anything physical, but our love, above all else, to him.
39:07 In spirit and in truth, because for the first time this is true loving, this isn't cupid loving, this is true loving that comes from the heart, living in darkness, if blind make it faith, this is true loving, this is the new worship, in spirit and in truth.
39:30 And as it takes us up into Christ, it is to receive in the redeeming Christ, the love of the Father that will redeem us, brings salvation to us so that we can bring it to others.
39:54 …and so, in this seemingly simple act, we are gradually receiving more and more the infused virtues of the Holy Spirit.
40:11 To make us full real proper apostles propelled by the Holy Spirit c'est de treder la suppression Wasn't Christ.
40:24 To love God it other words hot, sorry, not to love God, yes to love God but here, at this particular point to long God in the Cambory should need.
40:38 And so, again in the simple action we are being empowered to observe the a second of the great commandments that Christ came to give, to love others, not as we love ourselves, but as he loves us and we can only do this.
40:59 If by loving him continuously, we enable him to make his home within us. If you keep my commandments, then I will come, I will send the Holy I will make my hope in you.
41:21 But without me, you'll know how to do anything. But with him, all things are possible. All things are possible. And this is now why above all, we need this prayer.
41:35 Because we need Lord be impossible. We're surrounded by evil. wa he souls, wa a world full of tasteful griefs alongside us shouting, through the company of Christmas, to give oneкий wadiofe as ofoud encore of humanity of death.
41:59 Defry in Most and Oh沒有 no no no of blessing Be encouraged now to journey on and let us journey on together, no more bickering, no more fighting, no more endless carping and criticizing for we can change nothing.
42:29 Now is the time to turn to God for only He can remember, remember, remember. In our trying, in the trying is the dying.
42:43 Each time we repent or turn to God. In the very action in making an act of dying to self, in other words, we're taking a bar cross to follow Christ.
42:56 You cannot be my disciple unless you take up your cross, and follow me. In the trying is the dying. And in the dying is the rising.
43:11 And in the rising is the opening in the birth and through Christ. And there is the receiving of the only pure …or, selflas, unconditional love that can change as beyond all our hopes and dreams.
43:38 …make new men and women offers. …make us the apostles that are now needed in the church today, …repealed out which to be witnesses to the resurrection.
43:55 Remember then, but there is only one way to union with Christ, and that is through uresana.
44:12 Seat and be strong ensuring that you win second year a ability to continue to nurture Hologram 2019 1-P to pray, if anyone points in another direction, then they are deceiving you.
44:53 Do not be deceived.