How You Know You’re Leaving the Purgative Way | Devil in the Castle Chapter 3 (Part 5)

The greatest trick [music] the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. I didn't know this was a fight. That's why you're losing. >> Today we are beginning [music] either to domesticate the devil or else to deny him. He is most [music] powerful when he is denied. >> Welcome to the devil's in the details. The devil may be in the details, but God is on the throne. >> God is on the throne. We are in, I believe, part five of mansion three >> in your book, The Devil in the Castle, which if anyone wants to pick up a copy, >> spiritual direction.shop or Sophia >> spiritual direction.comshop. You're right. Yeah, [laughter] we prayed beforehand because my brain's not working too well and it's already >> We always pray, but >> yeah, >> he was uh particularly concerned about his brain today. >> Yeah, but for good reason apparently for evidently. >> That's all right. It'll it'll ramp up. >> Yeah. God is on this road and what this study is about. If you're new to it, by the way, it's you can find Where could they find all the previous episodes? >> So, we're slowly putting them out on our YouTube channel. I think right now we >> spiritual direction.com. Yes. YouTube. >> Yeah. I think right now we're still releasing the discernment of spirits series. Um, which there's a whole story behind why that happened. All you need to know is that this what we're on [laughter] right now is not out yet. >> Um or maybe by the time you're listening to this it is out. I don't know. We have to figure out [laughter] >> it actually will be out when they listen. >> Well, that's true. Yeah. In terms of uh in terms of whether or not it's on YouTube. I I don't know if it's going to be out yet. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> So, because those two schedules are different. Um what goes out on the podcast and what goes out on YouTube for for good reason. Annoying reasons, but good reason. So, if anyone's wondering and then um as always as always if if people would rate five stars, share it with everyone. It's super helpful. And we I do pay attention to all the comments. We had a good comment actually. Maybe we can start off with this. Um and I don't recall if it was on one of these episodes in this series. It may have been in discernment spirits, but the person was concerned about how we were approaching uh grace and mercy. And they essentially I don't want to misspeak because I don't remember their their comment exactly, but it was it was this is very harsh and it seems to uh limit God's grace and mercy. And I said, well, I said, you need to understand the context of the discussion. the context of the discussion in discernment of spirits and both in uh the devil in the castle, it is a call to wake people up. >> Yeah. >> Right. When we're talking about sustained piety, mediocre piety, intermittent piety, when we're talking about going from mortal sin to not, it's very important to have extremely clear language so that there's no ambiguity and warning people what where they're really at or where they could be rather. >> Yeah. So, it's not merciful. You know, I think the best example of the sharpness of doctrinal language is if you if your if your little child toddler is 50t away and you just realize he's 50t away and he's on the curb 50t away and if he steps off that curb, he steps into heavy traffic. When uh when you're in that moment, you will scream your head off and you will tell him stop. Your goal is to startle him, to stop him in his tracks, and to get him to do the right thing. Otherwise, he's going to end up dead >> as you then race over to rescue him. doctrinal language in in in and I think best exemplified in its highest and best form is in something like the Council the Documents of the Council of Trent, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Baltimore Catechism. Um, and it's and it's a unfortunately a language of a bygone era. Um because we've become primarily therapeutic in our language. What does that mean? That means so what is a therapeutic response like like an instinctively therapeutic response to a child on the edges? Oh, little Tony. Oh, you shouldn't do that. The consequences if you do that will be that you're and then >> no, >> you know Tony's dead, >> right? >> Little toddler Tony is dead. Therapeutic language is actually good in a proper context when you're both sitting together in your living room and you're trying to figure things out and one person is struggling. I just met with somebody who was crying and struggling and you know worried about discernment and just trying to figure out how to balance the emotions and all that. My if you to ask that person what is what was the tone that I used with them? Was I gentle on a scale of 1 to 10? They're going to save 10. >> Yeah. >> When we're talking on the show, it's it's proclamation of critical truths about the gospel. And both you and I are instinctively um disposed to counterbalance the disorder of the therapeutic. And it's really a false mercy, by the way. It's a false mercy for little Tony who's on the edge, toddler Tony. It's a false mercy to try to have a conversation with him about why he shouldn't go into traffic and the potential dangers. Um, it's an authentic mercy to yell your head off at him until you reach him and try to startle and shake him, >> you know? Not to mention, it's really foolish to assume that your soft tone and therapeutic nature is going he's even going to hear it right over the cars. You know what I mean? >> And what's the analogy there? The cars are sin, right? >> The noise of life, all of that. So, we're trying to dispositionally cut through that junk. >> And uh and it does make people uncomfortable, and that's good. >> Yeah. You know, but but our goal isn't it isn't to make you uncomfortable. The goal is to proclaim the truth so that you have the opportunity to respond to it >> and so you can properly discern where you're at, right? >> You know, this is not I well, two things. One is I I do want to say the guy had it. He he responded well to my response. [laughter] >> He's like, "Okay, well that makes sense. Hopefully this comment helps other people." I said, "Great. That's a great way to handle it." Right? Um, but the other thing is this isn't like if when 70% and it's probably more than 70 don't believe in the real presence of the Eucharist. When we see what's going on in the church and not to get into church politics, but all the craziness that's happening all over the world and in different places at different varying levels, it's you have to proclaim the truth. We're not calling out anyone individually. You know, this isn't like, "Hey, listener number 30, we're we're we know your sins and we're telling you." You know what I mean? That's absurd. >> Um, >> I guess what I'm trying to get at is >> if you are feeling if your conscience is being pricricked, then that's an indication that you should probably be paying attention. If you're listening and you're saying, "Oo, that hurts." >> Then your question should be, "Why does that hurt?" are they saying something that's true in my life that I don't want to you know that I haven't understood or I don't want to really follow or anything like that because most I mean look you look at the comments and all our other stuff or most of our stuff and it's overwhelmingly thank god for this I really needed this so you have those two answers it's either people who are saying oh okay this makes sense thank god which means they're are aware of whatever is going on interiorly and they're responding to it or you have those few who are who are pricricked and they get angry And that's disordered. You know, it's if you're being pricricked, then God's calling you to something. And we're not saying we're, you know, mouthpieces of God or whatever, but you get, >> you know, a pastor used a phrase that or a saying that I think is hilarious, but applies to this. If you throw in a rock into a pig pin, the one that squeals is the one that got hit. [laughter] So, if you're the pig, you know, ask why why you got hit, you know, and and you know, that's love, right? I mean I I I don't know like for me um somebody's requested that I speak to a very large group of young people about discernment things like that and I thought a lot about you know what would I say and and I have done that in a number of occasions and made caused some waves you know. >> Yeah. Uh I remember one young group I I sat with I I told them they were college students and I said you know I work with a possessed man and the way he was possessed by one it was by one the way we trace back the entrance of the demon was by one act of mortal sin. >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> Before he was married. And you know and so and all all of a sudden there's two or three people in the room weeping. You know, is that harsh? >> I Well, here's the problem. I would say no. [laughter] >> Right. No, >> because I can I can separate and say, "Well, that's an objective truth. >> It's called love." >> Yeah. >> It's called love. And here's the thing for me. I guess the gift I have is if if this is not if none of this is true, then you're going to find me expired. >> Yeah. because life isn't worth living to me without knowing Jesus and he is the way the truth and the life and so what I want I actually want you know I so I was corrected theologically for the first time in my life uh recently I had written a portion of another book and um father James Brent who writes for us and teaches for us he's a Dominican eastern province rock solid and you know guy got the correct ction back. You know what I you know what I felt? I another Dominican priest delivered it to me and he said, you know, he loves your work and blah blah. I said, you don't need to say any of that. I I said I said, you know, my response, I feel loved. >> Mhm. >> Because truth is what kept me out of a casket, going into a casket as a young man, and it's what keeps me alive and [clears throat] fighting against my own brokenness. And I want to know when I'm wrong, >> right? >> I want to be corrected. >> Well, especially in this context where you're writing something that's going up. If I got that, I would have said, "Thank you because I don't want to look like a fool." >> Right. Well, >> you know, like there's that portion of it as well. >> Yeah. Well, here's the interesting part. His perspective was my what I wrote wasn't hardcore theological error. It was a nuanced approach to a thing that could be interpreted the wrong way. So, it wasn't even like that. >> It wasn't even necessarily a correction. It was a >> No, it was But it was >> It wasn't I wasn't way off base. >> Yeah. >> If I No, it would have passed an impromoder. I'll say that. >> Yeah. >> But it wasn't it it it didn't quite communicate what I was trying to get at. I mean, I even dealt with this with a bishop uh who asked me to review his book. An archbishop asked me to review his book and it was a it was a tense kind of thing because I've done that before. I was a a censor deputatus for another book bishop but that was for a deacon. This was a archbishop for his own book. and going back and saying, you know, if this is your goal and you say this this way, they're going to hear something different than your goal. >> That's kind of what it was like. By the way, he responded with gratitude, >> right? >> Which is just, you know, so so in the end, if you if we're doing as we do what we do in these shows, none nothing we say is ever going to be contrary to the magisterium. And if it is, you can correct us and we're going to respond like we've talked about. Um, but we're dead, you know, we're we're men of the church and we're we're dead committed to that and we're going to correct ourselves if we're ever wrong. So if you hear, so what that means is the dominant theological thrust of the truths that we're bringing to you are are necessary for our salvation are going to be, you know, good or reasonably good or helpful or whatever. If you have that reaction, your first reaction should, I think, is go listen to it again because I've done this before. >> Listen to it again, >> process it again. I've even reached out to authors and gone, "Okay, I'm uncomfortable with what you're saying, but it's important and I want to know if I'm wrong." What Why did you Can you give me the source >> for that? I actually did this a month and a half ago. Can you give me the source for that? Where did you get that in John of the Cross? And he said, "Oh, okay. This is a chapter. Looked it up." And I'm like, "Okay, I'm wondering about the translation, you [laughter] know, but I'm not trying to get out of it. I'm just >> struggling with it. And that's what we need to do, >> right? >> Lean in. Don't go, "Oh, that was harsh. That's mean. That's cruel." >> Cuz it's just not where we're at. >> Well, the other nice thing, and I think this is probably the final thing to say on this, and we can actually get into the chapter, >> is the other good thing about what we do, I would say roughly 98% of what we do is teaching what has already been taught, >> right? >> And saying what has already been said. >> That's called Catholic. [clears throat] Yeah. So if if that's something that people who may or may not be struggling can keep in the back of their head, oh, they're just repeating what has already been written and taught by the church. >> Yeah. We're not making stuff up. Yeah. >> I have no that that was the hardest thing for me >> when I became Catholic cuz I was already a published author before in in the business world. Yep. >> And so I became Catholic and I knew that I I knew I became Catholic intellectually, also a matter of the heart, but I wasn't culturally adapted. And so I waited I became Catholic in 2005. I didn't publish anything till 2011. >> It it went really well, of course, but um why I waited is just so that I was with I had a sense of fidelity. I was with I had a sense of what it means to be with the magisterium and and my goal in my book and the biggest anxiety I actually had writing it. There's one section my book took two years to do was was reducing thousands of pages theology to 20 and that was um I want I didn't want to be outside of the magisterial magisterium or if it wasn't magisterally defined I didn't want to be up outside of what the mystics commonly taught and so I had to study 2,000 pages of theology to get to 20 just so that I I'm yeah I'm within the bounds of the entire spectrum of these teachings. By the way, this is the very what we're dealing with right now. This was the what caused me the most angst >> was can I make these assertions and and be within mystical tradition basically. >> Right. >> Okay. >> So, now we're on >> phase one, part three. >> Part three, >> sustained piety, page 45. >> Mortal sin. very rare and only when taken suddenly by surprise and then often it is to be doubted if the sin is mortal. It is followed by ardent feelings of guilt and desire for penance. Yeah. So we're getting into the you know you're past the halfway mark in the purgative way. What would this look like? So, this might be uh you got t-boned in an in. So, you're no you're um so you're you're no longer uh confessing habitual mortal sin. And let's say you have an anger problem, which I've talked about my own a lot. And let's say this is me. Um I'm no longer taking bouts of anger to confession. I'm not yelling and screaming. I'm not cussing at anyone. But then I go through an intersection, we get t-boned, and I just and it hits my wife's side, and but she, let's say she's fine, but it hurt her. And I find out the driver is a young drunk guy. You know, it's going to be very difficult for me to not cause more injuries before the ambulance gets there. >> Sure. >> Um, so that's what we're talking about here. uh just something something sudden or you know uh uh just something serious jolt surprise didn't expect that um that's what this is that's what that means but it's followed by so all right venial sin venial sin is not habitual v you are I'm going to I'm going to try to add some more words yeah um >> so if you in this place of sustained piety venial sin for you is not habitual You are vigilant in avoiding and fighting it and rarely deliberate. You experience intense sorrow but does little by way of reparation. >> Yeah. >> Um you're consistent in your particular examine but aiming only to avoid uh only at avoidance of venial sin. You make good confessions with a firm purpose of amendment. You take venial sins to confession. >> Yeah. So I I misstated when I was talking about mortal sin. This is way late in the purgative way. This is where you're you're you're beginning to make transitions >> because habitual sin is no longer >> a big problem. So you're not going blessed be father I've sin. Now we we've already covered the the church teaching or at least asserted that it's normal to take venial sins to confession. You could take them to the the u penitential right in the mass and to be forgiven. But when you go to confession it's a it there's more grace there. the whole process is purgative. You're making a firm purpose of amendment. Um that sort of thing. >> Imperfections, you either avoid uncovering them so as to not have to fight them or uh easily or you you easily excuse them. >> Yeah. So this is not imperfections pops up here and it wasn't in the prior. Why is that? Well, it's because, you know, just like when your when your primary thing is daily dealing with mortal sin, you don't even see your venial sins. The analogy of the rocks in the field, clear out the big rocks and there's, let's say, 50 of them on a football field size thing and then suddenly you're like, "Oh, wow. There's all these medium-sized ones that you didn't even see. That's venial sins." You go clearing that up. Now we enter this new phase of now there's a lot of little ones that need to be purified and and those are called imperfections and they are not uh confessible. You can take them to confession but you couple that with a uh a past mortal sin or something and >> or a venial sin. Correct. If you have a venial sin and you have an imperfection. >> Yes. Yeah. If it's it it you have to have sufficient matter for absolution. So it actually has to be a sin. So why would you confess a venial sin with a an imperfection with a past venial sin? Well, it's because you have to have sufficient matter for absolution. And somebody's going, why would you waste all this time doing this? Well, I will [clears throat] tell you this is kind of how it works. When you get to this stage, this has happened to me many times. I don't know, not a thousand times, but a good number where I I have an in-depth examination of conscience in our prayer book. And you know, you're sitting there before you go to confession and you go, you know, I did that and I've confessed that, but wow, I never realized the ramifications of that sin and how it would echo across time to and and remind me how bad it was, you know. >> And it's not a it's not um scrupulosity. It's the Holy Spirit's grace of saying don't ever go down this path again. Don't don't go down. And and then what happens is you become aware that your contrition is way more >> runs deeper now than it did when you first confessed it. >> You know, and I think in my experience, the worst of that is parenting. So when I look at choices I made that affect you or you know your siblings and then kind of how they play out now 10 20 30 years later it's painful and so so that's how so I let's say I have an imperfection today that I want I'm like I want to get rid of this little thing you know and and this is where John of the cross's dark knight of the soul text goes through this kind of deeper purification ation and I want to get rid of this recurring, you know, let's say it's a recurring envy at the spiritual progress of another. You know, that's one one example. >> Um, so then and I'm and I've been pondering how I've done damage in the past and it's like, okay, I'm going to I remember that, you know, one of my greatest regrets with you and you don't even remember it. I don't I don't know if you've ever it's ever come back was one time when um I asked you to close the downstairs windows when a storm would come when I wasn't there because we left them open for the cool cool the house cuz we didn't have air conditioning and >> Oh, this was in Colorado. >> This is in Colorado. Yeah, this was in Molly Avenue. And I came home and the downstairs carpet was all wet and I just yelled at you at the top of my lungs and it was just not I mean it's just carpet. Right. >> Right. >> So that you know that's a kind of a memory you've never said you know even though you've said it it you don't remember it. >> I still don't remember it. >> It didn't so it didn't do you any harm. [clears throat] God wasn't pleased with me. >> Sure. >> And you didn't deserve that kind of energy. So it's that kind of thing that I would take the confession today with my little imperfections that I'm trying to trying to deal with. >> So So at this stage late purgative, you know, maybe early illuminative and beyond, you're avoiding or uncovering them. Um >> you're you're yeah avoiding uncovering them so as to not have to fight them. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Or you're making excuses for them. >> Right. So yeah, I guess I'm talking I guess everything I just said was more of a later stage, but you I guess it helps to eliminate you're you're not yet as focused here as you should be before you leave the purgative way, but you might be. Um, so this this is all variations. It's all uh uh how would you say uh it it varies a lot, but it's generally true. >> Yeah. So here in the late the late purgative, you're not yet fully attuned to your to your to these imperfections that I've been speaking about. >> And ending the imperfections proves the thought of renouncing them and would like to do so, but makes very little effort in that direction. >> Right? >> Suffering embraces it and endures it with relative peace but still struggles. >> Yep. prayer consistently faithful to specific time and approach to prayer no matter what happens. This prayer includes vocal prayer and meditation that is often effective. >> A effective a >> a effective >> prayer of simplicity may emerge alternating consolations and dryness. The latter endured with considerable hardship. Contemplative aridity often surfaces here or in the fervor stage >> which is the in the illuminative way. So this I could speak on for a few hours. I'm actually teaching a class on this at the Abel Institute called deeper into the castle um uh the dark knight in the progress of the soul. This is John of the cross realm. What happens in the late purgative way is your is is your meditation moves from being uh where you're consoled in it. So it's a effective you feel it. it spills into your consciousness and it begins to dry up um at some stage and it begins to change because the Lord is taking you into a deeper kind of purification which is often called the dark night but it's you're already in the night of in a kind of night of purggation in this stage you know anyway but it's the the the dark knight is is generally ally understood to be this a deeper purging, a transition from the active purification of sense to the passive purification of sense um and then into the active purification of the spirit uh as you're moving from the purgative to the illuminative. So if you want to learn more about this, I we have I teach two classes at the Aval Institute, foundations of prayer and union with God that brings you up into this point and helps you to understand if the the the key determinants of if you're here or not. So I'll just give them in brief. One, no more habitual sin. Two, um you can no longer meditate. there's no more fruit there and you just don't want to. Uh three, you have aridity. You're, you know, and difficulty and dryness. And four though, this is the key is you want to pray. So sometimes you get a rid because you were a knucklehead and had two margaritas instead of one the night before and you didn't sleep very well and so your prayer time stinks, you know. Um, but this is an a contemplative already that the Lord is causing to re deprive you of the sensible consolations that you had before in order to purify your love and move you into a deeper union with him. So, uh, but if you want to learn more about that, you will have to have been usually in daily mental prayer for a year or two or longer. And uh yeah, so I don't know. You want me to say anything more about that? >> No, I'm just looking through it. I mean, you mentioned the daily mental prayer. So consistently faithful to specific time and approach to prayer no matter what happens. You do say and includes vocal prayer in meditation. That is often affective. >> But I think it's worth saying or repeating kind of what you said just for the sake of clarity. That means that you are consistent in daily mental prayer. >> There's no way that you're at this stage without it. You're not going to even get up for habitual sin if you're not just in daily mental prayer. >> So, and then I guess the other thing that I didn't explain, the prayer of simplicity may emerge. So, what's hard about this is >> it's not a point. It's not like a latter rung, >> you know, [clears throat] even though you could use a ladder analogy, it's a phase. The perive phase begins when you start moving intensely from good to better and you start to fight. Now that can be a decades between now and this point we're talking about now late purgative. So and even the late purgative phase if you will cuz we've split the phase up into three three three uh rungs of the latter if you will that can be a decade in and of itself. So you can you know so you can be in this late purgative and very affective prayer very strong and then you know 5 years later 10 years later it depends on the person what they need then all of a sudden you know you're no longer able to meditate and um you you move into this dryness but you notice that you're this prayer of simplicity which can emerge is a prayer that just where you can just be with God. So that just means you know I would a common way that emerges somebody's struggling as a directee and they they say they can't practice meditation the fruit's not there anymore. So then I'll do a diagnostic gnostic mental sin. So everything checks out. Then I'll say to them, okay, do you want to pray? Yes. I love to be alone and I love to pray and I can't live without it. Okay, cool. Well, that's a great sign. This is probably the Lord's work. So, here's what I want you to do next time you go to prayer. I I want you to just go and just be with the Lord just like you're sitting on the dock of a lake with your best friend, >> you know, with your poles in the water and just be >> and and then and order your faculty to pay faculties to pay attention to the Lord. And if your mind begins to wander, then you just use some kind of uh brief prayer. The name of Jesus is fine. I talked a lot about I love you, Jesus, my love. My favorite one from Alphonsus Lree. So that's what we're talking about here. Okay. Well, do you want Oh, you know what? I'm skipping ahead. Uh examine practiced at least once daily, often more than once. And then sacraments always attends weekly and daily mass if possible. Pursues confession on a regular basis or schedule. >> So the examine here is uh and I did we talk about this the last show or >> we did. Yeah, we've talked about it a couple good. Yeah, I think we've covered it well enough. The the point is the person is very awake. >> They're they're awake to their patterns of sin and virtue. They're awake to what the Lord is doing. They're hearing the Lord well. They're following him well. Um and just, you know, in a very very good place. Okay. So my question to you is so the next the next phase is phase two which is the illuminative way which covers mansions 4 through six. Do you do you want to stop this show like saying okay that's phase one uh which is the purgative way and say okay we're ending there and then say okay let's start up phase two next time or how do you want to >> that's probably a good idea um even though the eliminative way is short >> uh it probably has a lot more context and things that we need to >> yeah discuss so let's let's end it >> uh ending through the purgative way. The next episode we'll be going into the illuminative way. >> So the sacraments always attends weekly daily mass of fable. So that means the person is uh just wired to if ma if I can get to mass I'm getting to mass and and even more so you know because unfortunately in our situation even though we live at a retreat center we don't have a priest permanently assigned here >> yet. Pray for it. >> Yeah. Yeah we are praying for that. Um, so we're driving more than an hour every day to get to mass uh because we're out in the country and uh I'm not I don't have an issue with that. I struggle with time and I'm very grateful. Like last week we had a priest who was staying with us all week and resting with us all week. So we had mass every day. But um but we drive and and we drive to you know I don't yeah I probably shouldn't shouldn't give any criticisms whatever we we don't always attend where we want to attend what we would like to attend in terms of >> how mass is offered and what kind of context we just are going to mass >> so >> well yeah in in the context of what are my responsibilities for the day >> and I'm talking here about daily mass right so what are my responsibilities for the Is it possible for me to make it to mass? And in which case, which one can I go to? And thankfully, we have a few options. And as you're saying, sometimes you go to one that's not >> ideal um for various reasons. >> Yeah. >> Because you still have to maintain your responsibilities. >> Yeah. >> And and what you're called to to do. So, >> yeah. >> I only mentioned that to say, >> you know, we're we're in an interesting spot where we have multiple masses, but there's plenty of places that don't. >> Yes. Um, and you still have your respons, you know, we've I think actually we get into this later, but um, if you are being distracted by a good thing, right? So, like if you're a mother with a bunch of little kids and you want to make it to daily mass, but you can't swing it because you'd be neglecting your kids, you need to take care of your kids. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, that's kind of the context I want to add to that. >> Good. Good. All right. So, the next next show will begin the illuminative way. um mansion which covers the mansions 4 through six of Teresa of Abila and we'll speak about the progress again in in the realms of venial sin imperfections we're not talking about mortal sin anymore cuz it's gone um prayer what that looks like uh the examine suffering sacraments etc so there you go >> all right 16:20 the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Amen. >> Amen.