Transcription
Thanks for tuning in to Everything Catholic again. And this is part two, picking up right where we left off in the last video. And for this one, it's going to be about loneliness and solitude. Listen to this.
>> Unfortunately, it's the minority of those in the church today that will follow the straight and narrow. And as I mentioned earlier, this has always been the case in the church. It's always the few that save the many. But it comes with a price. If you want to be part of the remnant, the fuel that will make it through the fire, God willing, you make it that far, you have to acknowledge one important teaching that I wish to share with you today. All great personages of history had to experience what Jesus refers to in Louisa's writings as solitude. Now Jesus in Louisa's writings uses her language, very simple Napoleon language because that's all she understood. And he tells her that she must experience a solitude in and through him. He calls it loneliness.
How do we assist our Lord and in so doing be numbered among the remnant, the chosen ones, the elect, as St. Paul says, those that are pleasing to God. You have to accept the abandonment of Christ, his solitude, his loneliness. Not only to assuage his loneliness and give him company, but to allow him to prepare you to be ready as a warrior, a prayer warrior, and fulfill your vocation in these end times. You see, everyone around you wants you to be like them. Dead wood, Bishop Sheen always said, floated downstream. Live wood resists the current. The majority of the people today go with the flow and it is downstream. Most people want you to be like them and follow the path of least resistance or they want you to be them. But when you discover that you are unique, created in God's image for a unique vocation that God has given you an inalienable quality and dignity of great importance that no one can replace. And then you decide to follow this path of being unique in God's image and likeness and following your unique vocation. You begin to discover who you are and you begin to discover and achieve what God has given you to do on earth. You begin to discover your dream, fulfill your dream. But it cannot happen without embracing this solitude, experiencing in you Christ's loneliness. Loneliness is the result of embarking upon the journey of discovering your dream.
Now every true vision has only one believer first and that is the vision of the dreamer. The person who has that vision is the only believer in that dream and that is what makes the person lonely. Experience solitude because no one else shares that dream and they don't want to be a part of it. And that is what Christ did for 30 years before his public life. 85 to 90% of his life was in solitude with Joseph and Mary or by himself. And yet what attracted people to him is the fact that he decided that although he was in solitude, he would embrace that solitude and loneliness for the greater cause which was the salvation of mankind through trusting in his father's mercy that he would in turn ask us to trust in through him through his divine mercy which is the father's mercy. So when you are experiencing loneliness or solitude, know that it has its purpose provided you acknowledge it is part and parcel of the vision that leads to the fulfillment and achievement of your vocation. It leads to the achievement of your dream in this life. So you must desire to use these moments of solitude like Christ of being alone properly and this is what attracts other people to you. You don't do it to attract other people. That's the collateral result or effect just like it was with Christ in withdrawal being alone spending nights in prayer with his heavenly father. Many times he was not only perfecting through the grace he possesses by nature that we possess by participation his vocation and his mission on earth. But in those moments of solitude and silence, he was attracting souls to himself little by little.
If there is any one theme that runs throughout the lives of the great personages of history, it is withdrawal and then action. First, we must withdraw from society's hustle and bustle work a day lives in order to hear and silence the call of God, the call of his blessed mother who beckon us to do what Jesus tells us. And he always tells us what he wants through simple instruments. Take for example Abraham. Provision is made on the mountain. He's asked by God to take his son. A sacrifice, a symbol of God the Father sacrificing his only son up to the mountain where Jesus would go and be transfigured eventually. We don't know which mountain it is that Jesus ascended where he was transfigured. Many contend that it is Tabor. Some contend it was Hermon. Some contend other places. Some contend it was the same mountain Isaiah went up to sacrifice his son. And there when he arrived, provision was made. He did not have to sacrifice his son because God provided with a ram. Moses went away up the mountain for 40 days to be alone with God where he was given the Ten Commandments, the foundation of our life and the life of all those from the Old Testament to today that wish to believe in God and his path to freedom and salvation. He was called to lead the chosen people out of Egyptian slavery, which is the new Israel, not the old Israel. As St. Paul puts it in his letter to the Galatians, he says, "The true Israel is not of this earth. It comes from above." And he, Paul uses as an example to distinguish the old earthly Israel from the true heavenly Israel the personages of Sarah and Hagar, the two wives of Abraham. Jesus goes into the desert for 40 days to be alone to prepare for his apostolic mission of saving souls. Paul goes into the desert of Arabia for two years to prepare for his apostolic mission. He has to be alone. St. Francis of Assisi goes into the desert for 40 up to the little mountain for 40 days to compose his Franciscan rule. Comes back down, gives it to the friars. They didn't like it. They destroyed it. They burnt it. So he goes back another 40 days and recomposes it. St. Benedict the same thing. He goes away into the desert to prepare himself for union with God like the desert fathers only to be approached by people who were attracted to him because of his loneliness. His solitude attracted followers like that of Francis. And both Francis and Benedict were encouraged by their followers to create a religious community which gave rise to the Franciscan and Benedictine orders.
So God asks us to make the time to be alone with him every day so that in silence, in reflection, we may hear the shepherd's voice. Take the church as another example. For almost 2,000 years, the church was in solitude. There were monasteries and convents, and the popes never traveled the world for almost 2,000 years. Then the very first Roman Pontiff, for the first time in Catholic history, goes upon an apostolic voyage and visits other countries. And that was Pope Paul VI. The very first pope to approach the world by social media was Pope John XXIII. Certainly Pope Pius XII had had been photographed, but only John XXIII went to the social media and bade the world come to himself. He was the first pope to walk into the Vatican wall, up the stairs, and out onto the balcony overlooking the portals of St. Peter and bade the world come to himself. And ever since, all popes have followed suit. The greatest pope, uh, the greatest pilgrim pope was Pope John Paul II. He embarked upon pilgrimages, visits, papal visits throughout the world more than any other pope in history. So what does this tell us? The church for almost 2,000 years in solitude, away from the world, was preparing itself for what? These end times that we're living in now. Solitude has prepared the church for the second Pentecost, for the outpouring in of the gift of living in the divine will and the outpouring of the divine mercy. The two greatest gifts reserved for these end times. That is what the church for almost 2,000 years has been preparing itself for. And the vast majority of its members had no clue why it was doing so. But the Holy Spirit did, God the Father did, and Jesus Christ did. And who guides the church? The Holy Spirit. Who would outpour his greatest gifts in these end times? The plenary indulgence, feast day of the divine mercy, and the greatest gift God could ever give the world, the gift of living in his divine will. That is why I have often times said and I will say it again. We are the greatest generation ever. We are the greatest generation the world has, is, and will ever experience precisely because we are living in the greatest outpouring of grace that overcomes the greatest outpouring of evil with which it coexists. So even though we are facing this great unrest in the Middle East that could potentially escalate to a third world war, which personally I do not believe will happen because of the intercessory prayers offered by the few today on earth living in God's divine will, as well as those pious and devout souls offsetting his wrath, God's wrath, but also because the second Pentecost has already begun and good is already triumphing over evil, whether people acknowledge it or not. This triumph is happening in a hidden and interior manner, much like the hidden and interior reign of Christ that is already here locally, but will will become a universal reality after the fire when the remnant will alone remain to repopulate the earth as in the days of Noah. So will it be when the days of the return of Christ, and this return will be interior, hidden, as St. Bernard of Clairvaux states, and it is already taking place in the lives of individuals like the servant of God Louisa Picareta, like St. Fina, like St. Hannibal de Francia, like St. Maximus Kovyi, like St. Carola, like St. Kittita Cabrera de Armida, like St. Elizabeth of the Holy Trinity, blessed Elizabeth of the Holy Trinity, and the list goes on. All of these individuals received a second Pentecost, received the gift of living in the divine will.
Jesus left us the model after which we are to pattern our own lives. And that model, even during his three years of apostolic ministry, was more withdrawal than action. Those three years he was more in withdrawal than he was in action, and even more so when he was on earth before his apostolic ministry began. And what does that tell us? Most of our God daily lives should be occupied with, consumed with prayer. I would say 80% of our day, just about, should be prayer and 20% actions. We can remember prayer does not mean inactivity. No, prayer is awareness, contemplation. And we can do that while we're active. Take for example, walking through a green park endowed with God's creatures, his beautiful handiwork, which reminds you of the creator who made creation. That is an occasion for you to do your rounds of creation. That is a prayer. And yet you're walking, you're active. Take for example, talking in company with others about holy things, about good moral things, even about giving advice, counsel. That's a prayer that makes up part of that 80% of prayer. Remember Benedict and his sister Scholastica. Many monks will tell you that Scholastica surpassed Benedict in holiness. And some Benedictine monks will tell you that. So she's talking to Benedict, her brother, one day, and they did not have the occasion to see each other often because they were in separate living quarters in separate places. And she comes and visits him, and he says, "I must now return to my prayers with my brothers." And she says, "But I've only been with you a little while. Let us stay longer." He says, "I can't. It's the rule. I have to observe it." And as he's about to leave, all of a sudden, thunder erupts and it starts to have a downpour torrentially in heavy waves of rain. And Benedict looks at his sister and says, "What have you done, sister?" She said, "You said no. And I turned to God and prayed." And he said, "Yes." So now go ahead, try to return to your monastery and find and follow the rule that you said you have to follow. He couldn't because the monastery was too far away for him to walk without being completely drenched. And back then they didn't have dryers to dry your clothes. So we had to stay, and they passed the whole night together.
But my point is that our lives too can be imbued with prayer and action at the same time. And that's part of prayer. Whether it's talking about something that glorifies God or helps your neighbor, whether it's glorifying God by walking throughout creation, or even doing works of mercy in the body of charity that Jesus tells Faustina must accompany the feast day of divine mercy, works of mercy which can be sacrifice, prayer, and physical assistance. Sometimes almsgiving is a form of prayer. That's right. It expiates sins. Helping the poor, helping those that work for the cause of righteousness, combating abortion, combating child sex trafficking and harvesting of organs and all these bad things that are happening in the world today behind closed doors. There are organizations combating these things, and we can help them in some way through prayer or other means, or we can even help. What does Our Lady of Medjugorje say? "Every day you should pray for your shepherds. Help your shepherds." And you can do that in many ways, through prayer, through other forms of assistance, and words of encouragement. You know, we priests are on the front line of battle, and we see most things that most lay people don't see because we're so upfront to the fight. And what I share with you is from my experience from that front line of battle, so to speak. Namely, I share some things with you. One thing I shared today is that the vast majority of those who claim to receive messages, despite their good intentions or bad intentions, only God sees their intentions are false. That's a statistic that no one can deny. So you, I'm putting you on an alert, on alert, and just telling you, be careful. Do not follow many of these driven blogs that mislead you, that do more harm than good, because they do not lead you to the church, to the Magisterium. They lead you away from it. So, be careful.
>> Well, then that will be all for the video this time. And as always, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us. And hopefully, all of you have learned so much from this video. And remember, if you ever have any feedback or suggestion, please let us know in the comments below. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your continuous support, contributions, and prayers. And until the next one, thanks again for watching, and may God bless you.