FG#15 – The Way of Trust and Love Ep4 – Fountains of Grace: reflections on contemporary spiritual classics with Donna Garrett Join host Donna Garrett, with Fr. James Perez, LC, as they discuss the spiritual classic “The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided By St. Therese of Lisieux” by Fr. Jacques Philippe.
Discussed in this episode, among other topics, from “The Way of Trust and Love”
Whatever our personal limitations and situations, we can all love right where we are: in the kitchen, the bathroom, the office— it makes no difference. What the Church needs most is genuine love. We attach too much importance to externals, actions, and visible effectiveness, whereas all that counts, all that really bears fruit in the Church, is the truth and purity and sincerity of love; that is what we should ask God for most of all and put into practice.
Fr. James Perez, LC, joins Donna for this series
Philippe, Jacques (2012-06-07). The Way of Trust and Love – A Retreat Guided by St. Therese of Lisieux (Kindle Locations 731-734). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Show 3 ” Building a Kingdom of Love” – “The Gift of Nothing.“
Msgr. Esseff begins by reading a passage from the book “The Gift of Nothing” by Patrick McDonnell. He discusses how we all think what we will need “something,” but Msgr. Esseff helps us to see what God desires for us to see “the gift of nothing.” What we desire deep down is intimacy. Msgr. Esseff offers how Jesus reaches out to us in Divine Love…the Bread of Life. The Eucharist offers intimacy, will we accept the gift?
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. He was ordained on May 30, 1953, by the late Bishop William J. Hafey, D.D. at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton, PA. Msgr. Esseff served a retreat director and confessor to St. Mother Teresa. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the Missionaries of Charity around the world. Msgr. Esseff encountered St. Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical Missions, a Catholic organization established by St. John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. Msgr. Esseff assisted the founders of the Institute for Priestly Formation and continues to serve as a spiritual director for the Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and spiritual director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians and other religious leaders around the world. He is the President of the Board of the Pope Leo XIII Institute School of Exorcism.
FG#1 – Interior Freedom episode 1 – Fountains of Grace: reflections on contemporary spiritual classics with Donna Garrett
Join host Donna Garrett, with Fr. Daniel Brandenburg, LC, as they discuss the spiritual classic “Interior Freedom” by Fr. Jacques Philippe a priest of Communaute des Beatitudes, an international association of the faithful of Pontifical Right founded in France in 1973. The members of the Community, which has a contemplative vocation based on Carmelite spirituality, are actively engaged in the service of the poor and the proclamation of the Gospel.
Discussed in this episode, among other topics, from “Interior Freedom” page 12
Donna Garrett is joined in this particular series by Fr. Daniel Brandenburg, LC
“Human beings were not created for slavery but to be the lords of creation. This is explicitly stated in the Book of Genesis. We were not created to lead drab, narrow, or constricted lives, but to live in the wide-open spaces. We find confinement unbearable simply because we were created in the image of God, and we have within un an unquenchable need for the absolute and the infinitive. That is our greatness and sometimes our misfortune.
We have this great thirst for freedom because our most fundamental aspiration is for happiness; and we sense that there is no happiness without love, and no love without freedom. This is perfectly true. Human beings were created for love, and they can only find happiness in loving and being loved.”
Heart of Hope Part 5 — The purpose of life, the suffering of humanity and how it relates to the grace of God. Emotional Suffering, Purgation, Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, and Redemption
Deacon James Keating, PhD, the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha, is making available to ”Discerning Hearts” and all who listen, his series of programs entitled “The Heart of Hope”.
This series explores the work of suffering in the Christian life and how God can use it to transform the heart of the individual and the world.
You can obtain just the audio podcast, if you would prefer
The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel
Chapter 19
The Effects of this Fourth State of Prayer—Earnest Exhortations to those who have attained to it not to go back nor to cease from Prayer, even if they fall—The great Calamity of going back
The Life
St. Teresa of Jesus,
of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel.
Written by Herself.
Translated from the Spanish by
David Lewis.
Third Edition Enlarged
An awareness of the social dimension of human life is an important principle in understanding Christian morality, especially in light of the great emphasis on individualism in our society. The social aspect of what it means to be human is revealed in the natural inclination we have to seek social interaction and establish community. This awareness serves as a moral foundation for an attitude of solidarity with each other and leads to a dedication to social justice for everyone. Our Gospel commitment to Christ’s Kingdom of love, justice, and mercy always includes advocating and supporting fairness for all. God calls us to form community and to correct both the symptoms and causes of injustice that rip apart the solidarity of a community.
The Most Reverend George J. Lucas leads the Archdiocese of Omaha.
We wish to thank the USCCB for the permissions granted for use of relevant material used in this series. Also we wish to thank Matt Wilkom for his vocal talents in this episode.
8. … “Each incident, each event, each suffering, as well as each joy, is a sacrament which gives God to it; so it no longer makes a distinction between these things; it surmounts them, goes beyond them to rest in its Master, above all things. It “exalts” Him high on the “mountain of its heart,” yes, “higher than His gifts, His consolation, higher than the sweetness that descends from Him.” “The property of love is never to seek self, to keep back nothing, but to give everything to the one it loves.” “Blessed the soul that loves” in truth; “the Lord has become its captive
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks toMiriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity.
But there was another dominant reality in the ancient Church. It is something that appears just as often in the archaeological record and in the paper trail of the early Christians. That something is martyrdom. Persecution.
Martyrdom occupied the attention of the first Christians because it was always a real possibility. Shortly after Christianity arrived in the city of Rome, the emperor Nero discovered that Christians could provide an almost unlimited supply of victims for his circus spectacles. The emperors needed to keep the city’s populace amused, and one way to do so was by providing spectacularly violent and bloody entertainment.
The Christians’ moral code made them none too popular with their neighbors, so the pagan Romans were more than willing to cheer as the Christians were doused with pitch and set on fire, or sent into the ring to battle hungry wild animals or armed gladiators. It was all in a day’s fun in ancient Rome. Over time, Nero’s perverted whims settled into laws and legal precedents, as later emperors issued further rulings on the Christian problem. Outside the law, mob violence against Christians was fairly common and rarely punished.
The Christians applied a certain term to their brothers and sisters who were persecuted and killed. They called them “martyrs”—which means, literally, “witnesses in a court of law.” And to the martyrs they accorded a reverence matched only by their reverence for the Eucharist.
Of Spiritual Consolation. I call it consolation when some interior movement in the soul is caused, through which the soul comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord; and when it can in consequence love no created thing on the face of the earth in itself, but in the Creator of them all.
Likewise, when it sheds tears that move to love of its Lord, whether out of sorrow for one’s sins, or for the Passion of Christ our Lord, or because of other things directly connected with His service and praise.
Finally, I call consolation every increase of hope, faith and charity, and all interior joy which calls and attracts to heavenly things and to the salvation of one’s soul, quieting it and giving it peace in its Creator and Lord.
Heart of Hope Part 3 — What is Redemptive Suffering…using love and the energy of love to redirect pain as an intercessory prayer for another…how it makes sense and is no longer meaningless
Deacon James Keating, PhD, the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha, is making available to ”Discerning Hearts” and all who listen, his series of programs entitled “The Heart of Hope”.
This series explores the work of suffering in the Christian life and how God can use it to transform the heart of the individual and the world.
You can obtain just the audio podcast, if you would prefer
Join host Donna Garrett, with Fr. James Perez, LC, as they discuss the spiritual classic “The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided By St. Therese of Lisieux” by Fr. Jacques Philippe. 
You can find “The Way of Trust and Love” here
Heart of Hope Part 5 — The purpose of life, the suffering of humanity and how it relates to the grace of God. Emotional Suffering, Purgation, Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, and Redemption
