June 27, 2005    

"Activating the Virtues

In this enlightenment time of this Illuminative Way, the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance become much more active, or at least we become more aware of them.  They come forth with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  You can see in the Illuminative Way that the Holy Spirit is very active.  He's the Spirit of Light.  Paul says, "Put on the armor of light."  Put on His gifts.

For the cardinal virtue of prudence, the Holy Spirit is going to use His gift of Counsel.  Prudence will tell us, "Take counsel.  Don't act too quickly.  Get another opinion."  The cardinal virtue of justice is a beautiful virtue, and the gift that the Holy Spirit will use to bring it actively forth in our lives is Piety.  We will give others what is their due.  You know there is a beautiful Scripture in Isaiah where God says, "I have grasped you by the hand for the victory of justice."  Justice is the victory of the Cross.  So the victory of justice is the victory of the Cross and this is what we're called to, particularly in these beautiful virtues. The gift of Piety will enable us to love God the Father more than ourselves and others, too, because God so wants everyone to come Home.  The cardinal virtue of Fortitude works with the gift of the Holy Spirit of Fortitude itself, or long-suffering, because our sufferings can go on and on.  Usually, all of us can suffer shortly, just, "Get it over with quickly," but when it goes on and on, we cry out, "How long, O Lord?"  The Holy Spirit will give us His gift of Fortitude so that courage can come forth.  Catherine Doherty used to say a prayer every day, "Oh Lord, give me the heart of a child and the courage to follow it."  That takes courage because the heart of a child is pure.  The heart of a child can receive these lights, these gifts, but it takes courage because we're walking the royal way.

With the cardinal virtue of temperance, the gift of the Holy Spirit is Fear of the Lord.  Temperance comes forth because Fear of the Lord starts working.  We don't want to move ahead of God.  We don't want to hurt Him.  We don't want to displease Him so this beautiful virtue will start to be activated because the Holy Spirit is busy at work here, using His gifts.  It is the risen Lord now.

Prudence gives us the right reason to our actions and that is the way the Holy Spirit counsels us.  Justice will give everyone what is his due.  Fortitude will hold us steady in the face of opposition.  Paul said, "Stand firm. Hold your ground" (Eph 6).  That is Fortitude.  Then the beautiful gift of temperance is to really make sensible and right decisions.  We can only do that in the light of good reason - God's reason, not worldly reasoning.  Do you remember Job?  When I first read him I thought his answers to God sounded pretty good to me.  Until God said, "So Job, you really know how I created?  You really know this?  You really know that?  Well, let me tell you."  When God started speaking, I could see that everything coming out of Job, up until that time, was worldly wisdom and worldly knowledge and  worldly understanding.  There's a vast difference when we start to make the passover.

There can be a false prudence that can be spotted if we look at the end result.  "Is this giving God greater honor and glory, or is it going to elevate me?  Who is going to get the glory here?"  That is a good way to check to see if we are receiving this gift from God or if it is impulsiveness and our senses and emotions still trying to dominate us.  False prudence, or being imprudent, will definitely retard our spiritual growth because we will try to run ahead of God.  We will try to hasten it.  Some of the saints said it is like always wanting to read mystical books without having gone through any kind of purification.  Have you ever wanted to see how quickly you could get to Heaven but not through the cross?  "Not that way Lord, my way.  There's got to be another way to Heaven."  Well, there isn't.  There's only one way, and it is His way.  So every good gift comes from God, and when we have these gifts we'll find that we won't act rashly or hastily or judge anymore.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Life," Omaha, NE, 2004.

June 20, 2005  

"A Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Today we are going to talk about new life.  "Behold, "I make all things new."  We always want this deeper dimension of new life.  Now we talked a little bit about the Dark Night of the Soul, particularly that purification of the heart.  This will help us conquer a lot of our natural things, particularly our intellect and our senses, but it is not going to do it totally.  It is interesting the way God is going to use this next stage of prayer to help us with the purification of our intellect.  The theologians call it the "Illuminative Way." 

In this stage, God will begin to give us infused knowledge, infused wisdom and infused understanding. These gifts are actually gifts of the heart.  Then the heart informs the mind.  This is why the Dark Night of the Soul must precede it, so that some of this purification process can begin to happen so that we can receive these infused gifts of light.  We see this beautifully on the road to Emmaus where the disciples are walking along, and they did not recognize Jesus.  Scriptures says, "He opened their minds to all the Scriptures, beginning with Moses that pertain to Himself."  That is infused knowledge and understanding.  God is sharing His mind with His friends.

 I remember as a new Catholic myself, when I would read Scripture.  They said absolutely nothing to me - nothing.  It was difficult to pray so I started reading the books of the mystics to see what the mystics said about the Scriptures.  I always had to find out what somebody else said they  meant because I didn't understand; God had not yet opened my mind to understanding.  So I felt somebody had to constantly interpret these Scriptures for me.  I already was sensing there was deeper mystery here but I really found them kind of dull and boring.  It was like a written word, but it was not alive yet.  The Holy Spirit was not overshadowing that word, so it was not giving me life.  God's word is what gives us this new life.  Jesus has said over and over and over "Listen" (that is contemplation) "that you may have life."  Can you imagine that life is contingent upon, and related to, listening, and that the fruit of listening is this life?  He has to bring us into this deeper Heart-to-heart listening so that we can have the Word broken open, so we can receive that Word.  This is how we receive this new life daily.

When Jesus took Peter, James, and John up Mount Tabor, one of the very first things we read about is the Father saying, "Listen to Him."  The Father puts it right back on Jesus.  It is very interesting.  Jesus takes us to the Father, and what does the Father do?  He tells us, "This is my beloved Son.  Listen to Him" Jesus Himself said, "My words are spirit and life."  His words are spiritual.  They are empowered by the Spirit.  They are life.  So this listening and having God's Word given to us will give us life.  It is infused knowledge.  It is infused wisdom.  It is infused understanding.  These are gifts that we received at Confirmation.  So now we look back, and maybe we can see that we did not quite crave prayer as much then as we do now because now we are experiencing the beginning touches of mysticism.  It is pure gift.

We begin to crave this divine truth, and once we start receiving His truth - and I say truth because God is truth and everything He says to us, everything that is infused into us, is truth - the other beautiful fruit here is that we begin to see the lies that we didn't see before.  We begin to see the lies that we were raised with.  We begin to see the lies of the world, maybe in our own families, in our own culture.  Maybe we don't even know the difference between a lie and truth until this knowledge, this pure wisdom, this understanding of God begins to enlighten our minds and we begin to know.  It's a grace.  It's a gift from God.

Another beautiful thing that happens in the beginning touches of mysticism is that it allows us to clearly see God's dominance over all creation.  "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps 19:2).  I think that Francis of Assisi had this gift working very deeply, and he tried, in his own way, to share it with us.  One time at Mass when we were saying, "Holy, holy, holy!  Heaven and earth are full of Your glory!"  Heaven and earth - I don't think I was even present at the rest of the Mass that particular day.  At that time, I had not thought of earth as full of His glory as well.  God's glory is everywhere.  We start to enter into mystery, His mystery, because He is opening our minds.  He is sharing it.  It is the "Illuminative Way" because we are getting lights, honest-to-God lights.  That is Who He is - He is Light Himself.  Now it is the beginning of the mystical life.

In Revelation 4:1 God is saying "Come up here" to John the Contemplative.  John knows how to enter into His heart, how to enter into the Spirit, how to come up.  This is what contemplation will do.  It will lift us up here.  Here is going to be different places, wherever God is calling us.  When He says to us, "Come higher, friends," it is going to be always, "Come here!"  It is always going to be higher and higher.  "Come up here and I will show you things that are yet to come, even where you have been."  When you are at that point you have more of a panoramic view and you start to see things you did not see before.  It is this gift of wisdom.  We are starting to put on God's glasses, so to speak, and we are starting to look through His eyes now, and it is with a different perspective - that bird's-eye point of view, that Holy Spirit point of view, so to speak.  These gifts are being given to us in a deeper way, especially wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, and we are becoming more conscious of them now because of the process of the Dark Night of the Soul.  The teachings in our prayer life are beginning to be more experiential.  We are learning now more by experiencing. 

Hope also comes forth at a deeper level.  Hope for the gifts the Holy Spirit will draw forth with the gift of Knowledge, Understanding, and Faith.  Now this beautiful gift of knowledge will always take us beyond where we are.  It will give us Hope.  Somehow it will let us see, "I may still be in darkness but there is a light at the end of the tunnel."  Hope bridges the gap between Faith and Love.  This is why it is a very special gift for intercessors because this is what we do.  We bridge the gap between heaven and earth.  So this gift of Hope will come forth as this beautiful bridge.  It becomes easy because we have knowledge.  We know what God is going to do.  Maybe He is not doing it yet, but Hope becomes a reality because we know that we know He is going to do it.  That is coming out of Faith that knows.   It is expectant Faith really.  That is what Hope is.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Life," , Omaha, NE,  2004.

 June 13, 2005  

"Intercession in the Illuminative Way, Part II"

Zeal is growing deeper, which comes out in our prayer.  We start to feel driven, pushed in a gentle way by the Spirit, for others.  We want to become more like Jesus.  I remember one time when I wasn't at this level of zeal.  I could see it in Jesus, and I knew the Spirit was trying to activate it within me.  He showed it to me (and I use this because He can show it to you in the smallest, most natural ways) at a time when I was living in a hermitage in the backyard of a doctor and his family.  I was moaning and groaning that this kind of ministry is really tiring.  Its like, "More zeal?  You keep driving me and there is more and more.  Lord, isn't this a bit much?"  Then He simply transferred this thought process to this doctor who was never home.  He was dedicated to the Lord.  He was on call practically twenty-four hours a day.  I saw that in the very natural profession, this man was driven and committed to what he had been called to do.  I hadn't even yet begun to be committed to what God was really calling me to do.  Sometimes He'll just give us little things like that to increase our zeal.  Obviously, we're not that purified so we get tired and want to sit down under a juniper tree and go, "Oh, I just need to rest for a while."  We haven't learned to rest within that much.  This is part of the climb.

The transferences get a little heavier than at the beginning level because there is more of Jesus in us.  We begin to learn, "It isn't my burden; it is His."  God isn't going to give us anything that He can't handle - there isn't anything more than He can handle.  When we begin to realize, "Lord, this is really Your burden and there isn't anything that You and I, together, can't do," we are on our way then.

Pride is still hanging around.  It is extremely dangerous at this stage because it is so hidden.  Usually we are not even aware of it.  Again, this can be the steppingstone to false mysticism.  We can get off the path right here very easily.  Do you remember the story of St. Ignatius?  He's the master at discernment for the Church.  In his beginning stages, he was hearing from the Lord but he was trying to test the spirits.  One day he was riding along with somebody and got very angry at this person.  St. Ignatius thought, "There's a fork in the road down there.  Lord, if this person stays on the same road I'm on, I'm going to kill him!"  This was after his conversion!  "I'm gonna kill him!"  Thanks be to God, when he came to the fork in the road this stranger - this other person - took the other road.  We can take the other road, too, no matter what our level of conversion.  We always can.  There's a fork in the road, and pride can come in so we can take it and go off on our own because we think, "I'm hearing from God.  I'm getting more informed intercession.  I'm getting my intercession answered."  Pride is very subtle.  It is the angel of light disguised as something good.

So our discernment at this level is growing and is developing into a deeper knowing.  We begin to realize, "I need to know God's voice at a deeper level.  It's not an option.  I absolutely need to know that."  We ask for the gift of discernment.  We'll start to confront our own spirit more because we're starting to see there is a very subtle movement within us that also moves in light, not always God's light but in natural light.  By this stage, we are confronting the evil spirit much more.  The enemy is beginning to see that there is growth, so we are a threat.  We're stirring him up as well. We're not quite as hidden as when we weren't a threat.  Now it's like he's asking, "Who is this?  This person is moving God's hand.  God is responding.  God is acting."  Satan gets nervous about that because now the battle is beginning.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Heavens - New Earth," Omaha, NE, 2004.

June 6, 2005  

"Intercession in the Illuminative Way, Part I"

First we go through a stage where we are informed.  This is the Night of the Soul.  God is good.  He doesn't let us stay in that birthing too long.  Now the growth is going to start.  There is a deeper purification of our hearts.  Our intercession changes a little bit here.   As we grow, the ministry does too, and there will be some transferences.  Now, all of a sudden, it isn't just me.  We begin to see that, "I don't have to be totally healed, totally well, or have my act all together to have effective and powerful intercession."  We see that He's using us in a deeper way now.  He begins to teach us about the transferences.  We'll begin to see that it's not just my heart that is kind of anxious.  It's not just my heart that might be fearful.  It might not just be my heart that is kind of distressed, even depressed maybe.  God begins to show us, "Pray for others who are feeling the same way."  We start to pick up God's plan more.  We see that whatever I'm going through is going to affect my intercession for others because I'm gaining that territory.  Why, I have compassion now!  I know what it feels like to be anxious or to be fearful.  We don't want other people to have to continue living like that.  Maybe people are fearful of death; maybe people are lonely, rejected.  We'll start to pick up feelings, or maybe events and circumstances, that we are actually going through ourselves.  We don't let it be wasted.  We use it right away in intercession. 

Then we are reborn again in the Illuminative Way.  Because of the purification in our own hearts, God is giving us new lights.  We begin to receive more of the infused gifts of the Spirit.  We begin to look more deeply at Jesus Himself, not just only the mystery, but Jesus Himself and what He said and what He has done.  We're at a different level, and we are aware of it.  It is more on who am I now, who am I really becoming.  We move on to Jesus as the Intercessor.  "Who are You?  Why is Your prayer so powerful?"  Transformation is starting to take place.  We start believing the prophetic word because of Who is saying it.  We begin to start discerning at a different level.  We start embracing the charism more fully all day long.  Intercession is becoming our lifestyle - it's not something we just do.  We are becoming more sensitive to the transferences and burdens that God is giving us throughout the day.  Because we have been through the Dark Night of the Soul, our heart is much more sensitive.  A communal aspect begins to develop as we want to be with others who are having these same experiences.  We begin to see that a lot of people don't understand us anymore.  We need one another for support, so God starts bringing people into our lives who are intercessors.  Our zeal deepens as we feel driven by the Spirit to intercede for others.  We want to become more like Jesus.  The transferences become heavier now because there is more of Jesus in us to carry the burden.  We begin to realize, "Lord, this is really Your burden and that there isn't anything that You and I together can't do."  We are on our way.  Pride is still hanging around and is extremely dangerous at this stage because it is hidden.  This can be a steppingstone to false mysticism.  Discernment is growing and developing into a deeper knowing.  We need to know God's voice at a deeper level.  We start to confront our own human spirit more because we're starting to see there is a very subtle movement of our human spirit that is also moving in light (but not always moving in God's light but in our natural light).  By this stage, we are definitely confronting the evil spirit much more.  We're not quite as hidden, you might say, when we weren't a threat.  The battle is beginning.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Heavens - New Earth," Omaha, NE, 2004.