Intecessors of the Lamb

The first capital sin that we want to closely look at is anger. What does anger look like in us? Sometimes the capital sins are just seven names, but what do they look like when they are broken down? How are they manifesting themselves within us? These can be open doors for the enemy to come in and out of to use us. It could be an area that we haven't allowed God to have full control of yet, which means we don't have the full protection or power that we need.

The fruit always of anger will be division and bitterness and some kind of unforgiveness. Unforgiveness seems to go hand in hand with anger. An emotion, in and of itself, is not a sin. Anger is simply an emotion. So anger, of itself, isn't sin-it's s what we do with it that can make it a sin. We always have a choice. We can't control the arising of an emotion in our hearts-it just happens, but we can choose the way we're going to use that emotion. We can choose what we're going to do with it. The will can command our emotions to rise, flourish, or cease. We have control over our emotions if we choose to use our will. So our choice can make an emotion virtuous, or it can make it a vice. All of our emotions are God-given gifts. When we're not using our emotions for God's greater honor and glory, then Satan can come and use them for his.

The reason anger is listed as a capital sin is because it leads to other sins. Thomas Aquinas said it's not the greatest of the capital sins. It's a capital sin because it leads to other sins. Anger will lead us to other sins, and hate is one of them. St. Thomas said that hate is a far worse sin than anger. When we hate, we are bottom line. In fact hate is the last stage of anger and can become diabolical at this level. Satan usually is controlling us then.

There are things we should hate-the things that will try to destroy God's love, particularly in people. From the very beginning, prayer warriors learn to distinguish the difference between hating what the actions or sin are and hating the person. We never hate the person. We don't want to destroy what God has made. We always want to pray that love will come into the person or situation. If we start hating people rather than hating what they do, if we can't separate the sin from the sinner, then we have gone into Satan's camp right away and lost that particular round.

So we can hate a person's action, but never the person. I had an experience in the cloister that demonstrates this perfectly. I had a particular superior who had two sets of rules - the one that all of us followed, the written rule, the rule approved by the Church, and then she had another little unwritten rule. There were about four or five sisters that would gather around her and live out of that rule. Because I was her assistant, I saw this dynamic up really close, and it really, really bothered me. Anger was growing very deeply within me, anger at this double standard, this hypocrisy, that I was watching day after day.

This superior was very intuitive as most contemplatives are. They're heart people. She began to sense that I was really being bothered by this other little set of community that had their own rule. She must have been intuiting that I was getting upset within. We can pick up when something is wrong if we are intuitive. And so one evening, she knocked on my door and gave me a little present. I thanked her and closed the door. I was just shaking with anger. Out of my mouth, to the Lord, came (there wasn't anybody in my room except the Lord), "I hate her." I was shocked when these words came from me. I don't think I had ever hated anyone in my life. I don't think I had ever had experienced this emotion before. But this is what I was saying to the Lord. It was such an intense emotion that it frightened me.

So I went to chapel right away. This is one of the remedies that we encourage-try not to take things personally, but take it to the Lord as quickly as you can. Had I taken this to the Lord earlier, I probably wouldn't have gotten so intense in the anger that was now coming out in hate. So I went to the chapel and asked the Lord, "Where did this emotion begin? Where, Lord, did this come from?" We always want to know where it began. Instantly the Lord gave me an image of when I was four years old and my mother was spanking me pretty hard. The memory came back, and it was like I was a little four-year old again saying, "I hate you. I hate you. How could you touch your own flesh and blood like this? I hate you." This was what I was screaming on the inside. And so now I could dialogue with the Lord. I said, "Why was I screaming inside that I hated my mother?" He said, "Because you felt she was abusing her authority as mother by spanking you." He said, "This is why this emotion came out with your superior. You felt the same way-that she's abusing her authority as a superior of this community."

And so I began to see that it wasn't my mother that I hated, it wasn't my superior that I hated, but it was the abuse of authority that I hated. This light, this truth, brought me instant peace. Now I could pray for my superior that she would get the lights to use her authority correctly. I had peace again, and the emotion was gone. It was healed. God had come into that with His light and totally dispersed the darkness. And so I began to see what God meant. We can love somebody, but we can hate what they are doing. We don't criticize that person. We take it to the Lord for His light on how to pray. This is what prayer warriors do. Our greatest power, of course, is in prayer.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "Prayer Warrior Summit: The Identity of Prayer Warriors," 2002.

03-17-03 Our Broken World: Looking at Sin Objectively

March 17, 2003

"Our Broken World: Looking at Sin Objectively"

We live in a very broken world. We'll be looking at that because this brokenness is the fruit of sin. Ignatius suggests that when we look at sin this week, we look at it more objectively. He's very kind. He eases us into it. We don't have to look at ourselves. We're going to look at sin objectively to try to see what it really is.

Not too long ago we heard the reading at Mass where Nathan came to David (see 2Sm 12:1-7). Nathan didn't tell David about his sin with Bethsheba and then killing Bethsheba's husband. He talked with David about this man that had one little sheep, only one little sheep, and somebody took that. David could see the sin very objectively and was very upset and said, "Oh that is absolutely terrible. That man should be put to death." That's when Nathan said, "You are the man."
Ignatius kind of has us approach sin this way-we're not looking at our own personal sin at this time. We're looking at everybody else's. This is the one time we can really look at everybody else's sins. Ignatius calls this meditation, "The Triple Sin."

First he wants us to look at the sin of the angels. He shows us that the angels were created in the state of grace. They didn't want to use their freedom properly. So we go back to this freedom. Ignatius is always concerned about freedom. God wants us to be born free, but we weren't born into the state of grace. We were reborn into it. The Exercises will bring us more and more into that freedom. The angels were created in a state of grace, and they didn't want to use their freedom to reverence and obey their Creator. That's sin-a misuse and abuse of freedom. They changed from that state of grace to tremendous hatred of God when they abused their freedom.

The second dimension of sin Ignatius wants us to look at this week is the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve. Because of their abuse of freedom, original sin is passed on to us now. We are conceived without the state of grace. That's one of the things we inherited. We're deprived of bodily immortality because of the sin. In other words, we now have to die. That was never part of God's original plan. So we are prone to pride, lust, anger, greed, envy, sloth, and gluttony. The seven capital sins come into our lives now. Jesus is going to lift us up out of this. It's a struggle as we constantly fight our way back into that state of grace, back into the Garden, back into the Promised Land. This is where we're going. God wants to bring us into that right now. Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience will have its consequences on earth until the end of time. So we meditate on that and what really happened there in the light of sin and in the light of abuse of their freedom.

Next Ignatius suggests that we meditate on hell. As a new convert, the first time I made a directed Ignatian retreat, the priest gave this assignment to me. I was so surprised because as a Protestant, I hadn't even heard of hell, let alone meditated on it. It's amazing-every time I meditate on hell, God gives me another insight, another dimension. The first time, He gave me an image of a maze, like when mice are in a maze. There's no way out. They're trapped. It was a terrible feeling. If we have a concept of what hell really is, I tell you, it changes our lives. It gives us zeal to pray that the lives of other people change, too. Hell is a reality. I suggest that you take time this week to meditate on hell. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what dimension and truth He would like you to know.

Ignatius reminds us that sin is not the center of the Christian message. Even though we're going to spend three weeks focusing on sin, sin is not the central message. The central message is always love. We have to always keep that in mind. "For God so loved the world (God doesn't hate the world) that He gave His only Son" (Jn 3:16). Jesus came to deliver us from sin.

What is sin? This is what we are going to be looking at. What is it? We will be getting different lights, but basically sin is a refusal to be the creature. Sin is a refusal to let God be the Creator, a refusal to let God be God. In other words, it's a refusal of God in our lives. It's a refusal to receive. Creatures can only receive from the Creator. Right there we see the contemplative dimension. God ordained us from the very beginning to receive. His whole nature of love is to give, and we would be the beloved. That was how it was set up from the very beginning. It's like God is saying, "I brought you into existence. I'll give you everything you need to keep you in existence and to bring you back home." God just wants to give and give and give.

So sin on our part is a refusal to receive what God wants to give to us. It's rooted in our hearts. There's something that we inherited from our first parents that has made us autonomous. We have severed that beautiful dependency, that beautiful relationship, but Jesus brought it back. He said, "You've got to change and become as a child again." We need to become dependent upon God again. Sin has made us autonomous. It has made us very independent, and we see its effects everywhere.

Sin does not remain hidden but moves on into a very destructive course. It affects relationships. If we become selfish, self-centered, and allow that unredeemed part of us to take over, it's going to affect not only our relationship with God, but it's going to affect our relationship with other people. Look at the babies, particularly those unborn, and the abuse of children. We see abuse everywhere-the way we're using our environment, the beautiful created world that God gave us, the plant life, the fish, the flowers, the trees. We're abusing it. It's all the result of sin. And so society at large, Ignatius says, is affected by sin. In other words, sin becomes very collective. It's not something that's just going to affect me. Whatever I am, it's going to ripple out and have its effect on others. For better or for worse, it will have its effect.

So the triple meditation on sin this week is: 1) looking at the sin of the angels and trying to understand it and asking God for the lights He wants to give to us; 2) meditating upon the sin of Adam and Eve. What really happened there?; 3) and then meditating on the sin of others. That helps us to get a very clear objective picture. When we're not part of it yet; we can see objectively. When it comes to our own sin, we start to rationalize and we can get very clouded. We belong to a broken world that is in need of healing. We talk about Jesus being the Healer, and what He is healing people of-whether it's broken bones, broken hearts, or broken spirits-it's all somehow the result of sin. He came into our world to heal.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "Heart-to-heart Listening: The Triple Sin," 2000.

03-10-03 Stages of the Spiritual Life

March 10, 2003

"Stages of the Spiritual Life"

There are a few stages of the spiritual life that I'm going to go through briefly. I'm just going to run through St. Teresa of Avila's mansions. Catherine of Siena, John of the Cross, and the Little Flower each had a beautiful journey. All the saints have their journey. They all were led by the Holy Spirit. And so the mansions are just one way of looking at the spiritual journey, but they have been a very effective way.

Teresa saw these mansions as being a lot of rooms on the outside. In the very center was the presence of God, trying to always get into the inner circle, you might say, into that presence within. The Lord showed her that in these outer rooms, or mansions, would be anyone who really has walked away from serious mortal sin. In other words, anyone who is having a real conversion experience would be in those rooms.

The Second Mansion, He showed Teresa is more for people who are beginning to come into a deeper detachment. In other words, there may be a decision to leave venial sin. They have already left the big sins, but now they're getting a desire to get rid of their venial sins, but they still don't avoid the occasion of sin. They are walking away from sin but are not walking away from the occasion. So it's very tempting here. The enemy can push us over the edge and into sin at any time. It's a dangerous place to be. People in the Second Mansion are practicing prayer even though they still have a foot in both kingdoms. They want both worlds. They want this, and they want that.

Mansion Three, Teresa tells us, is where more order and stability comes into our lives. There's more balance. We become more interested in others and are not so preoccupied with self and my world. Our consciences become more sensitive because the light is penetrating more and more of the darkness and peeling away some of those layers of fig leaves. However, she warns us that in these inner rooms there's a danger of becoming very impatient and lacking humility. It's very much like when Peter said, "Lord, we've left everything" (see Mt 19:27). At that time, Peter thought it was everything; he was still in the early stages of maturity. We may feel we have left everything and wonder what's in store for us now, what's in it now for me? That's where we are. Oftentimes, we'll leave something and say, "Well, I gave this up for You. Now what are You going to do for me?" That is the Third Mansion. We're not quite perfected yet.

In the Fourth Mansion we begin to take prayer much more seriously, and we become more passive. We're becoming more contemplative now. We're letting God initiate more. We're starting to listen. We're starting to learn how to receive. In other words, the prayer of the heart begins. Prayer of the heart begins in Mansion Four, but there's a struggle. There's always a struggle because of the purification process. God has things start to get dark. All of a sudden, things that we used to see and understand with our human intellect, we just don't grasp very well. He's starting to kind of shut us down because He's going to do some surgery. This is where we enter into the dark night of the soul that John of the Cross talks about. Teresa talks about the dark night of the soul a little bit differently. She talks about it as the little caterpillar that's going to spin a cocoon and go into it. It's a dying process. That little caterpillar has no idea if it's ever going to come out again. Little does it know what it's going to look like when it does emerge. It's not even going look like a caterpillar. It's going to see things it never saw before and from a different point of view, from the point of view of wisdom. And so in the Fourth Mansion God is calling us to let things go and enter into a darker night. There's a struggle within us because it takes tremendous trust. He's there helping with His gift of wisdom-surrender. It's surrender at every phase. Surrender. Surrender. "Say yes to Me. Let it go. Let it go."

Then when we do surrender, Mansion Five is quite different. It's kind of like Easter. It's a resurrection for our soul because we come out like a butterfly. We have wings. It's another world. We're entering more into God's world, and He's sharing more of His world with us at this time. Contemplation is growing as He's sharing the deeper secrets of His heart. We're getting more interested in God and in others. We're getting purified of self-love. And so real love starts to happen and a phenomenal peace enters. Teresa of Avila says there are very few who do not enter into this mansion. I thought that was very hopeful and encouraging. God is looking for contemplatives. He's looking for lovers.

Mansion Six is a difficult mansion. We think that we're entering into deep mysticism, real honest-to-God mysticism, and here comes Mansion Six with a deeper purification of the spirit! Purification not of the soul, but of the spirit. John of the Cross writes in depth about the dark night of the spirit. Purification of the spirit is very much the Calvary experience. We're led there. "Father, into Your hands, I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:46). It's a time when there are a great deal of trials; everything is going wrong all the time. Some people say, "I'm just battling all the time. Is this ever going to end?" Teresa says that we're in this mansion the longest of any of the mansions because it's the final preparation for the fullness of the Godhead to come and take up residency within us. God is emptying out the last residue of sin within us, which is in our spirit. We can't touch that, so it's more a passive purification. Everything that happened to Jesus on Calvary was done to Him. So God is initiating what He wants to do, and all we have to do is allow Him to do it. St. Ignatius refers to this as the third, and deepest, level of humility. God chooses the penance. God chooses the people in our lives. God makes all the choices. Our choice is to choose what He chooses, and that can be a great deal of suffering and sacrifice. But the reward is tremendous!

This leads us into the Seventh Mansion which is spiritual marriage and the fulfillment of Jesus' last priestly prayer in John 17. It's the new covenant love. The whole reason He gave His life is to bring us into this covenant relationship. In this mansion Teresa tells us that the soul forgives very easily. The soul is very free. The soul doesn't experience any more desolation, which is nice. The soul has no fears because perfect love is living now in its fullness and has cast out all fear-no fears of rejection, no fears of dying, no fears of the Cross. No fears. How tremendous to be free from all these fears and free from all those roots of fear in all of the sins!

And so the gift of wisdom is the gift of surrender. "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Ps 111:10), it's the beginning of surrender, but the whole journey is wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. It's a constant "Yes, yes, yes, Lord." The other day the Lord was showing me that the fullness of wisdom and all the power and wisdom of God comes from the Cross because the Cross is the full surrender to His love. It's the full empowerment of His love. We can't go to Calvary without God loving us there.

As she would hug me, my mother used to say to me, "Oh, I could just love you to death." I thought about this when I met Jesus. I thought, "That's what You do. You love us to death. You love us till our self-love goes, and You can start forming us into Yourself." He showed me an image of Himself when He was lifted up on the Cross. He said there comes a time when we carry the Cross and fall under the Cross, terribly burdened, but there comes a time when we can become so purified, so one with His will, that the Cross then will carry us. We can rest upon the Cross as He did, and it will be totally changed. Jesus rested upon the Cross in perfect peace because He was in God's perfect will.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "Surrendered Love," Great Falls, VA, 2002.

06-16-03 The Call of the King, Part III

June 16, 2003

"The Call of the King, Part III"

Jesus has let us know that the spirit of the world, the flesh, and the devil are simply crushing God's children. Sin and evil are taking over in tremendous magnitude, probably more in our time than any time before in Church history. It's everywhere. His call is very urgent today, and it is intense. So watch for it. He is calling. In the call will be the challenge. When Jesus calls us, He challenges us because He wants us to move from point A to B, from point B to C. If we are not challenged, we'll just sit in complacency. So there will be a challenge. This is why Ignatius says it's important to establish the friendship with Him so we know He is going to help us meet the challenge. We're not walking the walk alone. Satan always wants us to think we're alone. Jesus is always saying, "No, I don't call you servants. I don't want you in the letter of the law. I call you friends now. Follow the path of love. We're on it together" (see Jn 15:15).

So we'll hear Scriptures that are going to challenge us. In fact all the Scriptures this next month will challenge us, but we're called to follow in companionship. He's going to show us. We're called to follow His Cross. We're called to follow in the struggles. We're called into suffering. In other words, what He's going to try to do within us is to help us to let go of everything within ourselves that is selfish. He is taking us into deeper conversion now, and the fuller journey towards Himself. We can let go because we know we're in this together. This is His life that He wants to live within us. This is His mission, and He wants to continue carrying out now within us.

He'll probably say this to us more that once, "Yes, I am a King, but My Kingdom is not of this world. My Kingdom is within you." He's going to show us how it's lived out. So the grace that we seek this week is that we may not be deaf to His call, the call of the King, but ready and careful to fulfill His holy will. The invitation of the King will vary with each person. The call is going to say something different for each of us because everyone is at a different place. Every time I have made the Exercises, I'm at a different place, so the call is different. It might be a call to be more loving, more kind, and more patient. It might be a call to fear not. It might be a call not to fear the Cross and the suffering or not to fear being alone and rejected. It might be a call to let go of all the knowns and enter into the unknowns.

In a sense, we're all on the verge of the unknown. The Lord is getting us ready for a mission that's not totally spelled out other than it's going to entail the Cross. More than once today in our group I heard that the Scripture, "See, I am doing something new!" (Is 43:19) was speaking to people. Be ready for the new. That was the Scripture He put on my heart Sunday when I was in my personal prayer. "I'm doing something new." He said, "The earlier things that I told you about have all happened. They've come to pass just as I promised." He was speaking to me about the call. He is getting ready to do something new in the call. That's what He's putting on my heart.

"Create in me, O God, a clean heart, and give me a new Spirit. Give me a new heart" (see Ps 51:12). God is always doing something new. We can't put Him in a mold of the graces we have received last month or last year. He's not going to give those; He's moving on into the new. So the call is going to be different. He has called us to be Christians. He has called us here to be Catholics. He has called many of you to marriage. He has called many of us to religious life. We have all experienced different calls. He is calling all of us to be saints. We have a common call, but it's going to vary.

When we give retreats, we're looking for the theme-what is God's call right now? It's nice to have this little breather before we get deeper into the specific things He's going to be saying. We are going to see Him as our leader, as our Bellwether, as our Shepherd, and as the King. He's going to show us, "This is My Kingdom. This is the whole package deal. This is My platform. Will you accept it? Will you come and follow me now?"

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "Heart-to-heart Listening: The Call of the King," March 2000.

06-23-03 Pride Part II: Pride of Intellect

June 23, 2003

"Pride Part II: Pride of Intellect"

The first category we have put pride into is pride of the intellect-pride of the intellect, intelligence, "I know it all." In other words, if we are proud in our intelligence, then we are going to flee from anyone who has authority because obviously we know as much as they do, if not more. We are not going to do anything or act very justly if we're operating out of this kind of pride. With this kind of pride, there is a tremendous attachment to one's own thoughts, judgments, and opinions. The Lord says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart (all your heart), on your own intelligence rely not" (Prv 3:5).

The first time I ever read Job, I was so taken with his answers. I thought, "My, Job is wise. These are tremendous answers." And then God chastised him about His answers, "Oh so, Job, you know then how the sun comes up, and you know how this happens. Well, you tell Me this, and you tell Me that" (see Job 38). All of a sudden, I saw God's wisdom, His knowledge, and His intelligence matched against Job's. Poor Job didn't stand a ghost of a chance! I really heard and saw that message. We don't a chance, either. It's just that pride doesn't know it; humility does.

Resentment can set in because pride of the intellect will deeply resent anybody telling them what to do because "I know." This kind of pride leads to sins against faith. I think this is what makes it so dangerous because faith is a gift of the heart. First and foremost, faith is not a gift of the mind; it's a gift of the heart. The heart knows, the heart sees, the heart understands, and then the heart relays that information to the mind and the mind executes that information. It puts it into practice. But with pride of intellect, it all comes into our mind but never even gets to the heart. And so what happens, the "intelligence," and I use the word in quotes because it's not God's intelligence but that kind of intelligence can kill the heart knowledge, it won't even get it to the heart. True knowledge comes first and foremost from God and then into the heart. He wants us to know, but it is an infused gift. Wisdom is an infused gift that He gives to the heart and then the heart conveys that to the mind.

But those who have pride of the intellect and just let it come into their minds, and they will never get that into the heart. It'll kill the heart; it'll kill faith. This is what's so dangerous because faith is what comes into the heart. It's faith in the heart that knows, that understands, that believes, that loves. Faith is the key gift here, and this kind of pride can put faith to death. When we see this operating in someone, we will rarely see much faith, if any, because they can't make the journey from the mind into the heart to believe.

This kind of pride wants a high degree of prayer without going through the process. When we first got involved in the Charismatic Renewal and the baptism of the Spirit, everyone was on such a high. It was the honeymoon, and people were hearing from the Lord for the first time. In fact, everybody would start their conversations with, "The Lord said. . . ." And that was wonderful, but I had to smile when I heard them say, "My, we're in such union with God now. Do you think we're in the Seventh Mansion?" I said, "I don't think so. I think it's the honeymoon stage, but we're on our way."

There is a process in the spiritual life. There are the valleys, as well as the mountain peaks. There are the nights, as well as the days. It's a journey because it's a purification. Our journey is like the journey the little caterpillar takes when he's going into the cocoon. He has to take that risk of dying. He doesn't know if he's going to come out, but he wraps that little cocoon around himself. He may be there forever. We never know when the night is going to lift either, but when it does, look at the freedom-a whole new life! That little guy, who just crawled around there on the ground, can fly now. It takes a while. It's a process, but pride wants to get there right away. Pride wants to scale the heights and be like God immediately, but it takes awhile for our fallen nature to get purified and really lifted up on those eagle's wings into that union.

For all of us to become spiritual doesn't happen overnight, but pride of intellect wants it to happen overnight. It's a tremendous pride of presumption when this happens. We can presume that we're a child of God (and that's true), and so we can do anything. God's going to pick us up. God's going to love us. This is presumption. This was one of the attacks Satan tried to get to Jesus. "Cast yourself down because God will send His angels to hold you up" (see Mt 4:6). That's presumption. We never presume on God. We never assume, but Satan is constantly tempting us to do that. I asked God one time, "What is the difference between presumption and just doing whatever You say?" He said, "Presumption is simply walking ahead of me; the other is following Me." One can lead to death; the other will lead to life and into total freedom. (Teaching on pride will be continued on July 14, 2002.)

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's Prayer Warrior Summit: The Authority of Prayer Warriors," 2002.

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