In this video I talk about how Catholicism is portrayed on two popular TV I have watched and how this helped convince me that Catholics should be involved in the entertainment industry. I also talk about how Catholic exorcist Monsignor Stephen Rossetti's recent deliverance prayer webinar helped me gain clarity.
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I embedded the interview below and will probably talk about it more in a future post or video but it's the comment made about prayer I'll be mentioning here.
A New Perspective on Prayer
Historically, I tend to try to solve problems all my own and think of God and my prayer life as some sort of backup. But Bishop Fellay explained that it's wrong to think that we can solve problems purely in the natural and that as children of God we shouldn't be going to the natural first. We should be going to prayer.
Which made SOO much sense.
If I believe that God is all powerful and all loving and all knowing - WHY I am trying to do things all on my own?
I had no good answer so I decided that it was time to strengthen my commitment to prayer.
It seemed that one of the best ways to do that was by learning more about how Catholics pray. So I began with a wonderful video on meditative prayer by Fr. Chad Ripperger (also embedded below).
Then I decided to create a firm space and time for praying.
A Place to Pray
I have a beautiful prayer space in the corner of what used to be our living room and is now sort of a study / library / YouTube studio. This is the room where I keep my desk and books and holy statues. It is where I record video and attend Zoom meetings and sit in my grandmother's rocker and pray or read the Bible - rarely.
The reason I use this room rarely that getting there can be a challenge.
A year ago it was a challenge because my elderly dog, Bella, was mostly confined to our family room and I didn't want to leave her alone while I worked. For the last six months it's been a challenge because our new dog, Luna (a wild and crazy Border Collie) can't be trusted around old plaster holy statues - and because she, like Bella, likes to hang out with me.
So I tried praying in my bedroom early in the morning while Luna dozed in her kennel - and found myself wanting to doze too. Don't get me wrong - I did pray up there but it wasn't what I would call quality prayer.
This week, as part of my renewed commitment to prayer, I decided to try something new. So I began praying in the family room where Luna can't get into any serious trouble.
Praying in this new location means getting up just a little bit earlier in order to miss the morning rush but I don't get sleepy at all. Probably because I take Luna out and have a cup of coffee before I settle down for prayer time.
Creating Space
Our family room is not a particularly beautiful or uplifting space. The furniture is old and there is a certain amount of clutter and a huge wall mounted flatscreen TV dominates the room. So I decided to make my immediate area a little nicer. In order to do this, I collected some of the books Fr. Ripperger recommends as an aid to meditation and stowed them under the coffee table.
It's a small thing but it reminds me that this tiny area is dedicated space and I find that helpful. I also like having some of the books Fr. Ripperger recommended (the Holy Bible, True Devotion to Mary, The Way of Mental Prayer, and the Traditional Sunday Missal - affiliate links - and of course my rosary) at hand as well.
While I pray, I play various Gregorian chants on the TV (via YouTube). The music is peaceful and the images are nice. We have a simple wooden cross above our TV and I find myself focusing on it from time to time. While I still have a lot to learn about prayer, I am doing better and I feel that, overall, the new space works.
Because of the chant (I think) Luna settles down and falls asleep. Because of the time outside and the coffee I'm more alert. Thanks to Bishop Fellay and Fr. Ripperger I'm beginning to get a basic understanding of Catholic prayer. And I like the idea of praying in a room that is at the center of our living space.
I will probably go back to the living room / studio / library at some point but for now this space is just what I need.
And I think that's the point.
We all have challenges when it comes to prayer and we have to make adjustments from time to time to make our prayer life a priority. I'm glad that I'm finally doing that - and I'm glad that making this small change has inspired me to make the room that really is the center of our home a little bit nicer, too!
In my next YouTube video, I'm going to talk more about what I'm learning about prayer. But I wanted to share these pictures here, in the hope they might encourage someone else to make adjustments that might improve their prayer life - if or when that is needed.
Listen to the SSPX Ireland interview with Bishop Fellay:
Listen to Fr. Ripperger's videos on Meditation:
One of the Gregorian chant videos I like to listen to while praying.
See my official living room Bible study and prayer space in this post: Bible in a Year Study Space. Also, if you're wondering I am still doing the Bible in a Year readings though just a little bit behind!
My Experience on YouTube
I’ve been on YouTube forever. From time to time, over the years, I’d do a video and then post it to my blog. And while I am still doing that I’m beginning to look at my channel as an end in and of itself, too.
This helped me to realize that I needed to develop an overarching theme for my channel. At this point in time that theme has three main focus points: Catholicism, New Age occultism and how these (and related) topics are reflected in the media.
There are other topics that fall under this umbrella, of course. The primary ones that I've been coming across lately are spiritual warfare and traditional Catholicism.
Spiritual warfare was expected, since I’ve been talking about it in the blog for ages, but traditional Catholicism caught me off guard.
Untraditional Me
For me, growing up in the sixties and seventies, the world seemed both mysterious and expansive. The New Age and occult was central to this world view but there were a lot of other things that went along with it, like feminism and leftwing politics and Vatican 2, that I didn’t really question – until recently.
Having originally converted to Catholicism in the 1990s (then left and finally returned two years ago) I have always felt like the Novos Ordo (lit. new order) Mass WAS traditional. And I probably would have gone on thinking that way, if not for my experience during the Latin portion of a webinar deliverance prayer session performed by Catholic exorcist Monsignor Stephen Rossetti.
That webinar helped me realize that Latin is unusually effective in spiritual warfare. Which got me thinking.
I began to wonder why Latin and the Traditional Latin Mass are becoming more and more restricted. I began to look into Traditional Latin Masses (TLM) in my area. I was encouraged when one of my YouTube subscribers shared her experience with TLM and praying in Latin.
Providentially, I learned that there are two TLM churches in my area. One of which I can walk to.
Where I’m at Now
In some ways, I’m still straddling the line between traditionalism and the contemporary worldview. I do not necessarily agree with the traditionalists in every instance. And I’m not completely comfortable with the idea of going to a TLM during the COVID spike that’s plaguing our county.
But I do have a strong interest in tradition. For now I'm studying Latin and learning the Mass and just beginning to consider that I have been more wrong, in more ways, then I expected.
My prayer for the last several weeks has been to be better conformed to God’s will. And so, with that in mind, I’m not formally committing to anything. But when COVID lets up a bit, I’m going to walk down the street and attend our local TLM and see where that takes me.
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You can see the video I talk about here on YouTube or in this blog post.
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Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself... - John 14:1-3 (DR)
About Interior Castle
Or maybe it's more accurate to say that what pertains to me personally is mostly in the beginning. So that's what I'm going to write about here.
About St. Teresa of Avila
St. Teresa of Avila was a leader and reformer of the Carmelite Orders of both women and men and the first female Doctor of the Catholic Church. She was courageous. She was articulate. And she was devoted to God.
St. Teresa was born in Ávila, Spain in 1515. She was a noblewoman whose paternal grandfather was a marrano (or forced Jewish convert to Christianity). At age 20, she entered the Carmelite Order. She read widely throughout her life. Her writing include an autobiography (The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus), The Way of Perfection and Interior Castle.
When St. Teresa began Interior Castle on Trinity Sunday, June 2nd, 1577, she was already on the radar of the Inquisitors. That may be why she is self-effacing, in the writing that follows, calling herself foolhardy or wretched, a mere woman writing for her fellow sisters only because women understand other women best.
Or that may be how she actually thought of herself. She was humble, after all. A saint.
And a mystic.
There is a lot about mysticism I don't understand but there are couple of things that I notice in St. Teresa's writing. My first observation is that legitimate mystical experience requires an unusually high degree of personal sanctity. The second is that mysticism calls for an intense and unwavering desire to get as close to God as is humanly possible.
That St. Teresa had such a desire from a young age, is obvious. We can see it in the story of how she set out for land of the Moors, as a child of seven, in order to be martyred and then see heaven. And we can see that same dedication shining through the words that she wrote.
The Interior Castle Framework
I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many Mansions. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
While St. Teresa often speaks of multiple castles or mansions the model she uses is one of rooms or levels in a greater castle which is ruled by God. The rooms are numbered one through seven, but are at the same time innumerable.
St. Teresa is clear in saying that the castle itself is something which we should not expect to ever understand fully.
...there is no point in our fatiguing ourselves by attempting to comprehend the beauty of this castle...the very fact that His Majesty says it is made in His image means that we can hardly form any conception of the soul's great dignity and beauty. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
We also are shown that we should not think of the various floors or chambers in a strictly linear way.
Let us now imagine that this castle, as I have said, contains many mansions, some above, others below, others at each side; and in the center and midst of them all is the chiefest mansion where the most secret things pass between God and the soul. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
Entering into the Castle
The chambers that St. Teresa describes are beautifully and progressively filled with light but they are not, even on the lowest level, accessible to everyone.
...there are souls so infirm and so accustomed to busying themselves with outside affairs that nothing can be done for them, and it seems as thought they are incapable of entering with themselves at all. So accustomed have they grown to living all the time with the reptiles and other creature to be found in the outer court of the castle that they have almost become like them; and although by nature they are so richly endowed as to have the power of holding converse with none other than God Himself, there is nothing that can be done for them. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
While not everyone can enter the castle, those who do will come through the doorway of prayer.
As far as I can understand, the door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation: I do not say mental prayer rather than vocal for, if it is prayer at all, it must be accompanied by meditation. If a person does not think Whom he is addressing ...I do not consider that he is praying at all even though he be constantly moving his lips. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
Leaving behind the poor "paralyzed souls" who are unable to gain entry, St. Teresa moves on to talk about those in a second group who may (or may not) enter in. St. Theresa describes them as people who...
...are very much absorbed in worldly affairs; but their desires are good; sometimes, though infrequently they commend themselves to Our Lord and they think about the state of their souls, though not very carefully. Full of a thousand preoccupations as they are, they pray on a few times a month and as a rule they are thinking all the time of their preoccupations, for the are very much attached to them, and, where their treasure is there is their heart. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
To my mind, this describes most of us. But I found that encouraging because it also holds out the hope that those who develop a true awareness of their worldly state may achieve ground level access.
The First Castle
St. Teresa describes the path of the worldly (but not hopeless) individuals outside the castle as follows:
From time to time, however they shake their mind free of them [meaning their worldly concerns] and it is a great thing that they should know themselves well enough to realize that they are not going the right way to reach the castle door. Eventually they enter the first rooms on the lowest floor, but so many reptiles get in with them they are unable to appreciate the beautify of the castle or to find any peace within it. Still they have done a good deal by entering at all. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
The idea that we can be within the castle but still caught up in worldly desires highlights the fact that entry is only a beginning.
You must note that the light which comes from the palace occupied by the King hardly reaches these first Mansions at all; for, although they are not dark and black, as...the soul...in a state of sin, they are to some extent darkened ... because ... snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures .... have come in with the soul .... [and] prevent it from seeing the light. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
My Reaction
Remember that in few of the mansions of this castle are we free from struggles with devils ... it is most important that we should not cease to be watchful against the devil's wiles, lest he deceive in the guise of an angel of light. For there are a multitude of ways in which he can deceive us, and gradually make his way into the castle, and until he is actually there we do not realize it. - St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
St. Teresa dedicates chapter one to the first castle. Chapter two addresses the topic of sin and the subtle ways in which Satan can deceive us. In chapter three she moves on to the second castle.
But I am fascinated by the vipers in chapter one.
I remember a dream I had about fallen angels and poison and writing. And another about a pit full of lizards.
I think about the poisonous reptiles in my waking life.
I think about the poisonous reptiles in my waking life.
St. Teresa tells us that these creatures can be a problem in the second castle or the third. She uses the image of a poisonous viper as a metaphor for sin and worldly preoccupation and the demonic.
Full of a thousand preoccupations as they are, they pray only a few times a month and as a rule they are thinking all the time of their preoccupations, for the are very much attached to them, and, where their treasure is there is their heart.
I think about my own attachments and feel quite sure that I am part of the ground level group St. Teresa describes above.
I remember how spiritually advanced I imagined myself to be when I was involved in the new age and the occult. I find it interesting that now, having returned to the Church, I'm struck by how spiritually remedial I actually am.
My Application
I set aside Interior Castle and take a short personal inventory. I come up with seven behaviors that I would like to change. And I know that I'm right to want to change them. These are things that stand between me and God or at the very least show that I don't really trust him.
This is how I know that I am over my head with Interior Castle. While I know that I will read the rest of it anyway, I also know that it's the first chapter I need to focus on. I remember that St. Teresa said we enter the castle through the doorway of prayer so I know that prayer is the key.
I order a book that Fr. Chad Ripperger recommends called The Ways of Mental Prayer. It promises an explanation of contemplative prayer that is based on of the work of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis de Sales and others.
I think about the Interior Castle a lot over the next couple of days. I know it's not especially impressive to find myself stuck in the entryway to St. Teresa's beautiful palace. But to me it feels like a discovery.
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There are several versions of Interior Castle available. The one I've linked in this post is the Dover Thrift Edition ($4.99).
Please note, this post includes Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of these links, I'll receive a small commission at no cost to you.
About My Grandmother
My grandfather died before I was born. And while I didn't realize it then, as the widow of a high school football coach, I don't think my grandmother had a lot of extra money. I guess that's why instead of visiting often or even calling on the phone she sent me things like letters and clippings and eventually a binder.
The binder came with only a couple pages but then she started sending me more pages to fill it. And so several times a year I'd receive a package of 2 or 3 or 4 photo album pages filled with brightly colored pictures.
Those pictures weren't anything special by ordinary standards. Most were simply cut from magazines and carefully arranged under the plastic film that covered each page in the album. But somehow those pages were magic. So magical in fact that I still remember many of the pictures. A pile of leaves raked up by group of kids. A little dog in a bright red coat. A school bus in the rain.
My grandmother came to visit us once or twice a year and when she did she slept in the spare room next to mine. And I remember how one Christmas we sat together on the bed in that room while she told me the story of the nativity.
Maybe it was because my grandmother was a Sunday school teacher who knew the story inside out but that experience was even more magical then the pictures. I will never forget the chills that ran up and down my spine when she told me about the slaughter of the innocents and the glory of the angels heralding the miracle that was the birth of Jesus.
Looking back, I feel quite certain that the Holy Spirit was sitting right there on the bed between us.
My Grandmother's Gift
One Christmas, concerned about my lack of Christian education, my grandmother gave me a little white Bible. I don't remember getting it and I suspect it didn't impress me as much as the other presents I received. But I did read it - off and on, all through my childhood.
I would like to say that I kept reading that Bible or that it was one of my prized possessions but that would not be accurate. What is accurate is that my life veered off the rails and I returned to the Bible my grandmother had infrequently. and that it spent most of the years between now and then in a succession of dresser drawers and boxes.
And yet, somehow, out of the things that mattered more and all things that have come and gone, that little Bible is one of the few things I've hung on to.
In 2012 I moved into a new (old) house. I was still deeply involved in New Age spirituality. But when I was unpacking I decided to put the Bible my grandmother gave me into my china cabinet alongside my tarot cards and crystals.
In 2017, when I became a Christian, I began to clear that cabinet and as I did I relocated my childhood Bible to a shelf that held my new Christian books and other versions of the Bible. But because the print was small and I had other more modern versions, I didn't ever really read it.
The Message
And then, months later, a friend posted something about prized childhood possessions on Facebook. People were sharing pictures of their childhood treasures and I decided that I would share one of something of mine as well and the only I had really was that little Bible.
So I took a picture of the cover that was no longer white, and the face plate that my grandmother had dedicated so long ago and then I thought, why not one of pages?
Opening the New Testament section at random, I was surprised to see that I had underlined the same verse that hit me so hard when I first became a Christian. John 3:16.
I didn't remember underlining it and I don't know why I chose to mark that particular verse in red. I had no pastor then or Christian friends to tell me why it was important. But somehow I was guided. Maybe, I thought, it was because my grandmother was praying for me when I read it.
And it occurred to me that she probably did a lot of that in between the clippings and the pictures and I imagined that once she got to heaven she kept right on going.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ~John 3:16
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