Pints With Aquinas - YOU Need to Be More Like a MONK! | Mthr Natalia

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

Mother talks about Monastics as the example for how the laity are to live. She focuses on the call to pray always. 🤝 💸 Support the Channel: https://mattfradd.locals.com 🎧 Mother's Podcast: https://whatgodisnot.com/ 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/matt 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd  

Glory to Jesus Christ. I'm Mother Natalia, a Byzantine Catholic nun from Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, and this is Pines with Aquinas. In St. John Paul II's apostolic letter Oriental Illumine, Light of the East, he talks about how in the East monasticism was not seen as a separate condition, but that monastics were supposed to be, are supposed to be, the reference point for all the baptized. So I'd like to talk about that today in a very specific way. Because a way in which I think that monastics are called to be this reference point is our striving to be in the presence of God throughout the day, every day. I wanna emphasize that I said striving because we don't do this perfectly,

but we're very intentional about trying to accomplish that. So part of this comes through just our coming together throughout the day in liturgical prayer at certain times of the day for morning prayer and evening prayer and sixth hour and so on and so forth. But it's not only liturgical prayer. It's also these small moments throughout the day

in which we're trying to have short prayers or pray while we're working in order to call to mind the presence of God. In order really to respond to St. Paul's order to the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing. There's this great quote by St. Augustine. He says, the monks in Egypt are said to offer frequent prayers, but these are very short and hurled like swift javelins. Otherwise, their watchful attention, a very necessary quality for anyone at prayer, could

be dulled and could disappear through protracted delays. Because this is the problem of going long periods without prayer, without turning our hearts back to the Lord, is that we just become forgetful. Because as human beings, we just have a very short memory. And I think that what we can do, this can be a place of great temptation, is in the same way that we can kind of see that one hour that we go to church on Sunday as this is my time for God and then the rest of the Sunday, the rest of the week, I kind of do my own thing. But then on that one hour, we come back to God for that one hour a week. We're so generous. Similarly, we can have this temptation when we have this one chunk of time that's set aside in the day for prayer.

That's a great thing and we all need that. Everyone should be setting aside a chunk of time dedicated just to the Lord in their day. And that looks different, of course, depending on your state in life. I can do a much longer chunk of time there as a monastic than a mom with six kids can do or something like that. But the temptation can be when we have that chunk set aside, then we can say, well, I've given to God what I'm supposed to give to Him.

I've set aside this time. I've fulfilled my obligation. And then the rest of the day we can kind of go through the day and do our own thing and this is the time for me to have me time and then that 20 minutes in the morning or that one hour at night or whatever, that's the time for the Lord. So that can be the temptation and that's why it's helpful to have what these monks in Egypt had that St. Augustine described as the Swift Javelins, just these very short prayers that we can pray throughout the day. And I'm going to give a few practical examples and ideas of this throughout this episode.

One is that one of my spiritual daughters, and she gave permission for me to share this, has this great way of remembering to call to mind the presence of God throughout the day. So she has alarms set on her phone, but she has them set to silent because she meets with clients throughout the day and she can't have alarms going off while she's with clients. But then when she goes to check her phone in between appointments, as we all, well, anyways, as most of us, as most in the world are checking their phones to see messages that have come through or what's on the calendar or whatever, when she goes to check her phone in between appointments she sees

the alarm, she remembers to say a Hail Mary or a Jesus prayer or just something short, Jesus I trust in you, just the sign of the cross, whatever it is in order to turn her mind and her heart back to the Lord. It's important to have these small moments of encounter. Saint Theodorus the Great Aesthetic says, Whatever a man loves, he desires at all costs to be near continuously and uninterruptedly, and he turns himself away from everything that hinders him from being in contact and dwelling with the object of his love. It is clear therefore that he who loves God also desires always to be with him and to converse with him.

It is clear therefore that he who loves God also desires always to be with him and to converse with him." So I want to make a distinction here because I don't want any of you feeling the shame of, well, if I don't desire to spend all of my time in prayer all the time, then that just means that I don't love God because I think that's how we can hear that sentence, right? He who loves God also desires always to be with him and to converse with him. And I can't claim to have that desire. As a nun, I know it's very shocking to people to hear that I don't always on a natural level want to pray. Sometimes it's really hard for me to go to chapel very early in the morning to pray matins, even though it's my favorite service and all of that. But I think the point is, even when I don't desire to spend my time in prayer,

I desire to have that desire. I don't know if that makes sense, but at the root, we are always desiring God. Oftentimes those desires can get disordered or mismanaged and we can be trying to fill them through other things, but at the root what we're desiring, who we're desiring is the Lord. And so I do desire always to be with God. And so even when I don't want to sit in quiet, even when I don't want to spend this time in prayer, I can remind myself that even though I don't want that, I do desire relationship with God, and I do know that this is how that happens. So I think that's just something

to keep in mind. Something, a really great practice that another one of my spiritual daughters has done in the past is she has time set aside in her family while her husband's at work that this particular time of the day for maybe half an hour is is quiet time in the whole household. And she has multiple children. But the way that this works, she's not forcing her kids to all sit down and fold their hands nice and quietly and sit there and meditate for 30 minutes. But but her kids just know because they've practiced this so frequently, they know that at this time Mom is quietly praying and

During that time they can be coloring they can be playing a game they can be drawing But it has to be a quiet activity so I think that this is another way to To be a witness to our children of how to have these moments of recollection throughout the day. And of course that looks different at different ages. The last quote that I want to share is from the Philokalia. So a brother named John, I can relate to a brother named John in this story, he goes to Father Philomund, who's an elder, and he says, what shall I do to be saved? For my intellect vacillates to and fro and

strays after all the wrong things. My intellect vacillates to and fro and strays after all the wrong things. I get you, brother named John. So the elder's response to him is to pray the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer, I've mentioned it on episodes before, but put simply, it's Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. There's some variations thereof, but that's pretty much the form of the prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. And this is the prayer that the Eastern Fathers have used for a very long time

in order, again, to answer this call from St. Paul to pray without ceasing. Because this is a prayer that we can pray while we're doing the dishes, while we're going for a walk, while even sometimes while we're in conversation with someone, if we can have that prayer continuing in our heart. So John has a beautiful experience praying the Jesus prayer, but then he starts to lose the sweetness. So he goes back to Philomon and tells him what happened and this is Philomene's response. company or in your cell, or on a journey, repeat that prayer with a watchful mind and an undeflected intellect. Also chant and meditate on prayers and psalms. Even when carrying out needful tasks, do not let your intellect be idle, but keep it

meditating inwardly and praying. For in this way you can grasp the depths of divine scripture and the power hidden in it, you can grasp the depths of divine scripture and the power hidden in it and give unceasing work to the intellect, thus fulfilling the apostolic command, pray without ceasing." I love this quote because I love that Philomon says that this is what we're called to do even when carrying out needful tasks. So he's not saying you need to just not live life and you need to not ever do anything,

but you need to have this prayerful heart in the midst of carrying out the needful tasks. And the Jesus prayer can be a very helpful way to do that. A practice that I have that maybe some of you can incorporate, there's often large chunks of time here at the monastery that I need to be doing office work that's answering emails or I do some of the accounting work or managing our donor database or our calendar or things like that.

So there's a lot of office work that I do here. And that's the kind of work that it can be difficult to be praying while carrying out the task. Like it's difficult to respond to someone's email and to provide, yeah, whatever the response needs to be while also praying, right? Because this isn't just a matter of like cleaning or mowing the lawn or doing some of the more the more mind mindless thoughtless tasks that we're able to to more consciously pray. So what I do is at my desk I have an icon of the Theotokos, the mother of God, with a small candle in front of it and when I know that I'm gonna be spending some chunk of time doing office work, I say a prayer to the Mother of God and ask her to intercede for me. I ask God to bless my work, to help me to

respond to these emails with a spirit of discernment, so on and so forth, whatever their request may be. I venerate the icon, light the candle, and then begin my work. And then when that chunk of time is over, I make a prayer of thanksgiving, ask the Lord to bless whatever work I have done, and to let it be for His glory, venerate the icon, blow out the candle, and then go on to whatever is the next thing in my day. And this is just a way to set aside this time and dedicate it to the Lord and to kind of just say to him, you know, I want to be attentive to you throughout this, and I'm just asking for your grace

when I fail to do that because I know that I'm going to. So just kind of asking for his gentleness and his grace in those moments. And then I think the last, the last maybe practical example I'll give is I've been really convicted recently that I need to start taking more advantage of using the unexpected moments of waiting throughout the day in order to turn back to the Lord. So when you're in line at the pharmacy and you're suddenly waiting for five minutes, you don't need to be productive, right? I need to do a whole episode at some point on the problem of efficiency.

Efficiency can be a great gift and when not used well, it can also be a detriment to our relationship with the Lord and our relationship with other people. And I think this is one of those examples. You know, you're in line and you think, well, I have five minutes. I can pull out my phone and answer these emails. You could also use those five minutes as a time to turn back to the Lord. You know, when Philomons suggests, when he says to meditate on prayers and psalms, you could be reading each day, each morning,

you should be reading each day some kind of scripture, whether that's the daily readings for the liturgical year or a psalm or a pericope from the gospel. So if you're doing that, then at these unexpected moments of waiting in line at the pharmacy, in the sudden traffic jam, when your kids running late when you pick them up from school. In these unexpected moments of waiting, make a practice of trying to remember what the scripture was that you last read, whether it was that morning or the day before or whatever, and meditating on that, asking the Lord how this applies to your life in the here and

now. Make the Psalms your own prayers. The Psalms are fantastic for this. The psalmist just expresses all of the movements of the human heart so beautifully. And so as you continue to dive into the Psalms and make them a part of your daily life, you will find that you can really

express the movements of your daily life, you will find that you can really express the movements of your own heart more eloquently than you could in the past. And I know you can do this. I have confidence that you can call to mind the scriptures that you've read, especially the more you practice it, because we can do this with movies

and we can do this with books. I remember someone very dear to me at one point was like, if I could just memorize scripture the way that I could memorize Nacho Libre. And anyways, so yeah, take advantage of these unexpected moments of waiting and choose to not be efficient and instead use these as moments to turn back to the Lord, to remember that he's with you, to remember the reason that you're living. I would also encourage you in a great movement towards positivity on YouTube to give other ideas to one another in the comments on this video. You know, share ways that you're able to turn to the Lord throughout the day and give some practical examples

and learn from what others are sharing as well. And I think that would be just a really beautiful way to build one another up and to have some edifying content on YouTube. So in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the gift of those who are listening. Thank you for the gift of the wisdom of the saints that you grant us in order to conform our lives more fully to life in you.

Please grant us the graces that we need, the wisdom that we need to order our lives around the goal of union with you. Help us to keep our minds and our hearts focused on you throughout the day. Help us to have a continual turning back to you in our time of distraction, our time of discouragement. Call us back to you. Grant us an inefficiency that on our lives to live in relationship with you and with others in healthy and holy relationship. I ask all of this through the prayers of St. Nathaniel, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Theodorus, St. Augustine, St. John Paul II, the Most Holy Theotokos and all the saints, through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.