The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - 7 Ways to Nourish Your Soul

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

Just as we need to eat to nourish the body, there are certain things we need to do to nourish the soul. Jeff shares 7 ways to truly feed our souls. For more episodes, check out this podcast at ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow SHOWNOTES The Eucharist: The body, blood, soul and divinity. Pure life. It contains the grace you need. Scripture. Prayer. Confession. Focused reading. Rub shoulders with the saints. Really get to know a few of them. Take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well and avoid addictions. Enjoy nature with a walk. Isaiah 55:1 - “Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in fatness. Isaiah 55:2 - Why pay money for something that will not nourish you? Why spend your hard-earned money on something that will not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is nourishing! Enjoy fine food! Ephesians 5:29-30 - For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Ephesians 6:4 - “And the fathers! provoke not your children, but nourish them in the instruction and admonition of the Lord.” 1Peter 2:1 - So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander. Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. 1Corinthians 3:1 - But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men?

You're listening to The Jeff Kavens Show, Episode 113, Seven Ways to Nourish Your Soul. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. Thank you for joining me again this week. I do hope you are doing well.

and I sure appreciate all of your prayers. I've received an awful lot of feedback. If you've been following in the shows, one after the other, you know that the last week, my dear mother-in-law, very, very ill. And it was a day after the last show that she did pass away. And we're doing well. We're getting ready for a funeral right now. But I wanted to thank you. And I wanted to share last week's show with you because we are a family. family. And as a family, when one suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice. And I really appreciate your kind words in email, on Instagram, even on iTunes. So I really, really, really appreciate that. And in the future, I'm going to be doing a whole show on my mother-in-law, Alice Tobler. As we're going through things and preparing for the funeral right now, It is amazing what you discover in terms of the depth of a person and what they wrote, read songs and so forth. And I'm really looking forward to that show, and I think it's going to be the celebration

of a life. It is springtime in Minnesota, deep in the woods, and a lot of people will take walks in the woods, and they're out getting exercise and enjoying the sun, you know, and the talking as they walk, taking care of themselves. Well, today I want to talk to you about seven ways. to nourish your soul. And this is something that I think oftentimes we forget. We do the natural things as far as nourishing our bodies and our minds and all of that. But sometimes I think we fail to see our soul as something that really needs to be nourished, and there are some real

practical ways to nourish your soul. And so I want to talk about that. For some of you, this might be brand new. And for others, this might be a tune-up. But I think it's a tune-up that is needed. As I look out into the woods and I see people walking on the paths, I am reminded that in my own life, you know, I have gone through phases where I thought, you know what, I'm really going to exercise. I'm going to run. I'm going to walk. I'm going to lift or whatever it might be. And you get really excited about it and you start to do it. And then you reach a lull, don't you? I mean, you probably have as well where you think, man, I'm out of shape. I'm not doing what I used to do. And so it's kind of a wake-up call, and you begin to set up a program to get yourself back in shape physically.

And there is an awful lot of focus on our physical beings. And as you know, we do have these bodies, but we have a soul. We have a soul. And that composite there is us completely. The body is very important. Of course, our soul was an everlasting soul, and our resurrected bodies will be with us forever as well. So in the natural, there's so much emphasis right now. If you go to, for example, a Barnes and Noble magazine rack in the food section or in the exercise and self-help section, you'll see all

kinds of articles being written about how to take care of your body. For example, it's real big now, no carbs. People are going without the carbs so what? They can lose weight, and that's a good thing for people. But there's also a lot of discussion about no GMOs. People want organic. Big emphasis on exercise. In fact, the number of physical fitness apps on the Apple site is and also in the Google's platform is really amazing how many of these are, you know, being built today. And you might even belong to a health club. And you can go to a health club and work out. which is really good for your body. And they'll even offer private, you know, workout sessions where you pay $100 a day to get someone to coach you, you know, in how to work and out, work out.

Well, this is all real good. And I think that we need to take care of ourselves. And that's actually part of nourishing your soul. We'll get to that in a little bit. But I think there's some real practical things that we need to do to nourish our soul. Examine your life. Are you buying and are you consuming things that really don't satisfy in your life? Are you eating junk food in your life? And the same idea, what about spiritually? Are you buying and consuming things that really don't satisfy your soul? Why don't we tend to our soul the way we tend to our body?

I want to give you some scripture before we look at the seven ways to nourish our soul. really like what Isaiah 55 in verse 1 says, says, oh, everyone who thirsts come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. And then he asks a question in verse 2 of Isaiah 55, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

harken diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in fatness. And then verse two goes on and says, well, I like this. This is verse two, but it's another translation. It says, why pay money for something that will not nourish you? Isn't that a great line? I think that's actually the King James version. I'm not sure. But why pay money for something that will not nourish you? Why spend your hard-earned money on something that will not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is nourishing. Isn't that great? That's Isaiah 55 in verse 2.

And so that's what I want to talk about. Let's eat what is nourishing for our soul. Now, Ephesians 5 in the New Testament, verses 29 and 30 says, For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. So we naturally will nourish our flesh, but we're talking today about nourishing our soul. Now, one of the things that we need to sort of adjust in our life if we want to nourish our soul is we've got to avoid certain junk foods that are detrimental to our soul. It doesn't satisfy. It's not nourishment for our soul.

It's empty carbs in our life. Do you have empty carbs in your life? Do you have empty carbs in your spiritual life? That's something to think about, huh? Empty carbs in your spiritual life. One of the things that we can do to set ourselves up to be better nourished in the soul is to avoid unnecessary TV, you know? This isn't one of the seven, but I'm just saying this. Avoid TV that is really, it's junk food for the soul. Avoid music that is negative or dark, right? It doesn't lift you up. It doesn't nourish your soul. In fact, it fights against everything that is right. Avoid endless YouTube videos. How many people today, you can track your usage, by the way, on YouTube, and you can look at how much time you are spending watching YouTube videos. And I just have to ask, is that really nourishing your soul? Do you feel empty? Are you looking for answers in life?

Are you looking for joy and purpose, and at the same time, empty carbs for your soul? So that's something to really think about, endless YouTube videos. You know, the word, the word of God, it's we're going to see, will nourish your soul. But there's a lot of things that will deplete you of that nourishment, like endless YouTube videos. How about avoid endless texting and social media? This is sapping the energy, I think, out of a generation, and the studies are showing that they are the loneliest generation, yet we're addicted to social media, but it's not nourishing our soul. It's not satisfying us at all.

And I think that's very, very important to address some of those issues. So what we want to see here is that we need to be nourished, but there's also another aspect to that. You not only need to be nourished, but you need to nourish. but you need to nourish those around you. If you have children, you need to nourish their soul. If you have a spouse, you need to nourish their soul in your conduct, in your conversation, and what you partake in, right? Ephesion 6.4 says, and the fathers, it says, and the fathers provoke not your children, but nourish them in the instruction and admonition of the Lord. 1. Peter 2.1. And by the way, I'll put all this in the show notes. Don't worry about that.

And if you're not getting show notes, send me an email. My address is simply the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. And we'll put you on that list. And the subject line put notes, show notes. And we'll make sure you get those automatically every week. First Peter 2.1. So put away all malice and all guile and in insincerity and envy and all slander. Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk. that by it you may grow up to salvation, for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. Isn't that beautiful? It sort of juxtaposes the pure spiritual milk that will nourish your soul. It can come from things like the Word of God and the Eucharist.

And it juxtaposes those with malice, guile, insincerity, envy, slander. That's an interesting juxtaposition there. First Corinthians 3-1, but I, brethren, could not address you as, spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it. And even yet, you are not ready. For you are still of the flesh, for while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving like ordinary men? So this is an important point that the apostle Paul brings out, and that is that we really should be nourished on the pure milk and nourished on God's word and Eucharist. But he wants to feed us

meat. He wants to give us even more nourishment, but he says, you're not ready for it. That's an interesting thing. You're not ready for it. It's like, I wanted you to run a marathon, but you're not ready for it. You're only walking around the block right now. And so this tells me that being nourishing our soul is a process that we are responsible for in giving our soul good things to be nourished by. And if we start to do that, we're going to get even more nourishment, and God will be able to reveal even greater things to us that right now we can't even handle, right? Can't even handle it. So let me share with you seven points that I think are going to be really, really important. I'm going to take a break right now. And when I come back, I've got seven ways.

to nourish your soul. And I hope that this is going to be good news for you and perhaps a change in your life, a change that you have been longing for. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. And if you're looking for a way to learn more about your Catholic faith, I invite you to check out the Ascension Presents YouTube channel. You're going to find tons of free videos featuring Catholic presenters like Matt Frad, Lea Dero, Jackie Bobby Angel, and Emily Wilson. Go to YouTube.com Presents. That's YouTube.com slash ascension presents. And if you like what you see, please share and subscribe. All right. So glad you're continuing on with me. We're talking about seven ways to nourish your soul today. And, you know, this is for me too. You know, I'm not, I don't do just shows every

week. I'm, I'm talking about things that I'm wrestling with and that I need to be reminded of just like you. And so I feel like if it's something that I'm pretty interested in, chances are you might be pretty interested in it too. All right, seven ways to nourish your soul. Number one, and probably the most important, is the Eucharist. Now, the Eucharist is, according to church teaching, according to the church fathers, it is the body and blood, soul and divinity. It is pure life. and it contains the grace that you need. Put it into natural language. It contains the nutrients that your soul needs to flourish and to be fruitful. If the Eucharist were in a can, you would read the ingredients on the side and you would see a list of everything that your soul

desperately needs. And this is, you know, this is something that I think we failed to get a hold of sometimes. And that is that the Eucharist that we partake in and receive at every mass is so powerful that I think sometimes we forget that, that the Eucharist actually does change us when we receive it. When the priest says the body of Christ and you say amen and you receive it into your body, you're receiving nutrients in the same way that your physical body is receiving a nutrient when you eat an apple, or you have a piece of meat, or you have vegetables. Your body is now going to be the recipient of things that it really needs to flourish, right? But you really don't see those nutrients, do you?

I mean, you don't eat a piece of meat and say, wow, that's, I think, 2% of what my body needs for vitamin A today. You don't sense vitamin C coming in. You don't sense vitamin A coming in and identify it, but it's there. D is there. Vitamin B vitamins are there, and you receive them. And you eat because your body needs this. Your body cries out for nourishment and you feed it.

In the same way our souls are crying out for nourishment. And what do we do? We feed our soul. So the Eucharist is not a symbol. The Eucharist is not Christ with bread. The Eucharist is the body and blood, soul and divinity, pure life. It is, simply put, the most valuable nutrient for your soul in the world. Now, if you really believe that, which I think you do, if you really believe that,

then doesn't it make sense for us to receive it as often as we can? Now, I'm not going to sit here and say, you've got to go to Mass every single day because I do know that some people's schedules just don't easily lend themselves to going to Mass every day, but could you go more than Sunday? Could you go more? Or could you spend time in adoration before the blessed sacrament? So I would really want to encourage you to go to Mass as often as you can. And when you receive the Eucharist, just say amen. in the back of your mind, thank God that you're receiving what you need. Now, we receive the grace of God in the Eucharist, and so when we receive the Eucharist, we're receiving the life of the Trinity. Whatever you're going through right now in your life, the difficulties that you may be in the middle of, you need nourished, the discouragement you might be facing, the depression you have found yourself in, the anxiety that has gripped your mind, you need nourishment. You need nourishment in the

same way that a leg can get a cramp in it, because there might not be enough magnesium, for example, in your body. Your soul can have a cramp. Your soul can get a Charlie horse. And we need the nutrients to feed our soul. So number one is the Eucharist. Number two, another way to nourish your soul is sacred scripture. You probably knew that one was coming. right? The sacred scripture is rich. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It is milk, pure milk, you know, to drink. It is nourishment for your soul. And it will feed you, and it will help you to think with the mind of Christ. And these are the ways that we nourish ourselves. So I highly recommend that you read the Bible daily. Now, my wife and myself, we read it

every day. We meditate on the gospel reading every single day, and that nourishes our soul. And so I encourage you to, in the morning, spend some time with the Lord. At the time of this show, the scripture reading is John 21, the gospel reading of this day. And I like it so much, and my wife and I were talking about this this morning, that the Lord meets us at a regular event, that is breakfast, right? At breakfast, the Lord meets with the disciples, right, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, when he told them to throw their nets over and he got 153 fish. Well, in the same way, I think it's good to meet with the Lord regularly and read his word. So read his word, perhaps Lexio devena, right? You can do Lexio devena. That's a way of being nourished by God's

word. He speaks to you in a personal way. Take a scripture of the day. Maybe one verse with you on an index card or in a note on your phone or your screensaver, whatever. Every day, you can memorize scripture and let that scripture counsel you and nourish you. Let the great physician work on your soul with scripture. And you'll find great contentment and guidance and correction in scripture. But it's a reminder to you, and it's a reminder to me. Let's not forget about Scripture. Let's not forget about Scripture, because it's so important. Number three, another way to nourish our soul is prayer. And this is what I was alluding to, and I talked about Scripture in Point 2. Every morning, my wife and I, we pray together in the kitchen overlooking this great northern country in Minnesota, and we pray. And we do

lexio divina. But some things that you can adopt in your life in the area of prayer is you can pray the rosary, right? You can pray the rosary. It's a great prayer that you can do regularly. You can do Lexio divina. The mass is the greatest prayer. You can talk to the Lord spontaneously throughout the day. And in the car, it is estimated that, oh, what was that figure now? I don't have it at the tip of my tongue. It's thousands of hours a year that people are listening to the radio. Maybe you know that statistic. You can give it to me. I suppose I could Google it, but hey, I'm talking to you right now. But thousands of hours a year, people sit in their car and they listen to the radio. Well, what about turning it off? What about turning it off and nourishing your soul with prayer

or playing scripture in your car? One of the cars that we have, came with a subscription to a serious radio. It's XM radio, satellite radio. And they make it really easy to keep, you know. And if you have just regular radio in your car, there's only a certain number of stations in your locale. But when you're on Sirius radio, it's like hundreds and hundreds of stations to choose from.

And so you leave your house with 500 stations on their cable, your cable television channel lineup. And then you go out to the car and you've got hundreds and hundreds of radio shows. Well, why not turn it off? Why not use that time driving to nurture your, nourish your soul? And so turn it off and listen to scripture or praise music is a wonderful way to incorporate prayer with music and worship, and that will nourish your soul. See, this is another one. These could be vitamins for the soul. I could have called the show vitamins for the soul, the Eucharist, Scripture, prayer. And then number four, the sacraments are very, very important. Why? Because it's an encounter

with Jesus. That's what the sacraments are. It's a direct encounter with the Lord, which are always going to be nourished when you spend time with Jesus. But the one I want to focus on here is confession. Confession is medicine for the soul. It really is. It really is. It is considered by many to be a sacrament of healing. It's a sacrament of healing. And when we talk about a sacrament of healing, we're talking about things that are going on in our life that are outside of the will of God. Now, if you are walking contrary to the will of God, this is not good for your soul, but by extension, it's not even good for your body because, for example, the scripture says that envy will rot the bones, rot your bones. So the spiritual health that you are

enjoying right now, or not enjoying, will have ramifications in the physical realm in your body. So going to confession is very important to ward off things that are starting to develop in your life with vice. And certainly if there's mortal sin in your life, which is a broken relationship with God, wow, you not only need to be nourished before that, you need life again. And confession is where to go to receive that life. And so as you're sitting in that confessional, realize, and you can even say to yourself on the way to confession, I'm going to nourish my soul. My soul needs this. My heart needs this desperately. And so I'm not going to go and just fix something and move on with my agenda, but I am going to have my soul nourished. And as you hear

those words, I absolve you from your sins, then just take in that nourishment and that encounter with Jesus. Now, number five is something that I have been trying to do more and more in my life and to be more focused on it. And that is, if you want to nourish your soul, get into what I would called focused reading. Focused reading. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that if there's certain areas in your life, for example, in the areas of the vices in your life, I would encourage you to get some good books. And that's not hard to find some really good books. You can call a Catholic bookstore. And if you need a Catholic bookstore to call, I don't know exactly where you're at. I'm in Minnesota, and I know that St. George's, St. George's in Minnesota has online and a brick and mortar, and a lot of people will go in there and say, I'm struggling with anxiety. Do you have anything that you could recommend? I'm going to be a father in three months. Do you have anything that you could recommend? I want to know more about the mercy of God. Can you recommend anything? Well, you can give them a call. In fact, I'll put the number in the show notes for you. And you can call. And you can call.

call them if you want and ask them if you don't have a source. I'm not tied to them financially, so I'm just telling you that I know them locally, and I'm sure you do have a local bookstore in your area. Go to them, call them, and ask them. But focused reading is taking a topic and maybe reading two or three books on that topic, really focusing on it, or going deep into the vices in your life and countering them with virtue and how to develop virtue. But be focused with topical reading. I think that is very important to nourish your soul. And wow, you know, the other day, we got in the mail an offer to take points from our airline, frequent flyer points, that were going to expire.

And they said, instead of letting them expire, you can use those for magazines. well okay we don't want to waste it so we said okay we'll get the magazines i think we got like seven of them something like that and now they're coming they're coming in the mail and as you receive those from the mailbox bring them into the house set them on the table you feel this this weight come over you have i got to look at those i got to read those again why do we buy things that do not nourish our souls why there's nothing wrong with reading money magazine or better homes and garden or whatever the magazine might be but if your soul is depleted of of the energy and the nourishment that it needs and there's just empty carbs going into your soul what good are those magazines anyway cut them off

you know just say well that was a mistake i'm going to get rid of those so focused reading number six rub shoulders with the saints that's right you want to nourish your soul get around people who are nourishing. Do you have friends that deplete you? Do you take part in discussions that zap you of your energy? Make a change. Start hanging around with the saints. In my newest book called The Activated Disciple with Ascension Press, I have a whole chapter that talks about cultivating your posse. What I mean by that is you cultivate four or five, six, seven saints in your life because there's over 10,000 of them that the church has recognized, but you can't get to know all of them. And so find a handful of saints that will help nurture your soul with

their teachings and their example in living. For example, I have in my posse, and these are people that truly nourish my soul. I've got St. Augustine, because I'm a Bible teacher, I've got St. Francis, because I need to be reminded of simplicity. I have Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of Calcutta to remember the simple things and the poor and what really matters. She's a great reminder. She helps me nourish my soul. And I have St. Joseph because I'm a husband and father. And then I think my favorite is St. John Paul II. And I am so nourished by his writings and his life. Sometimes, you know what? It sounds a little different, but sometimes I even just put a video on. or I'll go to YouTube and I'll listen to his messages and it nourishes me.

I love it. So you put together your posse and start hanging around with great saints. There's not any bad ones, but start hanging around with some of these great older brothers and sisters who will not zap you of your nourishment, but they will help your soul to be nourished. And then number seven, take care of yourself. This cannot be over, over, this cannot, I can't say enough about this. Number seven, take care of yourself. I can't say enough about this.

This is so important because there's a connection between your body and your soul. For example, if you sin, it will lead to your body changing. That's right. it's like a lie detector test you you lie your body responds in a negative way your blood pressure goes up your heartbeat becomes rapid uh you begin to sweat and your body's not meant to walk in sin you need to take care of yourself there is this relationship between the physical body and the in the soul you need to eat well now i'm not saying you've got to become a complete wrapped up food junkie you know as far as everything has to be, you know, organic, GMO-free.

I mean, you can do that, but you can eat really well without getting kind of deep into it. You can eat well, and that's important. Eat well. Avoid junk food. Avoid carbs and things that really are going to zap you of your energy. Along with that, sleep well. That's right, sleep well. Sleeping is probably one of the best things that you can do.

and if you're having a hard time sleeping and you're up all night, your soul is going to be affected. It's not going to be nourished. But if you can go to bed on time, turn out the lights, and if sounds wake you up, you know, cars or trains going by, I have on my app, I have the sound of running water, or like a running brook, you know, or river. And sometimes I play that in the background. It just kind of lulls me to sleep. But right before you go to bed, you know, obviously avoid caffeine during the day if it really affects you and keeps you up at night. Avoid caffeine. Avoid looking at your iPad or your phone a lot. Studies show that that will affect your brain in such a way that it gets it revved up and it's harder to go to sleep. So take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well. Avoid addictions. This is so important to nourish your soul.

Are you struggling with alcohol? You need to be honest about this, and you need to deal with it if it's becoming an addiction in your life, because your soul will be affected by that. Another thing that you can do is just take a walk, enjoy nature, go out in the woods, or just walk around the block, enjoy the sunshine and the air, clean air. That's good for you, and that translates into your soul being nourished. you get a joyful heart. So one more thing on the tail end of that of take care of yourself is to nurture your soul

is make sure that you're tending to your vocation. Are you married? Are you single? Are you a priest? Are you religious? Well, tend to your vocation. Your soul will be nurtured if you are a father and you act like a father and you love your children and you spend time with them.

It nurtures your soul because you're doing what you were created for. It's like chariots of fire. Remember the movie? It shows the Olympian running in slow motion, and he says, God made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. And that reminds me of what scripture says. The joy of the Lord is our strength. If God made you fast, when you run, you'll feel his pleasure. If God made you to be a mother, when you are a faithful mother, it'll make you joyful. It'll feed your soul. I love it. Well, those are seven ways that you can nourish your soul. I'd love to have your feedback. You can get a hold of me on Instagram. I'm just Jeff Kavens. Jeff Kavens. And then my email is The Jeff Kavens show at ascensionpress.com. Again, thank you for your prayers for my mother-in-law,

the repose of her soul, for my wife and her two brothers, all the relatives, all the nieces and nephews and the grandchildren. We feel your prayers and we appreciate it. We appreciate it. We appreciate that. And I look forward to talking to you next week. But until then, I do hope that you will nourish your soul. Let me pray for you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my dear friend. And I ask you right now to reach deep within their heart, reach into their heart, Lord, with the message that you love them and that you want their soul nourished. Give them, Lord, the discipline to do what it takes to nourish their soul. We know that you have done what you needed to do. You have given us bread from heaven. You have given us the word from heaven. You have

given us the ability to pray and talk to you. And you have given us the great sacrament of reconciliation. You've given us so many wonderful things to read to nourish our soul. And you've even given us the saints. Chief, among them all, is your mother. and Lord, you have given us the ability and the time to take care of ourselves. Help us, Lord, as we go forward, nourishing our soul. We pray this in Jesus' name, in the name of Jesus, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love you, and I appreciate your prayers.

Talk to you next week.