Spiritual Warfare and Divine Mercy - Chapters 3 and 4

In this episode, we explore the powerful role of confession in the spiritual battle, the characteristics necessary to make a good confession and why the grace of the sacrament is essential for perseverance in the Christian life. We talk about how confession strengthens the soul, restores our relationship with God and our community and equips us with the grace needed to keep fighting even when the struggle feels overwhelming.

We also discuss the profound meaning behind the image of Divine Mercy.  We reflect on the message entrusted to St. Faustina and the promises Jesus made to those who venerate the Divine Mercy image with trust. From the rays flowing from Christ’s heart to the call to place our confidence in His mercy, we discuss how this devotion reminds us that no sin is greater than God’s love and that His mercy is always available to those who turn back to Him.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to our podcast, Tuned In to Love. Whether you're head over heels in love with God, currently not feeling his presence in your life, or have a newfound desire to build a relationship with the Creator of all that is, this podcast is for you. We're just two Catholic women on fire with love for the Lord, chatting and sharing experiences. We hope this podcast inspires you to know everything is grace, that God loves you no matter what, and that he never leaves you. So come journey with us as we discover the immensity of God's love and the power of divine connection. Welcome back, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Well, welcome back to me. So happy you're back. Oh my gosh. I feel like I was in the twilight zone for the past two weeks.

unknown 1:00

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So thanks, Carolina, for holding down the fort while I was dealing with a skin infection. Yucco. Anyway. Ah. So.

unknown 1:15

Allergic reactions are not fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

No, they're not fun. And it lasted quite a long time. I've never had such a thing happen, but I'm better now.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I'm so glad you're better. You look better, you sound better.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah, I feel good. I feel good. Thank you all for the prayers. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So the last time you covered chapter two, right? So yeah, so I love what you said on the on that episode, but I just wanted to one of the things that got my attention and I wanted to mention it too, which was what I was planning on doing when I was trying to record and like edit, and I just didn't have the energy to do it, was the concept of tithing our time. In that chapter, when he talked about tithing our time. I think in the book he talks about how not counting like obviously sleep time, but if you count the hours in the day of your waking time, and then you do the 10% tithe.

unknown 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

If you tithe your time for God, you should be spending about 12 hours in prayer. Like you know, in prayer or focused on God, put it that way. You know. So I just I just wanted to mention that because I I thought that was really good. And I think that's a good way to kind of gauge where we are in terms of prayer when he talked about person of prayer or a person who prays.

unknown 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

You know, that that's a good good way to gauge it, but that's all I'll say about that.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, I was saying I was uh I said that you were definitely the person of prayer. Yeah, and you know, me being the person who prays because like I I always look up to that, looked up to you, and and he it's like you inspire me to be better with my prayer life. Really convicted me to to really push myself to do to be better.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

And and there are people listen especially the tithing part, like when you said, Yeah, you know, it it puts it into perspective, like how people do like compared to that, what we're supposed to say, like if we tithe the time. Time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

And you know, even for myself, like like you said, I'm a person of prayer, but there are even people that I look up to that are even better than what you consider me to be, you know what I mean? I I I know I could always still work on it, and and the the idea of tithing your time, if you say you don't have enough time, really really take stock of what you're spending your time on, right? Because I I I know that I spend a lot of time in prayer, and I do probably do the 12 hours, maybe more, sometimes less. But I do spend a lot of time in front of the TV in the evening. So, you know, maybe there's more time that I could dedicate and kind of take away the stuff that isn't really contributing to my spiritual welfare.

unknown 4:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

I don't know just a lot of time management. Yeah. Again, like I I could be doing other things, or if I just manage my time better, right? It it would I would be able to have more little gaps. And again, with the scrolling, that's one thing that I said, you know, like what are we what are we really doing in those time th that time that we're away from prayer?

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

That's that important. Yeah. And and I find I know I'm guilty of the scrolling and what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, me too. And now do you know now during Lent I'm doing I'm doing less but still not, you know, I could do even less. Even sometimes I think like sometimes I'll send you or you'll send me like something spiritual, like a like a religious meme or something. But do we really need that? Like, do we know don't we know this already? You know what I mean? Like it's like, why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Like we it it's that they we see it, we find it, we're inspired by it, so it's nice.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

The inspiration we could get from the word of God, right? Deep into it, yeah. And you know, where you know it's him himself, it's he's like doing the lexia, like we talked about. It's just like it's it's nice, it's a visual, but in this world anymore, it's we we we are too caught up with the like the visual part of it, and we're we're letting go of the meditation, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

So anyway, it's always we in every level there's always room for improvement.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Always room for improvement, always, always room for improvement, yeah. And the other thing I wanted to touch on that you talked about, which I thought was a great piece of advice, was getting a spiritual director. Yeah, right? And I just wanted to elaborate on that because I felt like you get a spiritual director. I think the the bet the first place to start would be your pastor. Like, not not to get him to be a spiritual director, because sometimes pastors they just have too much on their plate to focus on being spiritual director for anyone. But if you have a familiar relationship with them, they know who you are, they know how you are. He knows who would be a good match for you, and he could refer you somewhere. And the other thing was I remember a friend of mine was looking for a spiritual director, and she called Franciscan University because they have a spiritual director program where they they have like people studying to be spiritual directors, and they actually have some facility where they they can hook you up with one of their graduates. I just felt like we needed to say like, don't just go to someone that you think is like a good holy person, but maybe someone who is well versed and maybe trained in being a spiritual director. And I think if you don't have somewhere to go, then go to your your pastor first. And and they could point you in the right direction.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

To have somebody trained.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Because people might mean well, but because of their interpretation of something that might be a little bit off, they can lead you the wrong way.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Yeah, so I think it's better if you get someone who's trained.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Like you said, the pastor would know.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah. Yeah. And he might even refer you to another priest. You know, there are priests out there that are spiritual directors that have the time to do that. Some pastors do not. So that was just something that I felt. But this week we're talking about chapter three, right?

unknown 7:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Chapter three and chapter four.

unknown 7:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

So chapter three is confession, a weapon in the battle for souls.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

And if you don't mind, I just want to read that before you get started. I want to read that little Yeah, sure. Many times I have written that Satan is much more enraged when we priests take souls away from him through confession than when we take away bodies through exorcism. That's from Father Gabriel Amarth.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Just the fact that this whole chapter is on confession. On confession.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah. I mean, he touched upon it at the last ch in the last chapter, but he felt the need to really go into the power of confession in chapter three. You know, this this whole chapter focused a lot on the effect that sin has on our community as well as on our on our soul. So, you know, he he talked about confession being more powerful than exorcism, which you just read from Father Amherth.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

But he also says I was just gonna say with that, I was was telling you about the fact that the the battle is so real because he he was an exorcist and he did 70,000 in his time as a priest. 70,000 but the thirty he was a priest for 30 years. Uh I mean uh the exorcist.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

So it's it's real, like it's a battle.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

You know, we we talk about how Jesus died for our sins, and confession, it's as if Jesus died for you alone, because the fullness of the graces that Christ won in Calvary is poured out in confession. So, you know, you you think about the blood, you know. I I remember going to confession with Father David and absolving me of my sins, he reminded me to think of the blood of Christ pouring over me as my sins were being absolved. And confession is such a powerful tool in spiritual warfare. I remember speaking to my younger brother just like a couple of weeks ago. I was talking to him about confession. He was like, oh, he says, confession to me, he says, after I hadn't gone for so many years, he says, when I walked out of that confessional, he says, I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. And I don't think we can stress enough the power that that sacrament has in lifting the weight off your shoulders, the weight of all this negativity, this sinfulness. And you know, he talks on page 46 about the spiritual effects of a good confession. Again, he talks about the catechism. It's it's paragraph 1496 of the catechism, how the spiritual effects of a good confession is reconciliation with God, reconciliation with the church, remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sin, remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin, peace and serenity of conscience. And I think that's what my brother was getting at. It's like when you walk out of there, there's like this, it's like you're a newborn baby. You're just a newly baptized baby. If you could just imagine that, there's like you're clean, the slate is clean.

unknown 11:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

And that that's what it makes me think of. Like, because like in page 45, he says, you know, this he frees the sinner from the hands of the devil and immerses him in the love of in the love of God. And your example of the child. I always thought of it like when I was thinking, when I was reading that, it made me think of like when I would go out as a tomboy and get muddy and dirty and have like twigs and weeds in my hair, and mom would have to pick them up. Like you go to Jesus, because we're we're human, we're gonna go and we're gonna keep messing, we're gonna keep messing up, but that's why he offered that.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

We go and he and he immerses us in his love and we come out clean. And and it's like we're like those little children, they keep getting messed up and dirty, and then he he cleans us all up and he sends us out. Yeah, and it's that feeling of you're clean, you're being cleansed, your soul is like now made new. It's just like that's to me, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, yeah. And and it's it the last part he says in that section is it's an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle. So it's all of these things that we're receiving, you know. When we talk about the spiritual effects of a good confession, let's talk about the effects of sin in our lives. You know, it doesn't only affect us, it affects those around us. It's it has a ripple effect. So when we're going to confession, that's exactly what it's doing. It's reconciling us to God because we've sinned against Him and we haven't followed the commandments and we haven't been as holy as He wants us to be. But then at the same time, we've also caused some kind of a negative effect on our church, on the people, on our community. And so when we go to confession, we're not only reconciling ourselves to God, we're reconciling ourselves to our community. Which is why even during Mass, when we do the confetti here at the beginning of the Mass, I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned. Like you're there, you're telling them, hey, this is what I've done, I'm sorry, I've sinned, and I've hurt you, and I've hurt God, and I want, I want to, I want forgiveness for this.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

And the beautiful part is in what I've done and what I have failed to do.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Because how did I not help you, or how did I fail you? You know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Right, right. So he you know, he talks about the spiritual effects of a good confession, which which I think are amazing. And then he talks about in within that list, he says remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin. So we have the remission of eternal punishment, right? So our sins are forgiven, so we're good, right? But there's still a debt that we have to pay, right? So we're obviously we're we're not going to hell, but there's still a debt that needs to pay, and that's the temporal punishment, and that's where purgatory comes in. So we have remission of eternal punishment, we have remission of some temporal punishment, but there's still some debt that needs to be paid. But what I love that he says is on page 48 to 49, he talks about Faustina on confession because he talks about how the Lord appeared to Faustina, and he painted this image of himself where he's letting out blood and water, and he says, Daughter, when you go to confession to this fountain of my mercy, the blood and water which came forth from my heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. And then a little further down he says, I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here, the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy, and that is the power of confession. You know, one of the questions that a lot of people have, whether they're Catholics who don't often go to conf confession or are, you know, afraid to go to confession, is why should I confess to a priest? Right? And the whole point of that is what he's saying here is it's the priest acting in persona Christi, in the person of Christ. And so he says it right here in his appearance to Faustina, I am only hidden by the priest, but he himself acts. So in confession, if we can just imagine, instead of looking at the priest and thinking that it's the priest, that it's actually Jesus there, and that we're having this intimate conversation with Jesus, and that his blood is pouring over us and washing us clean. Like, come on.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah, like you're going in there and just like just think and saying, like actually speaking to him.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

And saying, Jesus, I messed up again. Yeah. Like I find so hard. Because you get graces from that. How beautiful is it to be able to get absolution and and just be cleansed from that sin and given graces to be able to do better and to fight whatever it is that you're fighting against. Do better.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah. And that's and that's the other thing too. Like we, you know, not only are we being washed clean, but we're given strength. And so the more you go, the more you're able to resist temptation. So, and then on on page 48, where he talks about Faustina on confession, she talks about three words. Well, I think it's actually four words, but she says three. She says, I would like to say three words to the soul that is determined to strive for sanctity and to derive fruit. That is to say, benefit from confession. And those words are sincerity and openness, humility and obedience. With sincerity and openness, it's just basically hold nothing back.

unknown 17:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

You know, you can't go to confession and know that there's something that you need to confess and then not confess it.

unknown 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

That's not a good confession. You know, that's actually then it would become a mortal sin, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Because you're just an insiscerous secretive soul risks greater dangers in the spiritual life.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

A good way to cover all bases, I think, when you're going to confession is even if you forget stuff, when you finish listing all your sins, that you say, for these and all my sins, I ask for forgiveness.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

And I like because in the second word, with humility, it says its soul does not benefit as it should. And then pride keeps it in darkness. And then if you go down to at the end, like where she goes even deeper, it says, When you come to confession, tell the priest all of your sins with none of the stories, none of the justification. There's a we always have an attack. We always want to just be like, I guess because it's our own shame. And it says here, it sets himself up for the repeat fall in that same area.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, because you're not you're not owning up to it. You're not owning up to it.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

That's the bottom line. And you know, it's funny because funny that you mentioned that because that's what I wrote in the margins. I said, Don't make excuses. I just recently read a book by C.S. Lewis, just a blurb on from one of his books, that said, forgiveness and excuse are two different things. A lot of times when we go to when we go to confession, instead of seeking forgiveness, we're seeking to be excused. And I think that's where the stories come in, right?

unknown 19:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

That's where the stories come in. And it's so funny because two different priests, one when I went to Mejigori and another one at uh on a speaking engagement, I think, said, When you go to confession, can can I please? And it was funny, the one at Mejigori, he gave this whole speech. He was like, When you go to confession, you want to make a good confession? Don't tell me about your mother or your brother or your husband. Like, I don't want to hear the stories. Just don't tell me about their sins. Tell me your sins. The third word is obedience, and I just feel like that's just following the Ten Commandments, following the precepts of the church, and not poo-pooing. It's like, you know, you're either all in or all out. There's no there's no picking and choosing. There's the Ten Commandments, there's the precepts of the church, and you follow them, and you don't pick and choose. And that's part of the obedience.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

And that's again going back to what she says, pride keeps it in the soul in darkness. Because you're you know when we're proud like that, we're like, you know, no, I don't need that. You know, that's not for me.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Like Yeah, not for me. I speak to God one-on-one. And if this is what the church is teaching us, if this if this is part of the church's teaching, that confession is necessary. At least once a year.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

That's the Pentecost. That's what he he said. He came, he died for our sins.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

But he said to the to the disciples, disciples, he says, you know, what you find here on earth is found in heaven. No, like uh goal, forgive sins.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

So he wants us to he opened the doors to heaven and he wants he he loves us so much, and he he died for us. He wants us to be cleansed and cleaned.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

But it's on page 51, it's a sacrament for warfare. You know, again, going back to the last chapter, you know, we talk about the supernatural powers that we get through grace, right? He asked the question Am I in a state of grace? Going to confession, the moment you walk out again, it's like a newborn child just baptized. We're clean. You know, we have it's it's such a powerful, powerful sacrament. And being equipped. For battle requires grace. And again, it's not this is we're talking spiritual warfare. We're not talking about a ground war. We're not talking about fighting, like putting up our dukes and fighting. We're talking about being filled with God's grace to be able to sustain ourselves in this spiritual battle. And there's nothing else that we need to do except avail ourselves of all the different ways that God provides grace for us.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

I mean, like I was telling you, like I always go back to you said it's not an actual going out and and putting up reduced.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

But bringing up like we we're blessed to live in a country where we don't have the wars right in front of us. Like we're we don't have that. There's people in other countries who do unfortunately have that. But the thing is, is that because we couldn't fathom what it's like to be in the midst of that. That's why I sit there and I'm like, with the spiritual battle, it's kind of hard to recognize that there is actually a battle going around because you can't see it for your soul.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Because we can't we can't fathom that because we can't see it. But then, like I said, if if there wasn't a battle, then Father wouldn't have had to Father Grove, what is it? Yeah, he didn't have had to do the 70,000 exorcisms in his in his time that he was a priest.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

So it's like we can't keep our guard down. We have to be in, like you said, and it has to be you have to be in a state of grace to be able to to be to fight that.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Spiritual battle. The devil wants our downfall. So bad.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

And he's gonna try to trip us up with addiction, with different things, with and we and sometimes it's just a little we just need to leave the door open just a tiny little bit.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Yeah. And just you know, going to confession is just it it all goes back to the humility, is recognizing our need for God.

unknown 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Like we can't do this, we can't do this life alone, we can't do this war alone. And so every time that we avail ourselves not only of confession, but of all of the sacraments, it's God pouring his divine life into us. And if I'm getting the divine life poured into me, how powerful am I gonna be against these spiritual forces that are trying to take me down? I can't do it. But I can if I have the divine life in me. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

They're not gonna they're gonna be like, oh my gosh, she's got too many angels around her, she has the Holy Spirit inside of her. We there's she's not fighting alone. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. So and then, like what you had said on page 51, where it says, in the event that you fall into mortal sin, do not wait. Treat it like an emergency and get to confession within the week. Your eternal salvation is at risk. And I'm and to me, it just it's it's like an ER for your soul.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Like we could we run to the ER if there's something that's life-threatening to us, or or we can't wait to go to the doctors the next day. So, like with mortal sin, yeah. Again, we were talking about time, how you know we don't know when our last day is. God He has control of it all. So we don't want to die with mortal sin in our souls.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

And and mortal sin, just so we go over it, is a sinful act can committed that's grave, which is bad, breaking the breaking of the Ten Commandments, with knowledge and deliberate consent. So you know that what you're about to do is wrong and you choose to do it anyway. And you know, one of the one of the simplest, I think, mortal sins, and he talks about it, I think, in the next chapter, is missing mass on Sunday. Not because you're sick, but because you're lazy or negligent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

And that's and that's if you're again, you know you're gonna do something. And as a child, I guess, as a teenager, I would I would be like, I'll go to the question about it later.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Not good.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Not good, right? Yeah, not good.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Yeah, you just walk me upside the head, Boba. Yeah, you know, I'll say I'm sorry about it later. But I got you know, it it wasn't like, oops, accident, like I'm sorry about your head. Yeah. Because then it's an accident.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's uh that's uh that's also just uh that's another that's another sin, the sin of presumption. Like you're just presuming that you could just do this and then go to confession and be absolved. Yeah, there's a lot going on there. But that I mean the this chapter was great. I think he really elaborated a lot on on confession. I think we kind of kept it.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Yeah, there was things I knew, and then there was things that I, you know, yeah. I knew, but I didn't know how how strong they were or how to what death.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

You know, there's a deeper understanding now.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then chapter four, he talks about the image of the devotion of divine mercy. It's really good because he he goes into the history of why this devotion took so long to kind of take off. And it was because there was this misunderstanding that the devotion of the divine mercy was going to take away from the devotion of the sacred heart. The sacred heart devotion was a devotion where you focus on the sacred heart of Jesus and making reparations for having offended him, right? So returning love for love and making reparations is what he says. And then the divine mercy, it was Jesus' way of saying, okay, you didn't pay attention to the sacred heart message. Yeah. Yeah. And so he says, you know, the divine mercy was like his way of saying, All right, now it's too late. There's there's no there's no reparation to be made, but I'm giving you this last chance to get it together. 63, he talks about the three promises if you venerate the image that he gave. Now he he appeared to Faustina and he gave her like instructions on getting an image, uh, which we know today as the divine mercy image, to get it painted, and on the bottom the words, Jesus, I trust in you. And he talks about the three promises that Jesus made if you venerate this particular image of the divine mercy. And the three promises are that the soul that will venerate the image will not perish, the promised victory over its enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death, and he himself will defend the soul as his own glory. And in venerate means, simply means, and he says on page 63, it simply means honoring the image or showing great respect to the representation. Again, this is not an idol, it's a representation of Jesus, and by venerating this image, we're showing respect for Jesus in the image. You know, and it could be as simple as taking the image and kissing it. It can be as simple as sitting in front of it. It could be as simple as what else did he say? Making acts of honor and reverence towards Christ in it, doing the sign of the cross in front of it. These are all simple ways to venerate the divine mercy. In doing that, he's promising you these three things. It's our last chance. And this is why the divine mercy devotion is such a great tool in our arsenal for spiritual warfare.

unknown 30:15

Just pray it.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Yeah, just pray it and just venerate the image.

unknown 30:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

You know, he's on page 65. He says, So please, dear reader, use this image as an offensive weapon in the battle for your soul. Let Christ come to your aid for yourself and for those you love, even those you may barely know. Obtain a beautiful copy of the Divine Mercy image and have it blessed and framed. If you are giving it away, gift wrap it and present it to those people in your lives who are struggling with faith. Some will receive it with great appreciation, others may not, but rest assured, grace will begin to flow into their souls. There's there's nothing we need to do. We're the clay, he's the potter. You know, just giving them that image, I think, is enough.

unknown 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

It's just a beautiful image. It really is a beautiful image. Yeah. So that's all I got on this chapter. I mean, you got anything else that you highlighted or anything?

SPEAKER_02 31:10

His love is is his love is so great for us. But he gives us time and chances. And and like you said, with you know, it says in the message of the sacred heart, he brought that up, essentially says, I grow weary of being maltreated. Return love for love, then do penance before it's too late. And because it breaks down what each message is, it just summarizes it and says, in the message of the divine mercy, Jesus essentially says it's too late before the day of justice. I am sending the day of my mercy.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah, and now is the time of mercy.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

You know, how you see the world, you know, just kind of going from bad to worse. There's times that I look at it like, God, your mercy is so great that you haven't ended it all yet.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

And and and just to see this and reading all of this, like the sacred heart, with where he was he's already he's telling you how how wounded he is and how hurt he is by humanity. And he he's saying, Please do this first Fridays, and and you know, for reparation. We can fix this. Yeah, you know, come back to me, come back around.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

And then now he's saying instead of coming, coming and as like with the wrath of God and and destroying, he's saying, please, please come back to me. Now, like it's too late for that. I need you all just now come back, yeah, come back to my mercy so that I can so we can when when I do come, you come with me. So like I I sit there and I'm like, look back on my life and how many times I offended him and and and through like like I had said before, I I don't want to hurt him anymore. So I really tried not to sin. Like instead of doing the where when I was younger and didn't understand, it's just you don't you don't understand, you can comprehend, but as you learn and and get deeper into what it truly is, to what everything really means. I I I understand now. I it's for me to say, well, you know what, I'll do that, but I I'll go to confession. I have confessional set Saturday, I can just but now it's like I see it as my goodness, it's like anything that I do, like if I can prevent him being wounded in any way I'm gonna do it. I know that everything I do now because he paid for past, present, and future sins, it's gonna you know, it's like I'll take it on. And then if anything hurts me, like you know, pain with with anything, emotional, physical.

unknown 33:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

If I could offer that for reparation for anything that I have done or anything that he suffered or for whatever it is, yeah, if you you just begin to understand deeper.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Oh yeah, without a doubt. And and one thing I wanted to say was that you know, as as much as we see going on in the world and how everything seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, one of the things that I always remember about that retreat that we went to at Our Lady of Champion with Father Bill Casey is you know, he he said, like, we have the power to turn it all around. It's not it's not all caving in. All hope is not lost. All hope is not lost, and and what we need to do is pray. Pray, pray, pray. Because a lot of things in history, if you if you read things in history about how the tide changed for certain situations because the way the people prayed. Yeah, you know, battles won. You know, he talked about the Battle of Lepanto and all that stuff that he talked about during his talk. Yeah, that you know, was turned around because people just turned and said, you know what? This seems crazy. We have to pray the rosary, you know. If we pray the rosary, if we do divine mercy chaplets every single day, you know, we have the power to turn this world around and really, you know, make it make it more Christ-like. But the other thing I was gonna say was now, even with the suffering, like these past two weeks, I was thinking about it too. I was like, this was all like a grace for me. I didn't see it as something like, oh, you know, oh my gosh, I I I itch or whatever. Yeah, I itched. Oh my gosh, I just wanted to scratch myself to death. But but what I kept saying to myself was like, oh my gosh, how cool is that that during the season of Lent that I'm I I could offer this up and walk with him.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Powerful is that, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

And I was like, I was kind of you know, obviously not happy that I was going through this, but I was like, you know what, this is pretty cool. This is like a great Lent. It reminded me of the conversation we had where I said sometimes silence and solitude is imposed on us.

unknown 36:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

This this was like two weeks of silence and solitude. I literally didn't leave my house for two weeks, and there wasn't much that I was doing around the house. I just didn't want to do anything. But I almost saw it as a gift, like God's gift to me because I'm a doer. So because I was unable to do, and I had no excuse, and I and I didn't even have to feel guilty about it.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah, I mean, that's and that's the power like great that's having the grace to go through that.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

And and and that's redemptive suffering.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah, yeah, I just I just that's what I felt. And I felt really good.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

And I felt and a grace to see it as a gift is is to get to that point in your life where you can see things like that that happen. Right as instead of as a punishment, you see it as a gift.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it. Anything else?

SPEAKER_02 37:16

No, that's it. Well, I'm just glad you're better. I'm glad you're back. You know, last the last episode it's it's the weather's getting nice too.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yeah, the weather's getting nice too. But last episode, you know, there I don't think there was a challenge, was there?

SPEAKER_02 37:33

No, I didn't even challenge a challenge. You're like, I don't even know your challenge.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

All right, so here's the challenge. This is a good one. This is homework, homework. I'm so excited about this one. Take an accounting of the time you take for God. That could include adoration, mass, prayers, the rosary, reading. Take an account for a week of the amount of time you spend doing that, and time you spend at work, time you spend scrolling, watching television, and see if you are properly tithing your time. And see if there's adjustments you can make. Because by writing it down, now now you see the big picture.

unknown 38:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Right? Because now you're gonna see, oh, five hours on TV, oh, 20 minutes on Instagram, when I could have been saying the rosary. Take stock of the amount of time you're awake in a day, see what happens and see what happens in the week, and then see how you can adjust it so that you can properly tithe. So if you're only awake, I don't know, seven hours a day, let's just make it simple. Seven hours a day.

unknown 38:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Seven days a week, that would be you're awake 49 hours. That's small, that's a small amount, but 49 hours. 10% of that would be 4.9 hours, which would be five hours for God. So if you're awake more than eight hours a day, it should be more than five hours a week for God.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

I do miss your challenges because I get so much out of them. Right? Like, it makes you see stuff. Like your challenge was was uh act of contrition. Yep. I I followed that one. Yeah. So hopefully I like this though.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Right? I'm gonna do it myself. I haven't done it myself. Now, here's the big question are we gonna share it next week?

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

I don't know. We'll see. Vulnerability. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Yeah, yeah. So I mean the thing is that these are like it's part of accountability.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

It is.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

You know what I mean? It it it's yeah. I think I think I've gotten better because with your challenges that you've done, yeah. I've grown stronger with organizing my like I said, I I went here earlier.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

To make that time.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

And I've tried like I'm working towards this, so I'm really hoping that this is like my my report card. That I I'm getting better.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Yeah, but even perfect, but I'm gonna um But like I said, it it's it's really gonna it's gonna really, you know, because you're not you're not taking your time willy-nilly. Now, yeah, we talk about how important time is, right? How precious time is. So let's let's let's deal with it. Let's deal with the precious time. Yeah, let's not waste it.

unknown 40:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

That's I'm just saying that for myself. Like I know there's time that I could spend better.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Oh, I know that I know in my life there is right. So I can do better.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Yeah. So and then the I'm excited to see what our results are. In addition to that, for those who are listening, maybe get a divine mercy image, have it blessed, and put it in a prominent place in your home.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

That's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

I think of all the images that I have, I might have a small one of divine mercy. I gotta get something bigger. I think I'm gonna get it framed.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

I have one right there. But we're like it's like right under my TV.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Because it's like it's you know, I figured we're all gathered. Yeah. Like when we like we're gonna sit and watch TV. Right episode.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

It's right there. Perfect. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

It's also a reminder.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Maybe I shouldn't turn on the TV.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Right? There you go. So that's all I got, sister.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

All right.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

All right. Until next time, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Until next time.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Bye.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Bye.