Join us in the third and final part our conversation on the reality of Satan. Discover the divine authority that pulses within you as we reflect on quotes from St. Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun who commanded power over darkness through her identity in Christ. Our exploration brings her timeless revelations to light, offering you a fresh perspective on spiritual empowerment. This episode is a mosaic of theological reflection, inviting you to appreciate the angelic order and to recognize the freely given gifts of God's mercy. Embrace the lessons of honor, delight, and repose through the experiences of saints, as we guide you towards a more profound realization of the divine order that orchestrates our spiritual lives.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Join us in the third and final part our conversation on the reality of Satan. Discover the divine authority that pulses within you as we reflect on quotes from St. Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun who commanded power over darkness through her identity in Christ. Our exploration brings her timeless revelations to light, offering you a fresh perspective on spiritual empowerment. This episode is a mosaic of theological reflection, inviting you to appreciate the angelic order and to recognize the freely given gifts of God's mercy. Embrace the lessons of honor, delight, and repose through the experiences of saints, as we guide you towards a more profound realization of the divine order that orchestrates our spiritual lives.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Welcome to the my Friend the Friar podcast and thanks for listening. If you like my Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us. If you haven't already done so, and if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless Bert, stop. Thanks again and God bless Stop. She rubs on the oh my gosh on the microphone and it keeps moving stuff around and stop, burfy. Okay, bertha, you stay right there. I just had a million dollar idea. We could be rich. What if we make a professional podcast studio that people can come rent space but it's got cats in it, so all of their episodes sound terrible because cats are always messing with stuff.
Speaker 2:Climbing over the microphone and hitting pause on the keyboard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but maybe people like cats or maybe they're the devil. They're fallen angels. Bertha, are you a fallen angel? Bad cat? Okay, are you going to be good? Go lay down or something. Go away. Now, she's just sitting on the arm.
Speaker 2:What this cat.
Speaker 1:I don't. I mean, we can try to start recording, but she's just gonna move again. Yeah, okay, you know what? I'm gonna be a bad cat, dad. Bye, good morning. Good morning, good morning. Oh, all right, we're back, we're gonna wrap it up. Uh, the reality of, of fallen spiritual realities, beings, I guess it's single reality, multiple beings, yeah, and we left off with maybe the toughest, most. Like I was saying the other day, if she was, I know she was from Spain, but if she was from Mexico, she would have had her chancla off.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She would have been chasing after the devils. So, st Teresa, I just got country all of a sudden. Oh, my goodness, what a morning. I need more coffee, st Teresa, jesus.
Speaker 2:Jesus.
Speaker 1:All right, I'll let you go before I lose my mind.
Speaker 2:Okay. So we ended the last episode with a quote from Teresa's autobiography it's known as the Life, chapter 25, paragraph 19, where she says If this Lord, meaning Jesus, meaning God, if this Lord is powerful as I see that he is and I know that he is and if the devils are his slaves and there is no doubt about this because it's a matter of faith what evil can they do to me? Since I am a servant of this Lord and King, why shouldn't I have the fortitude to engage in combat with all of hell? I took a cross in my hand and it seemed to me truly that God gave me courage, because in a short while I saw that I was another person and that I wouldn't fear bodily combat with them, for I thought that with that cross, I would easily conquer all of them. So I said come now, all of you, for being a servant of the Lord, I want to see what you can do to me. End quote.
Speaker 1:And when was she alive?
Speaker 2:She was alive in the 1500s or the 16th century, the golden age of Spain, 16th century. So this is probably in 1568, 1570s when she wrote this, I think.
Speaker 1:Okay, and she at this point in her was not a spring chicken anymore.
Speaker 2:No, she was in her by this time. She was probably in her mid-50s. I would say yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah and again, st Teresa who do y'all Carmelite-type people consider her Like what is she to you?
Speaker 2:We call her Holy Mother, we call her—she's our foundress, she is the reformer of the Carmelite order. That began in the 1200s and then she began the reform in the 1500s right, and we can touch on that some other time but it's after the dark ages and everything, and after, basically, society collapses. Then there is this happened during the reformation period.
Speaker 1:If you haven't listened to those episodes, I'll go check them out. Yeah, so she's a serious. This is a serious lady. Oh, she's really important. She's a doctor of the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's the first doctor of the church. Yeah, first female doctor of the church, I should say yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, and the reason I wanted to do this, or quote her and do a little exploration of this, is that her ecclesiology is that you know one she recognizes and realizes what it means to belong to the body of Christ. Right, and there's an ecclesiology in all of her works, in the awareness of this communion of saints.
Speaker 2:And the reason I brought this quote into this topic is because here she recognizes and realizes that, hey, I belong to the body of Christ and hey if Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords and if all spiritual beings were created to serve him, even the fallen creatures are subject to his authority because he's God.
Speaker 2:But they were also created specifically to serve this person of the Trinity the Son God, the Son right. And so there's something here that she kind of is intuiting and she's going like I belong to this King of Kings, this Lord of Lords, I am his servant, and so these other created beings don't have power over me. In fact, because I belong to Jesus, I have power over them, and I forget where it is. You might know or you can look it up, you can Google it if you want where paul says do you not know that we will judge angels, meaning at the end of time, that humanity, those that belong to christ and belong to the kingdom of christ, that they will sit with christ in the judgment of the rest of creation? So paul says that we will judge angels. So there's an intuition there of that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this whole epiphany she has where she goes. For a short while I saw that I was another person and that also made me think of Paul when he goes. You're a new creation in Christ. Right, the old has died. You're something new.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. And so then there's another quote in the next paragraph in chapter 25. So this is paragraph 20, and then I'm going to also quote from paragraph 21 and 22. So this is from paragraph 20, chapter 25, the book of her life. There was no doubt in my opinion that they, the spiritual beings, the fallen beings, were afraid of me, for I remained so calm and so unafraid of them all. All the fears I usually felt left me even to this day, for although I sometimes saw them, as I shall relate afterward I no longer had hardly any fear of them. Rather, it seemed they were afraid of me. I was left with a mastery over them truly given by the Lord of all. I pay no more attention to them than to flies. I think they're cowards that when they observe they are esteemed, but little their strength leaves them. These enemies don't know how to attack head on, save those whom they see surrender to them, or when God permits them to do so for the greater good of his servants whom they tempt and torment.
Speaker 2:May it please his majesty that we fear him, whom we ought to fear, and understand that more harm can come to us from one venial sin than from all hell together, for this is so amen and the thing here is that sort of under uh, I wanted to quote this because underneath this quote here there is this truth is that the biggest weapon that the fallen spirits have against us is fear.
Speaker 2:By causing us fear. The more we fear them, the more we are subject to them, right? And so here she says it's when she lost fear of them that they lost mastery of her. They were no longer able to cause her to distress. And also she says these enemies do not know how to attack head on. And this is another thing as well. One of the truths of how the enemy works is that they never attack us head on in our strengths, but they always attack us in our weakness. Whatever weakness we have is the way they're going to attack us and cause us fear and panic or whatever. Doubt, yeah, whatever it might be, doubt or fear. Doubt God's mercy, doubt God's forgiveness, doubt the fact that God the Father is a loving Father, a merciful Father, a compassion, understanding Father, right, and that even my brokenness is not an obstacle to that, uh, love and that relationship that god the father has towards me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love, I love that. Um, you know, she realizes, recognizes. Um that last line, more harm can come from one venial sin, right the like. Who cares? If they could, I don't know torment, physically, torment your body or possess you or break your bones or whatever right? You see all sorts of stuff in movies, who cares? Because none of that means anything in comparison to god fraternity awaits for us right, right, and so that should be something that.
Speaker 1:So it just shows her her outlook, her, her knowledge, her understanding is properly oriented to where she has things in the correct order, right. Her priority is correct.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, she has a again her ecclesiology, even though she doesn't have that language or she doesn't have theological study. Right, there's something not only intuitive, but this is part of what we call infused knowledge, knowledge that God gave her.
Speaker 2:And so there's this knowledge and she has this intuition and understanding of the mysteries of the faith that she has. So let me take a quote from again chapter 25, and this is paragraph number 21. How frightened these devils make us because we want to be frightened through other attachments to honors, property and delights. We'll come back to that in a minute.
Speaker 2:It is then that they do us great harm when they are joined with us who, loving and desiring what we ought to abhor, are in contradiction with ourselves, for we make them fight against us with our own very weapons, handing over to them what we need for our own defense. This is a great pity, but if we abhor all for God and we embrace the cross and try truly to serve God, the devil will flee these truths like the plague. He is a friend of lies and is the lie itself. He will make no pact with anyone who walks in truth. When he sees the intellect darkened, he subtly helps to blind the eyes, for if he sees people already blind by the fact that they place their trust in vain things, and so vain that these worldly things become like children's games, he concludes that they are then children, treats them as such and dares to fight with them, not once, but many times.
Speaker 2:So here, what she's getting at is it is through our attachments, it is through disordered attachments to things, through vanity, right, the love of honor, the love of property, the love of delight, sensual delights and stuff. It is through that, then, that the devil tempts us, or works against us by presenting to us the fear. Well, you will lose honor. Well, you will lose this delight. Well, you will lose this property and Teresa's like who cares, those are temporal things.
Speaker 2:Why are you attached to those things? And your attachment to these things is what gives then the enemy fodder to fight against you. And so you? That's what she says. So, basically, you're giving them weapons to attack you and to hurt you and to fight against you. She says, if we, if we have this detachment of spirit, if we have this spirit of detachment to all things, even even if they're goods, we can still appreciate the good but not be attached to it or have an inordinate desire for them, then the devil has no power.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's this other beautiful Carmelite lady called St Therese of Lisieux. Yes, you may have heard of her, so I read her… Story of a soul. Yep, and there is this part where she talks her dad took her somewhere, I forget where, and, uh, everyone, oh, you're so beautiful, look at your hair and they're just complimenting her, complimenting her, her, and she's well, she was young, period right, because she entered the convent at 15. Yeah, and so she was. This is, I think this is before that, obviously and she's reflecting on it later going she recognized that she liked it, she liked to be complimented, and then she immediately she goes nope, like how much better is it for me to be in a convent where I have a habit and you can't see my hair right, you can't see me that I can melt away so that I can focus on Jesus?
Speaker 2:Right right and awareness of the danger of that right, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting because it makes you stop and go. Well, gosh, how does my pride manifest itself in my life, in any little thing, and do I have the wherewithal to accept something like a compliment but then mentally, emotionally, spiritually, push it away?
Speaker 2:Yeah, recognize the temporality move it, push it away Right. Yeah, recognize it Again, the temporality of it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there's nothing wrong with somebody complimenting you, no, it's not like they're being evil.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1:It's like Jesus says it's not what enters you, it's what comes out from your heart. That's evil. So we have to recognize our concubiscence in the ways that we allow these things to become attached in our life and disorder us.
Speaker 2:So this reminds me another tangent, sorry people, another tangent. Yeah, the Borgia family. You know the Borgia family In Spain. They were Borja, b-o-r-j-a, but they were the same family. So there was Saint Francis Borgia, who is a Jesuit priest, a Jesuit saint. He was in the court of Philip II, who was also Holy Roman Emperor, for a minute, and so he was there and Philip had several wives, not because he divorced them, but because they died. That was that time in history when people just died from diseases and stuff it was a little rough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't have vaccines or anything. So he was totally gaga over one of the empress. I forget which one it was. It might have been Isabel. I forget what her name was the empress. I forget which one it was. It might have been Isabel. I forget what her name was, the empress she was supposed to be like knock your socks off gorgeous.
Speaker 2:Just absolutely beautiful, right, this beautiful beautiful woman, right, and he was just like duh. He's all cow-eyed over her and then she dies. And so, being part of the court of Philip's court, he was part of the funeral entourage to take the body to, I think, another city for burial right Wherever the royal burial was at that time during Philip II's reign was at that time during Philip II's reign. But he saw her after she had died and he saw how the body had already begun to corrupt apparently.
Speaker 2:He saw that the body was already beginning to decompose. And when he saw her before they put her in the burial vault, that moment, that experience he says like how fleeting beauty is right, and that was his conversion moment. And that is when he left the court and he became a religious, he became a Jesuit, but what speaks for him was like I was so enamored of this beautiful, beautiful woman, and it's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing. So, again, part of that whole understanding, like this anecdote that you brought up of Therese and her, aware of her liking that vanity, right. So again. So this is something, then, that God gives us these opportunities to reflect on and to make a choice to respond accordingly.
Speaker 2:So again now going back to Teresa, this is again from chapter 25, and this is from paragraph 22. Talking about people that are afraid of Satan or the enemy, she says May it please the Lord that I not be one of these, but that his majesty favor me so that I may understand, by repose, what repose is. That is, to rest in the Lord, to rest in Jesus in prayer, to rest in the Lord. I may understand by repose what repose is, by honor, what honor is that is the honor of God, the honor of the church, the honor of God, the honor of the Church, the honor of Christ, the honor of the Kingdom. And by delight. What delight is in delighting in a relationship with the Heavenly Father? Right, not the reverse.
Speaker 2:And then she says and a fig for all the devils, because they shall fear me. I don't understand these fears because they shall fear me. I don't understand these fears. The devil, the devil. When we can say God, god, and make the devil tremble. Yes, for we already know that he cannot stir if the Lord doesn't permit him to. What is this? Without doubt, I fear those who have such great fear of the devil more than I do the devil himself, for he can't do anything to me, whereas these others, especially if they are confessors, cause severe disturbance. I have undergone some years of such great trial that I am amazed now at how I was able to suffer it. Blessed be the Lord who has so truly helped me.
Speaker 2:So she's talking about the fact that, again, understanding what our vocation is, understanding what our relationship with God, the Father, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, is, and she's afraid of these people that are overly obsessed with the enemy, with the fallen spiritual creatures, right and how they have a greater fear of the devil. And by having a greater fear of the devil since I said that is the primary weapon he uses against us you're giving him power over you by being afraid of him. And by being afraid of him you're being, you're subjecting yourself to him. So she's going like I don't understand this. And then when she says I'm more afraid of these peoples because these people then out of fear of the devil, or Satan or evil or whatever it is, and they wind up being a greater cause of pain and suffering for others. Because it's really interesting that a lot of these people that are fascinated by evil, and the evil one, that they're the ones that are most condemning of others, they're the ones that are most judgmental of others, that are the ones most critical of others, because somehow there's this fear of sin and the fear of the enemy right, and we should fear sin but not be obsessed with it either, not be obsessed with fear right.
Speaker 2:So here she's talking about these things and then she says that she herself suffered a lot and what she's referring to is that since God was being very merciful to her in her prayer life, she had some interesting experiences in prayer and she brought them to her confessors, and her confessors told her that it was the devil because, according to them, she wasn't holy enough to experience those things, she wasn't perfect enough to experience those things, and she suffered a lot and God kept blessing her with these extraordinary experiences in prayer.
Speaker 2:So she was terrified that it was the devil, and the confessors would tell her it was the devil, and she was just in great torment until finally an intelligent priest consulted her and told her no, you're good, this is from God, this is from God. And then that is why, for Teresa, her entire works are about God's mercy. In other words, god can give gifts to whom he wills. They don't have to earn or merit gifts because they're gifts right. And so she herself then suffered a lot from these priests that were more afraid of Satan than understanding God's mercy, god's forgiveness and God's sovereignty to give gifts to whom he wills right. And this is part of her journey and part of her trials in the beginning of her spiritual journey. And then she becomes this great mystic and spiritual writer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's, this is the St Teresa. Everyone has the same names, eventually, right, but this is the St Teresa with the statue. The Ecstasy of St Teresa, yes, bernini's, yeah, such a beautiful statue. And it's the kind of thing that is so compelling when you're looking at it and the angel is holding the arrow, the fiery arrow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe that's what you do for this episode. Maybe you should find that and put that as the…. The artwork yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Bernini's.
Speaker 2:Ecstasy yeah.
Speaker 1:It's such a compelling piece of art because it just makes you, when you see it, you just have to contemplate, like what the heck is going on, and then you learn about her life. It's a small statue.
Speaker 2:When I was in Rome I saw it. I went to. Is that Santa Maria La Victoria? I think that's where it is and it's absolutely breathtaking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love in this last quote of hers too, where she says I understand by repose what reposes by honor, what honor is by delight, what delight is Not the reverse. Well, I guess, if I could disagree with any of her theology, it's a fig for the devils. You remember how good that fig tree was that y'all used to have at the? Well, I guess if I could disagree with any of her theology, it's a fig for the devils.
Speaker 2:You remember how good that fig tree was that y'all used to have at the but you don't understand this. A fig here is not a fig here in Spain Because I love figs. Oh, I love figs too, but here in Spain, to give somebody a fig is to give them the finger.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's to flip them off.
Speaker 2:So basically Teresa's saying here, you know flip off you know, flipping off the devil, the devil.
Speaker 1:How funny. Okay, well then, I won't disagree with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't disagree with it.
Speaker 1:Those figs were so good. It's too bad that the tree died, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's come back. It's coming back. Yes, Hopefully we'll get fruit this year or next year.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice. Well, so then back to the first part of that quote, though it's really gosh, it's really insightful, because how many times do we, how many times do we understand God, our Father, through our relationship with our earthly Father, instead of vice versa?
Speaker 2:How often do we understand there's an episode that we have on relationship?
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, I think so, how? Yeah, everybody just go listen to all the episodes at this point, at this point. But how often do we understand?
Speaker 1:pleasure from God through the pleasure that we know in our earthly life, versus the other way around. It should always be the other way around. Relationship comes from God through other people to me, not other people to God, right, right. So she understands the order again here. And it's just such a good thing to contemplate. You don't? You don't know what rest is. If you're thinking I should be sitting on the couch or laying on the couch, you know, watching tv and eating potato chips, right? That's not what rest is. You should learn. You should know what rest is right, because you understand what rest is from god first, right, right. What rest is from God first.
Speaker 2:Right, right, the Sabbath rest, what that really means, right, in terms of what God's intention is of that. Yeah, so just a couple of notes before we end. We have, in the episode that you gave on, angelic beings, or the spiritual beings that we call angels, right, and some other things that we've talked. We have cited Dionysus the Arapagite, and so originally, the original Dionysus was a member of the Athenian Judicial Council, which is known as the Arapagite in the first century, and Paul mentions him right. Luke mentions him in the Acts of the Apostles in his conversion by St Paul. Now, later there were some works known to be authored by Dionysius and he was known as Dionysius the Arepagite, right. But the truth is that the works that were being cited in the—this has to do with the ranks of angels, right?
Speaker 2:So there is the nine ranks, because there's nine ranks of angels, because it's three different ranks and the three different categories has to do with the Trinity and all this. So there was a whole bunch of Greek philosophy involved in this as well. Right? So the works of Dionysius were not written by Dionysius, the Arapagite of the first century, but they were actually written by someone attempting, using Dionysus' name, attempting to bring about a reconciliation between Platonism, the Greek philosophy between.
Speaker 2:Platonism and Christian tradition. So this author, who was later then named Pseudo-Dionysius, meaning false, pseudo-false, this author came to be known as Pseudo-Dionysius and he lived and worked. His works were in the 400s to 500s, the 5th to 6th centuries. So we cite him and we used to call him Dionysius, but we don't say Dionysus anymore, we say pseudo-Dionysus, because it was discovered that it was actually written by somebody in the 4 or 500s and not written by this first century convert, by Paul right. So he's the one that divides the angels into ranks and he has, like this, supreme hierarchy. He has the rank of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, and then you have the middle hierarchy, which are dominations, virtues and powers, and then the lower hierarchy, which are principalities, angels and angels. So you have three ranks supreme hierarchy, middle hierarchy, lower hierarchy, and in each of those three ranks you have sub-ranks of spiritual beings of three, three and three. So it's three, three and three and group of three and so yeah, yeah, these choirs, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's weird too, because in the lowest rank is the archangels, but the archangel Michael and Gabriel are separate. Yeah, so well. In there it says principalities, archangels, angels, but archangels is not the archangels of Michael and Gabriel, no, they're separate.
Speaker 2:Those are separate archangels. Yeah, it gets all weird. Yeah, those are super archangels, yeah, so, yeah, so this whole thing is very interesting. So there's a couple of books that, for those that are interested, they can read. One of them is by Lorenzo Scupoli S-C-U-P-O-L-I, lorenzo Scupoli, and it's entitled Spiritual Combat how to Win your Spiritual Battle and Attain Inner Peace Win your Spiritual Battle and Attain Inner Peace. Another book is, I've quoted, by Pascal P Parenti, and that book is entitled the Angels. The Catholic Teaching on the Angels is the subtitle. And then you mentioned Peter Kreeft earlier, and this is a book by Peter Kreeft, and the title of that book is Angels and Demons. What Do we Really Know About them? So go read.
Speaker 1:Go educate, educate yourself, do your homework.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So any big takeaway you'd like people to consider, since this was all part of kind of a RCIA class, like if people have enjoyed these and you don't want somebody to get too focused on them. But it's a creature, a fallen creature.
Speaker 2:But because Satan is a spiritual being, their knowledge, their intelligence is much, much, much greater than ours, and sometimes the devil or Satan can mislead and tempt people. Because of his superior intelligence, he can deceive, right. And so, yeah, but again, a creature, a creature, and something that we should not be terrified of, but that's something that we should be aware of and cautious of, not to open any doors to that spiritual being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, like St Teresa said, we have power over them. Yes, they don't have power over us other than what we give them, so don't open the door.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct, correct.
Speaker 1:And super interesting, super cool. I appreciate this so much. This was fun. I'm sure Betty's going to love it and have all sorts of more questions. So all right, well, cool. Thanks, father. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Enjoy the rest of your day.
Speaker 1:Thank you and we'll see everybody next time. God bless, god bless.