Pints With Aquinas - Find Yourself In SILENCE | Mthr. Natalia

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

Mother suggests, explains, and demonstrates a meditation for the viewer. 🤝 💸 Support the Channel: https://mattfradd.locals.com 🎧 Mother's Podcast: https://whatgodisnot.com/ 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/matt 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd  

Glory to Jesus Christ. I'm Mother Natalia, a Byzantine Catholic nun from Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, and this is Pines with Aquinas. Our community is friends with a Coptic Orthodox community of nuns who live pretty close to us, and one time when we were spending an afternoon with them, one of the nuns shared with us that she has this practice of, in order to more fully pray the Psalms and make the Psalms more a part of her day, she'll sometimes incorporate the Psalms into the Jesus Prayer. So the Jesus Prayer is this very ancient prayer that many of the fathers have used and it's more or less, there are different variations, and it's more or less there are different variations but it's more or less Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me

a sinner. So what this particular nun will do is she'll take a verse from the psalm and incorporate it into that prayer and pray it kind of on repeat to let the word sink into her heart. And I kind of adopted this practice and have found it to be really fruitful in my own life. One of my favorite verses from the Psalms is from Psalm 61 in the Septuagint, 62 in the Hebrew numbering, and it's in both verses 1 and 5. For God alone my soul waits in silence. For God alone my soul waits in silence. So I will often, just during the day maybe while I'm doing dishes or if I go for a walk or something like that, I'll incorporate this psalm into the Jesus Prayer and say, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, my soul waits for you in silence.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, my soul waits for you in silence." And as I was praying that form of the Jesus Prayer with this particular psalm, it was really on my heart to do an episode about our need for silence. And I don't know, probably some of you have heard a lot said about how we need more silence in our world today and in our lives. But I might have a couple things to say that are different from what you've already heard. So I don't know. We'll see if not then Sorry, I

Think part of the problem Part of the reason we maybe don't think we need silence is Because we don't have it. So what I mean by that is we are not recollected enough to realize that we need silence in our lives. An analogy that might help to to kind of explain this, several years, I was doing something in the kitchen, and one of the nuns was cooking something on the stovetop. So they had the microwave fan going as they're cooking to help with the smoke, right?

And as I'm working in the kitchen, I'm chopping vegetables or whatever, and this microwave fan is going, I'm thinking nothing of it. I'm just going about my work. And then some point then un-turns the fan off because she's done. And the fan goes off and my whole body relaxes. My heart rate goes down. And I realize the entire time the fan was going, there was some level of anxiety in

me that I was totally unaware of. And I wasn't aware of it until it was gone. And I think similarly, we often don't know how much we're being impacted by the noise until we step away from it. And then once we step away from it and things slow down, then we realize our minds have been going 100 miles an hour. We haven't actually taken any time at all

to see what's happening inside of us. You know, it's like that feeling when you sit down at the end of a day and you didn't even realize how tired you were. You didn't realize how exhausted your body was until you sat. And then you realize, oh, wow, I haven't sat for eight hours. The difference between prayer and the microwave analogy is that the silence, the external silence that we enter into to pray, can often amplify the anxiety. So instead of I step away from the noise

and the anxiety is gone, it's I step away from the anxiety and it's amplified. And part of the reason for that is because we're now undistracted from the anxiety. We're undistracted from the stress and the noise, and we have to actually confront it. So how should we respond when we sit in silence and we're suddenly aware of all of the anxiety and all of the troubles and all of the stress?

and we're suddenly aware of all of the anxiety and all of the troubles and all of the stress. Well, I think what we don't do is try to distract ourselves from it, which is what we do with the noise itself. We use it as a distraction. So if I'm sitting in silence and I'm just really uncomfortable with the silence, I'm uncomfortable with my own thoughts, the answer is not to pick up the phone, to pick up a book. Sometimes it's not even to pick up scripture if the reason you're going to scripture is just to distract yourself from your own thoughts.

I think we also need to not panic because this is a problem in my own life when I enter into silence if I become aware of anxiety within me, if I become aware of my own level of distraction, then I just panic even looking at it. Because I don't know what to do with it. I'm going to be overwhelmed by it. I don't want to sit in silence for the next hour with this anxiety, with these thoughts. And so there can be a temptation to just panic. I think we don't distract, we don't panic, and we don't suppress because that's another temptation. I'm in my time of prayer and I'm feeling really stressed out so I'm gonna try to just shove that down in order to be with the Lord. But all that's doing is denying the reality

And God is in the reality. So if we're denying the reality, we're avoiding an encounter with him. And I think something to remember is that we're often in life reacting from places without realizing it. We're more affected by the externals and by the things going through our mind than we realize. Just like I didn't realize about the microwave fan. I think a good example of this, I've probably used this before, but is our dreams. I know we've all had the experience where you have a dream,

maybe an anxious dream about someone, like you had an argument with this person. And then the whole next day, next couple of days, whenever you see this person, your stress levels rise and you have to remind yourself that dream wasn't real. I'm not in a fight with this person, but clearly our subconscious does something to affect our responses. So what does it look like to sit in silence, to not panic, not distract, not suppress, but actually encounter the reality? I think it looks like sitting down, standing, if you like to stand in prayer, kneeling.

And as you enter in and acknowledge the presence of God, after acknowledging his presence, you can then ask, what's happening inside of me right now? Are there places that are unsettled? Am I struggling to be here? And maybe you realize, yeah, I'm feeling unsettled. And then you take the next step of what is it exactly that's unsettling me? Where is this feeling coming from? I wasn't unsettled this morning. So why am I unsettled now? Well, at some point, that shift happened.

At some point that shift happened and maybe I realized that it happened after I heard a comment that someone made in the kitchen. But the comment wasn't unkind. It was seemingly innocuous. So what was it about that comment? That unsettled me. Why has that been in the back of my mind? Why has that been in my subconscious? And maybe I felt really unloved, unknown, unseen by the comment? Maybe it was a critical comment about a book that I happen to really love.

So let's say I feel unseen or unknown. The temptation now is to immediately spiritualize that. To say, but Jesus was unknown, Jesus was unseen. And so this is good. Thank you Lord for this opportunity to be unseen so that I can know what you experienced. That's a good thing, right? Like, it's good to see the spiritual realities that are happening, but we don't wanna just skip right to there. We don't wanna just jump over our humanity. I think we first say, Lord, that hurt.

It doesn't feel good to be unseen and unknown. Help me to unite that pain with yours. Help me to love the person who said that. Help me to know that I'm seen and loved and known by you." And now, instead of just pretending like everything's fine, instead of ignoring whatever anxiety's happening inside of us, we've allowed it to be a place of encounter. And now maybe in the silence, nothing is unsettled. Maybe you're feeling really at peace.

And that's great but the point that I want to make here is that being at peace in your prayer being comfortable in the silence versus having to confront anxiety in your silence, having to work through with the Lord the things that are happening in your heart. One of those situations is not better than another. And if you're using that to judge your prayer, this prayer was good, this prayer was not good, then you're missing something. Because why do we pray? If you ask someone why they pray, or if you ask yourself why do you pray, why do you spend

time with the Lord? I think some common answers might be because it brings me peace, because it's a good start to my day, because it helps me to respond better to people throughout the day. It helps me to be more virtuous throughout the day. It grounds me. And these are all really good things. These are all beautiful benefits and fruits of prayer. But they aren't the reason we pray. They aren't the reason we enter into silence. Because the primary reason, the only reason ultimately that we pray is to be in relationship. Now to be in relationship with the Lord leads to peace. It leads to feeling grounded. It leads to being more virtuous.

It leads to responding better throughout the day. Those are all good fruits, but they aren't the reason we pray. They're the consequence, the byproduct of the relationship. They aren't the goal. The goal is union. And I think we get this backwards all of the time. One of my favorite quotes is Saint Seraphim of Sarov. He says, acquire interior peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved. I usually share that quote with people when they ask me how can they be of the most help

to their loved ones. I have a child who's left the church. I have a friend who's struggling with this situation. I have a co-worker who is going through this, that, or the other. How do I help them? Well, the most important thing is to acquire interior peace yourself. And that will affect

the people around you. But even this we get backwards because we can then try to acquire interior peace for the sake of helping those around us. But actually we need to acquire interior peace for our own sake, for our relationship with the Lord. And again, that spills over into the people around us. Because like I said in the last episode, when God works good for one person, He's using that for the good of others. It's not, well, I'll give this person this good at the neglect of this other person,

but then at another point I'll give the other person some good at the neglect of, like, that's not how it works. What God does is good for all who are involved. Now, can we go to God asking for these things? Of course. These are good things to ask for, right? It's good to ask him for peace. It's good to ask him to help us respond better throughout the day. You know, a lot of us have, I'm sure, had the experience of a relationship in which this person just really grounds us.

And if I'm having a really hard day, if I call them, if I hear their voice, if I see their face, then I'm able to come back to the present, to come back to who I am, to feel my feet on the ground, and to breathe more easily. And this is a good thing, and it's good to call that friend and to have that friend. But the fact that that friend grounds you is not the point of the friendship. The point of the friendship is not just what you get from them, or it's utilitarian. And similarly, the point of relationship with the Lord is relationship with the Lord. And what comes of that is the good byproducts, the good consequences, the overflowing of grace. Because why does God want us to not sin? Does he just have these arbitrary rules of things that he doesn't particularly like?

Is it like God is woozy at the sight of blood so he tells us to not kill each other. God is bored by gossip so he tells us to not do it. This isn't the point of not sinning. The point of not sinning is not just because there's this list of things that God doesn't like so I won't do them. The reason he gives us a conscience, the reason he through the guidance of the fathers and the authorities in the church gives us quote-unquote rules to follow are because he knows that these particular things, when we do them, there's damage to our relationship with him. So he wants us to not do them, not because he doesn't like the things in and of themselves,

but because he knows that they're going to damage our relationship with him and he wants the relationship. And we need the silence to have that. We absolutely encounter God in the people around us. We encounter God in our work. We encounter God in the liturgical prayer. But we also need time with just him and us. As any couple needs. As any friends need. We need the silence to step away from the worldly cares, to surrender those cares to him, and to just be in relationship. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of this day. Thank you for the moments of silence that you've given us in it so far.

And I thank you in advance for the moments of silence you'll offer us in the day to come. Help us to embrace that silence, to enter more fully into relationship with you and your son and your spirit. Help us to not distract or numb out when we come to silence. Whatever anxieties we're feeling, whatever cares are distracting us from being present to you. Give us the grace to not suppress those things but to surrender them to you. Help us to receive whatever fruits of prayer that you desire to give, but to receive them as gift, as natural consequence, and not as the goal of prayer itself.

I thank you for these things and ask you for these things through the intercession of Saint Nathaniel, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Seraphim of Sarov, Blessed Pier Giorgio, Saint Nectarius, Saint Nectarius, the most holy Theotokos and all the saints, and through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.