Snippet from the Show
Did Mary unplug from prayer during the Nativity? No, she maintained her spiritual focus.
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Snippet from the Show

When we pray with deep trust, the Holy Spirit makes space for powerful conversions in the hearts of our loved ones.
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Today’s episode was recorded last week live at the FOCUS SLS Student Leadership Conference in Phoenix Arizona. Thank you for all your prayers during this incredible, life-giving week spent with so many amazing young people on fire for the Lord!

Snippet from the Show
Our emotions don’t necessarily reveal the truth about reality, but they do reveal the conditions of our heart.

SHOWNOTES

“I just want to do what God wants me to do!”

Father Mike talks about the tendency to want God to intervene in our lives in explicit ways so that we don’t have to bear the responsibility of making decisions.

In a new book he helped co-author with the Angels, Pray, Decide, and Don’t Worry, Fr. Mike explains that a large part of discernment is actually making decisions, and trusting that even if we’re wrong, God will take care of us. And in almost all cases, this decision is simply the first decision in a series of decisions that will lead us to in our walk of faith.

Over-Spiritualization
We often hear the phrase “I don’t feel called” when opting not to do something, but how much of that is truth versus just not feeling like doing something. Dr. Sri explains that some things we are meant to be called, and that’s a beautiful thing, but other decisions are meant to be made with a little uneasiness. Think of Jesus in the Garden: was Jesus totally at peace and calm about his decision to die on the cross? No! He was terrified, stressed out, he was even sweating blood! But he did it anyway because it was what he needed to do, same with some of the situations we find ourselves in. Not everything we do in life is going to be pleasant, but even unpleasant and difficult can be led by God. However, when we do God’s will, we will experience a deeper peace that is stronger than fleeting emotional responses.

Early Jesuit Maxim: “Your first emotional response usually is not a sign of God’s will, it’s a sign of your own disordered attachment to something.”

Fr. Mike’s Scuba Diving Analogy
When Father made the concrete decision that he was going to enter seminary, he knew he had a deep peace about the decision that could not be stirred. He relates this feeling to the experience of scuba diving. He explained that before jumping into the water, sitting on the edge of the boat, all you can see are these rough and rocky waves that you’re about to submerge into. The waves have no peace to them, and are even quite violent, but once you make the jump and submerge, you get a couple feet down and find that everything is still—so still that you can’t believe just a few feet above you such violent waves are forming.

Deciding to join seminary was not an easy decision for Father. He was jumping into a new realm of life, and saying goodbye to a girl he was ready to marry. But through that jump, though he experienced heartbreak and trials, he could feel a deep-rooted peace within him that evidenced his decision was aligned with God’s will.

Emotions and Discernment
We’ve been told to follow our passion and pursue them with everything we have, but Fr. Mike disagrees. He explains that our passions change and that what we should focus on are our passions paired with our God-given abilities and gifts. If we focus on what we can do, using the specific abilities God has given us, and cultivate them into a skill, then we will find passion in doing our jobs well, no matter what they are.

Fr. Mike’s Steps in Discernment
Gather data: seek advice, get more information, go explore… just learn!
Move forward with the Lord: our steps become clearer the closer we get to our goal

**Discernment Tip: **If your intentions are true and good in your discernment, God will bless whatever you’re doing, even if it’s only for a short time

Resources
Pray, Decide, and Don’t Worry by Fr. Mike Schmitz, Bobby and Jackie Angel
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Dr. Edward Sri explains how this Advent, the Lord has special graces in store for you, if only you make space for him in your life.

Snippet from the Show
“Make room for the Divine infant, for he desires to grow within your soul.” -Dom Prosper Louis Pascal Guéranger

**Why four weeks of Advent?
**Recalls the four thousand years of Biblical history. Advent walks us through that biblical story. We’re entering into Israel’s longing for the messiah—into humanity’s yearning for a savior. That’s what the season is all about.

**Why So Much Purple During Advent?
**Advent is a penitential season, a time we do some acts of penance. In the early Church, it was almost treated as if it were another lent. It included forty days of fasting, from the feast of St. Martin through Christmas. In the ninth or tenth century, the Church eventually changed the fasting to abstinence.

*What Abbot Dom GuérangerSays about Advent
*
There are three different kinds of men:

1. Those who live saintly lives, living deeply in Jesus
2. Those who have completely rejected God
   
3. The last category is the largest: those of us who want friendship with Jesus but don’t live it out well. We sin and we get lukewarm. Dom Guéranger describes this group, writing, “Jesus is in them, but they are sick and weakly. Because they do not care to grow in his divine life. Their first love has become cold.”
   

Advent is for those of us who are in that final group..those of us who feel like we aren’t progressing in the spiritual life, or who are going backwards.
“Our Lord knocks at the door of our hearts. He comes to ask us if we have room for him, for he wishes to be born in our house.”
When we are so busy, we don’t hear him knocking.
“You who have had him within you, without knowing him, and have possessed him without relishing the sweetness of his presence, open your hearts to welcome him this time with more care and with more love.”
“Jesus repeats his visit of this year with an untiring tenderness. He has forgotten your past slights. He would make all things new.”
Maybe we’ve become slack in our spiritual life or in our relationships with others
This Advent is the time to start over: “Make room for the Divine infant, for he desires to grow in your soul.”

**
Practical Ideas to Make Room for Jesus **

1. Sacrifice: picture that the manger is your heart. It has a whole lot of stuff in it...your music, your entertainment, your money, your dreams, your obsessions. This advent, give up a little something to make room for the baby Jesus to be placed in that manger.
2. Make a gift to our Lord in this season: An extra devotion, some spiritual reading, act of service or kindness to someone in your home or workplace, extra time for prayer.
3. Make time for prayer each day in Advent: December is hard…ask yourself, how can I encounter God in the midst of all the expectations and pressure? Take a little time each day to close your eyes and talk to the Lord. You can tell him all the things you need to do, but that little space of extra care and attention for Jesus will allow him to make you new.

Resources
The Advent of Christ

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