Season 6 Episode 5: Identity, Shame, and Letting God See Me

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis.

Thanks for joining us, and thank you to all of the SEEK participants who joined us!

Sr. Orianne and Sr. Allison Regina wrote a book about confession! Check it out here: Forgiven

·     The book Personal Prayer by Fr. Boniface Hicks and Fr. Thomas Acklin: Amazon | Publisher

·     The Transfiguration in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 17)

·     Painting by Peter Paul Rubens: The Virgin as the Woman of the Apocalypse

Challenge: Make an examination of conscience (use Sr. Orianne and Sr. Allison’s if that helps Apple | YouTube), and consider going to confession if it’s been a while.

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The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. Each episode will focus on a topic the students brought up. Today, we're exploring how fear can hold us back in our spiritual lives--and also how talking to God about it can be a huge step forward. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll continue this conversation when it comes to anxiety in prayer.

Thanks for joining us, and thank you to all of the SEEK participants who joined us!

Sr. Orianne and Sr. Allison Regina wrote a book about confession! Check it out here: Forgiven

·     Fr. Boniface Hicks' Sermon for Good Friday: Trust that We Are Loved in our Weakness

·     Hebrews 4:14-16

·     Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical on mercy, Dives in misericordia

“Conversion to God always consists in discovering His mercy, that is, in discovering that love which is patient and kind as only the Creator and Father can be; the love to which the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" is faithful to the uttermost consequences in the history of His covenant with man; even to the cross and to the death and resurrection of the Son. Conversion to God is always the fruit of the “rediscovery of this Father, who is rich in mercy.” Authentic knowledge of the God of mercy, the God of tender love, is a constant and inexhaustible source of conversion” #13

Challenge: If you are struggling with fear with anything in your life, admit it to God and let it be your prayer today.

Prayer prompt inspired by this episode: Pray with the passage from Hebrews 4, and invite the Lord give you some sense of how he is with you and understands your wounds or difficulties.

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

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Shop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/Patreon

The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. Each episode will focus on a topic the students brought up. Today, we’re diving into another set of common struggles that arise in our prayer lives, from God staying quiet to the perils of overthinking to the struggle to trust God.

Check out our previous episode for the first half of our discussion on prayer.

Thanks for joining us, and thank you to all of the SEEK participants who joined us!

Sr. Orianne and Sr. Allison Regina wrote a book about confession! Check it out here: Forgiven

Passage about Elijah and the still small voice: 1 Kings 19:11-18

St. Paul on being careful not to fall: 1 Corinthians 10:12

St. Paul on bad company: 1 Corinthians 15:33

St. Paul on being a fool: 2 Corinthians 11

On the will of God: 1 Thessalonians 4:3

St. Paul on longing for eternal life: Philippians 1:20–26

Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical on mercy, Dives in misericordia

Prayer prompt inspired by this episode: Sit with one of these passages from Scripture mentioned in the episode. Talk to St. Paul or another favorite saint or biblical figure about your current biggest struggle in prayer, and see whether any advice resounds in your heart. Finish by asking them to pray for you and intercede in your relationship with Jesus.

Prayer prompt 2: Estimate how long you can comfortably sit quietly in silent prayer, repeating Jesus’ name or quietly listening for the voice of God (whether it's thirty seconds, five minutes, a whole hour)... Then sit a minute longer.

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaul

YouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaul

Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishing

Shop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. Each episode will focus on a topic the students brought up. Today, we’re talking about prayer—how to do it, what to expect, and what might get in the way.

Thanks for joining us, and thank you to all of the SEEK participants who joined us!

Sr. Orianne and Sr. Allison Regina wrote a book about confession! Check it out here: Forgiven

Prayer prompt inspired by this episode: Pick one of the "rote" prayers you know by heart, like the Our Father, Hail Mary, or Glory Be–and pray it super slowly and intentionally, as if you were saying it for the first time. Pay attention to the meaning of each word and, rather than praying it alone, allow the Holy Spirit to pray it in you.

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaul

YouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaul

Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishing

Shop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/ s

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/Patreon

The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. Each episode will focus on a topic the students brought up. Today, we’re talking about distraction in prayer--what causes it, practical ways to move past it, and sharing that you’re not alone with whatever is getting in the way of you focusing on your relationship with God.

Thanks for joining us!

Check out Msgr. Shea’s talk from SEEK24 here: Why Are We So Depressed?

Resources for those struggling with pornography

Chastity Project

Magdala Ministries (Especially for Catholic women)

https://fightthenewdrug.org (Secular Resources)

Book: Cleansed: A Catholic Guide to Freedom from Porn

Resources from the USCCB Website

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaul

YouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaul

Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishing

Shop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/Patreon

The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

In today’s episode, Sr. Allison Regina and Sr. Julie Benedicta are joined by Sr. Maria Grace, and talk some of ways and reasons we might use fiction when helping young children begin to learn about the Faith and build a relationship with God.

Video where we talk about these ideas and Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy Stories”  

C.S. Lewis quote: “I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed so much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices, almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.... The inhibitions which I hoped my stories would overcome in a child’s mind may exist in a grown-up’s mind too, and may perhaps be overcome by the same means. The fantastic or mythical is a mode available at all ages for some readers; for others, at none. At all ages, if it is well used by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. But at its best, it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus instead of ‘commenting on life’ can add to it.”

“Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said,” Of Other Worlds (as quoted in On Writing (& Writers), pages 29-32)

G.K. Chesterton Quote: “If you keep bogies and goblins away from children they would make them up for themselves. […] Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.[…] Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.” Tremendous Trifles, 1909

1.    Check out Sr. Maria Grace’s series, The Gospel Time Trekkers, and her other books here: https://paulinestore.com/books/featured-authors/sr-maria-grace-dateno.html

2.    Visit Sr. Allison Regina’s page on our website and learn more about her books for kids and teens: https://pauline.org/staff/sr-allison-regina-gliot/

3.    You can find the Sister Seraphina Mysteries books by Haley Stewart here: https://paulinestore.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=seraphina

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaul

YouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaul

Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishing

Shop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/Patreon

The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

In today’s episode, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta are joined by Sr. Allison Regina, and talk some of the fictional stories they’ve encountered that helped them to know the Lord in a new or deeper way. Then they remembered that Sr. Allison Regina has written fiction with God in it, so they put her on the spot and asked her about that experience.  

1.    Check out our Nuns React video about Moana: https://youtu.be/ZtK7EMbdF_0

2.    Visit Sr. Allison Regina’s page on our website and learn more about her books for kids and teens: https://pauline.org/staff/sr-allison-regina-gliot/

A Storyteller’s Prayer

Loving Creator God, you have made me in your image and have given me a share in your own creative power. You have given me the awesome call to listen deeply and to gently hold and nurture the fragile breath of inspiration.

Allow a new understanding of truth and beauty to come into being in me. Work in me as I decisively shape and mold intuition into words and stories.

Teach me how to nurture this gift of creativity, and to believe that you want to work through me. Slow me down so that I can listen attentively. I trust that you will inspire me, guide me, lead me.

Jesus, Master Storyteller, you who are the very Incarnation of the Father’s being, help me to image the mystery of God and of the human person in what I write. You used the power of image, story, and proverb to communicate the freshness of your message. May my storytelling—whether spoken, written, or visual—open the human soul to the sense of the eternal. Let everything I write celebrate the wonder and sacredness of human life, uplifting those who will hear, read, or see what I write.

Holy Spirit, illumine me from within; give me new vision; fill my heart with your freedom and my decisions with your energy. Stir up my creative intuition and give me the courage to write honestly and deeply, past all fear.

Make of me a prophet, speaking your truth with freshness and relevance. May everything I write contain a glimmer of your beauty.

Make of my stories and, above all, the story of my life, masterpieces that reflect your glory. Amen.

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMedia

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YouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaul

Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishing

Shop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/Patreon

The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

In today’s episode, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta are joined by Sr. Allison Regina to talk about using fictional stories in evangelization and catechesis, and as a way of building our faith. They also talk about storytelling as a form of creation that happens in imitation of God, our Father and Creator.

1.    Story Nathan tells to David: 2 Samuel 12:1–10

2.    From Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners:

The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal to the senses with abstractions. It is a good deal easier for most people to state an abstract idea than to describe and thus re-create some object that they actually see. But the world of the fiction writer is full of matter, and this is what the beginning fiction writers are very loath to create. They are concerned primarily with unfleshed ideas and emotions. They are apt to be reformers and to want to write because they are possessed not by a story but by the bare bones of some abstract notion. They are conscious of problems, not of people, of questions and issues, not of the texture of existence, of case histories and of everything that has a sociological smack, instead of with all those concrete details of life that make actual the mystery of our position on earth.

The Manicheans separated spirit and matter. To them all material things were evil. They sought pure spirit and tried to approach the infinite directly without any mediation of matter. This is also pretty much the modern spirit, and for the sensibility infected with it, fiction is hard if not impossible to write because fiction is so very much an incarnational art.

One of the most common and saddest spectacles is that of a person of really fine sensibility and acute psychological perception trying to write fiction by using these qualities alone. This type of writer will put down one intensely emotional or keenly perceptive sentence after the other, and the result will be complete dullness. The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.

Now when the fiction writer finally gets this idea through his head and into his habits, he begins to realize what a job of heavy labor the writing of fiction is. A lady who writes, and whom I admire very much, wrote me that she had learned from Flaubert that it takes at least three activated sensuous strokes to make an object real; and she believes that this is connected with our having five senses. If you’re deprived of any of them, you’re in a bad way, but if you’re deprived of more than two at once, you almost aren’t present.

O’Connor, Flannery, Robert Fitzgerald, and Sally Fitzgerald. Mystery and Manners. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993.

Call to action:

1.    Consider, what is a fictional story that has touched you? Can you pray about that?

2.    Prayer for all the Media, by Bl. James Alberione:

We adore you, O Lord, Creator of heaven and earth. We thank you for having placed at the disposition of humanity such a wealth of goods for the present life and eternal life. “All these are yours; but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (see 1 Cor 3:23).

O Jesus, Divine Master, in your mercy enlighten and direct us so that all the discoveries and means of social communication may be used for edifying and uplifting, never for spiritual or human ruin.

Today we pray for all the media. We offer you, Jesus Master, our prayers and our daily apostolate to atone for the misuse of these gifts and to ask of you that everything may be for the glory of God and peace to humanity. Amen.

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaul

YouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaul

Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishing

Shop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

Support us and find out more: connect.pauline.org/Patreon

The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

After a long (long) time away, we're back and ready to go with several bonus episodes and a whole season coming down the road! In this super informal episode, we just take a minute to explain what happened, and give a preview of what's coming.

Spoiler: Sr. Benedicta made her final vows! Here's an image she drew while she was praying and preparing for perpetual profession. The explanation of the art is below.

God bless you all, and we'll talk again soon!

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Hearts of Jesus, Mary, and Paul by Sr. Julie Marie Benedicta

Together with the traditional images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, center, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, right, there is an illustration of the Heart of St. Paul.

St. John Chrysostom, commenting on Paul’s desire to perfectly imitate Jesus, wrote, “the heart of Paul is the heart of Christ.”

This imagining of the heart of St. Paul incorporates the thorn in his flesh (2 Cor 12:7),

his having been spiritually crucified with Christ (Gal 2:19),

the chains he wore for the sake of the Gospel (Acts 28:20),

and the fire of love which inflamed his heart (2 Cor 5:14).

The words in Latin are all words of Jesus:

Sufficit tibi gratia mea: My grace is sufficient for you (2 Cor 12:9)

Ecce mater tua: Behold, your mother (John 19:27)

Venite ad me omnes: Come to me, all of you (Matt 11:28)

Ego sum via et veritas et vita: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)

Symbols of the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist, and the means of communication surround the image of the hearts.

In today’s episode, Sr. Allison Regina and Sr. Julie Benedicta are joined by Fr. Cassidy Stinson to share their reflections on living as media apostles in the world.

“A priest pours water on the head of a child while saying mysterious words; the minister of God extends his consecrated hand over the repentant sinner and says: “I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” But underneath these things, underneath these causes, true prodigies are performed. St. Thomas does not hesitate to say that the justification of a single sinner is a greater work than the creation of the world.” – Archbishop Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier Chapter 8

Fr. Cassidy’s Social Media: Twitter | Instagram

Find out more about the Media Apostle Retreat:

Are you a Catholic actor, producer, writer, author, journalist, musical artist, designer, or digital evangelist? 

We are calling all media pros to join the Daughters of St. Paul on an exclusive retreat created just for you to be fortified in Christ and immersed in the Pauline media spirituality- a weekend to retreat and strengthen you in your craft.

It is a time for you to join like-minded media apostles to pray, retreat and dream into your calling!

Join the Daughters of Saint Paul at the upcoming East Coast Media Apostle Retreat for the West Coast Media Apostle Retreat on January 3 to 5 in Malibu, CA.

Register now: https://connect.pauline.org/MediaApostle 

STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!

Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishing

Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMedia

YouTube.com/daughterstpaul

Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!

Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

Support us and find out more: connect.pauline.org/Patreon

The Daughters of Saint Paul