Monthly Archives: June 2020

Ep16 What is forgiveness and why do it?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:33 — 25.2MB)

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Father Len explains what forgiveness is and isn’t and the powerful positive effects it has on us and those around us.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • We live in an age of anger. It defines our politics, the way we drive, our Facebook posts, and even our religion.
  • A lot of religious people baptize anger and make excuses for it by calling it righteous.
  • Nowhere in the Bible does it mention God’s having righteous anger. There is no righteous anger. Anger is anger.
  • There is a joke about Irish Alzheimer’s. It’s when you forget everything, but those you’re mad at.
  • People often confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. Forgiveness doesn’t require reconciliation.
  • Everything is forgivable, but not all things can be reconciled.
  • Forgiveness means you’re not going to be trapped in a prison of anger, bitterness, and resentment. It’s a source of freedom.
  • Attempts to reconcile with the sociopath can be problematic. An invitation to get hurt again and again.
  • Forgiveness that skips over justice and doesn’t hold the offender accountable is fake forgiveness. Its amnesty and submission to the wrong. It turns forgiveness into the way of the weak and not the strong.
  • Why should we forgive? First and foremost because God said so.
  • Father Len describes how forgiveness gave Nelson Mandela freedom.
  • Father Len tells the amazing story of a young actress whose career was ruined by Alfred Hitchcock, but she was able to forgive him and later attend his funeral free of anger, bitterness, and resentment.
  • Bitterness has a long-term effect on the brain. It makes you dumber.
  • Anger contributes to bad decision-making.
  • Wounded people wound others. If you hold on to anger and a really deep hurt, you’re likely to hurt other people.
  • Forgiveness silences the voice of the offender that keeps telling you you’re a victim and you have no dignity.
  • Forgiveness contributes to better health and a longer life.
  • Dr. Robert Enright’s “International Forgiveness Institute”
  • “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” – CS Lewis
  • The book, “A 1000 Acres” by Jane Smiley is a great story about the power of forgiveness.
  • People who’ve been able to forgive a deep hurt have a much greater capacity to love.

Ep15 What Is Prayer?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:23 — 8.6MB)

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Father Len shares his love of prayer. He explains what prayer is and isn’t and the purpose of prayer. He also offers some ideas for developing your own personal prayer life.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • True prayer is listening. It’s about being totally mindful of God and being in the presence of God.
  • Prayer is not about providing God with frequent intelligence briefings about stuff we want because God is the “big candy machine.”
  • Father Len shares a fun story about a very kind and well-meaning minister and his wife that were concerned about the inadequacies of the car he was driving at the time and volunteered to “pray him up a new truck” to illustrate what prayer shouldn’t be.
  • Prayer is about being in the presence of love and wanting it to control you.
  • Father Len shares a favorite type of prayer he uses called “The Daily Examen” created by St. Ignatius 500 years ago.
  • Meditation on virtues like joy and love is an effective type of prayer that can help us find God in the fingerprints of our day while providing a sense of calm and peace.
  • Our whole life should be a love affair with the divine that inspires us to regularly spend time with God.
  • Some of us confuse entertainment that is self-gratifying with prayer. Father Len explains why golf is not prayer.

Ep14 Finding Lost Faith

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:31 — 25.2MB)

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Father Len explains what causes a loss of faith and gives listener Jennifer some ideas for finding her lost faith.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len explains the difference between faith and belief.
  • Faith is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it will atrophy and you’ll lose it.
  • Faith is like a seed. It’s a gift from God. We must prepare the soil in which it grows. The soil is our hearts. The best means for preparing the soil is prayer and reflection.
  • Faith is like water. It needs a path to flow. Prayer and reflection dig the “trench” that allows faith to flow.
  • Prayer and reflection are habits that give birth to faith.
  • Father Len introduces one of his favorite tools for feeding and deepening his faith, “The Daily Examen” created by St. Ignatius.
  • The daily practice of gratitude will make you a happier person and deepen your faith.
  • “Feeling Good: the New Mood Therapy” by David D Burns M.D.
  • Life is a matter of negotiating problems.
  • Troubles in life do not cause faith to evaporate. Quite the opposite. We can find the presence of Christ in all of our problems.
  • “God whispers to us in our good times, but shouts to us in our pain.” – CS Lewis

Ep13 Understanding Human Evil

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:40 — 23.5MB)

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Father Len reveals two primary impulses God gives us and how we can use them for good or evil. This episode was recorded before the murder of George Floyd, but it couldn’t be more relevant.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Human evil is the most difficult kind of evil to grapple with because it’s what we do to ourselves.
  • Human evil is never part of God’s plan.
  • God created human beings with two primary impulses. One is rooted in self-interest or self-protection. The other an inner sense that alerts us when we’re violating God’s law and urges us to live lives of generous care for other people.
  • “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Ep12 Spirituality without Religion

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:21 — 11.3MB)

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Father Len explains what’s missing in spirituality without religion in answer to a listener who asks: “Why do I need organized religion? I’m spiritual and I have a personal relationship with God.”

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • What is a “personal” relationship with God? What does it mean? Father Len explores the difference between an intimate relationship with God and a private relationship with God.
  • Father Len explains how religion satisfies the natural human need and desire for being social and how that makes an essential contribution to a spiritual life.
  • The very definition of what it means to be human is to be connected to other people.
  • We survive and thrive not only because of our intelligence, but also because we live and work as a group.
  • Religion and spirituality should make you a better human being.
  • We are more of who we are and who we are meant to be in community with other people.
  • Father Len shares an inspiring story of enemies protecting enemies during the Serbian Croatian war to illustrate the meaning, power and importance of true community.
  • Spirituality should lead you into the very essence of community.
  • Private spirituality can lead to becoming your own God.
  • Religion is like a marriage, a marriage between us and God.
  • “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni
  • Father Len explains how conflict is an important element in strong marriages and good religion.
  • Being spiritual but not religious means there is likely no one to challenge your ideas and beliefs.
  • “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez