† Now it's recording. Okay.
Here we go.
Umm, I tried to fiddle with the lights
Cuz I don't know if that's too much
Or if this is too much.
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents
I've talked to people who'll
kind of lament the fact
that they feel like they can't pray
as often as they would like to pray
and that... that makes complete sense.
I mean, because what do we hear?
We hear that it's essential to pray.
When Jesus says in the Gospels, he says,
"When you pray, go to your room and pray."
So, he doesn't say,
"Hey, if you get around to praying ..." He's like:
"No, no...you're gonna do it so when you do it, do it like this ..."
So that means we're gonna need to take time away, right?
We need to set time aside
and just have that one on one time
with the Lord
and that is so good.
Um... And even to say like
whether that's ten minutes
or some people might get an hour
everyday, that's fantastic but it's
important to recognize that
even if you pray an hour a day
even if you're Mother Teresa of Calcutta
St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
and you pray like three or four hours a day
but there's still twenty-one or twenty or twenty-one hours
left in the day that you're not praying
so is that like, "Well, I give you my time now over here, Jesus..."
whether that was ten minutes or four hours
...but now the rest of the time is mine..."
Like, isn't there a way to do what Scripture says?
Which is to pray without ceasing.
Isn't there a way to bring God into the rest of your day?
In fact, there is
and it's far easier than you might think.
Here's a three step process.
This is a three step thing that St. Francis de Sales
introduced to people who were normal working people
they, yep ... they took time aside everyday
where they could try to dedicate that
one-on-one with the Lord.
That's where you get to have intimate
conversation with God, right?
Obviously.
But people, who wanted to have
wanted to be with God always,
they wanted to be able to do what Scripture says.
They pray always.
So St. Francis de Sales said this,
very very simple.
It's a three step process
and it goes like this:
You ask, you offer, and you accept.
The first step is you ask.
You ask God to be present to you.
Now, obviously God is everywhere, right?
He's omnipresent and
not only is he omnipresent,
he's attentive to you.
That at all times, we believe this.
That God is completely present
to you.
Because he's attentive to you.
So, when we say ask God to be present to you
what we're really doing is we're
being attentive back to him.
Number two, offer.
So, whatever we're doing at that moment
we offer that moment to God.
Whether that is a great moment
of a highlight
or a really difficult moment of pain and sorrow.
It could be something like, I have some friends who
before they go on a workout they always
do this: ask, offer, and accept.
"God, be attentive to me and let me be attentive to You
on this run. Um ... I offer you the joy of this run
and I also offer you the suffering of this run
cuz it's gonna be kind of painful"
and they offer that time to God.
And the third thing is accept.
And I say this, I say "God, be attentive to me
I'm attentive to you. God, I offer you this moment
as a sacrifice and thirdly, I accept... I resolve to accept
whatever comes out of this moment. I resolve to accept
whatever comes out of this time with you."
Now, if we do this, very very simply
Ask, Offer, and Accept
it will completely transform, not only how you have a
relationship with God, it will transform how you live.
because think about it
if you ask God to be attentive to you, what you're doing
is you're allowing every moment to be a sacrament.
What's a sacrament? A sacrament is a sacred sign
that, um, is a channel of grace.
Every moment gets to be a sacrament. In fact,
there are some big time saints back in the day
who talked about this thing called the
sacrament of the present moment.
That any given moment is an opportunity for God
to be encountered.
And so when you say, "God, be attentive to me,
I'm attentive to you, I ask you to be present."
you're making that moment a sacrament.
Number two, when you offer it up to him,
you make every moment a sacrifice.
Now think about this, it doesn't have to be difficult
It doesn't have to be painful.
It just means this is a sacrifice to you.
You can even do this as you go to bed.
"God, be attentive to me, and I'm attentive to you
as I drift off to sleep and I offer you this night's sleep
as a sacrifice. I offer this as a gift to you."
I did this once where, again, it doesn't have to be so
tough that it just grinds you down. So many people
they find themself, they don't get it right, right?
We think we have to only offer up to God
um... the perfect stuff, or like the really really hard stuff
as opposed to, "No God, how about awesome stuff?"
Last summer, I did this... I remember it was unique
because I shared it with some people, but I
grilled a steak, and I had a beer.
And as I was grilling the steak and drinking the beer
I was like, "God, be attentive to me, I'm attentive to you
and I offer... I offer this moment to you. I offer this time
to you. It's sipping this beer, and this great beautiful
summer day, grilling this steak, as a gift to you,
and I resolve to accept whatever comes out
of this moment."
And in this case, what it was was a full stomach and
much pleasure at eating a steak
and drinking a nice beer.
So, if we do this: Ask, Offer, and Accept,
asking makes every moment a sacrament,
offering makes every moment a sacrifice,
and accepting makes every moment
a moment of surrender.
And that's... that's the key to the spiritual life.
Imagine, what would your life look like if
every moment, you were just, "Okay God, be present
attentive to me, as I'm with these friends,
as I'm watching this movie, as I'm reading this book
as I'm going to sleep, as I'm walking to the bus ..."
That means every moment in your life, in my life
can be a sacrament, a sacrifice, and an opportunity
to surrender our hearts to our loving Father.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Father Mike. God Bless †