The John-Henry Westen Show - Exposing the Crisis in the Church ｜ David Torkington

00:00:00.000 In Hebrew, there's no such word for somebody who has repented, only a word for someone who is

00:00:09.420 repenting. Hello, my friends. Welcome to the John Hunter Weston Show. I've got a guest for you

00:00:23.320 who I had before, but I'm going to introduce him in a new way because when I had him before,

00:00:28.640 I actually didn't realize he was a priest. David Torkington, I introduced him as before,

00:00:35.340 now his father, David Torkington. But the reason for that was because he is a canceled priest,

00:00:40.740 a canceled priest of some 35 years ago in a way that is actually very familiar to us today.

00:00:49.080 Having exposed sexual abuse inside his order, he was the one removed rather than the other way

00:00:56.620 route. That's the way it goes. But the last time we had him, he talked with us about this

00:01:03.100 deep prayer that we need to come to, this contemplative prayer and how to get there.

00:01:08.040 I was fascinated. Many of you were fascinated by the comments section. But we've agreed to do with

00:01:15.220 Father David something that is truly remarkable. A presentation during this jubilee year that we've

00:01:22.320 just entered in the church. Retreats. Retreats that will help us to achieve that loving union with God

00:01:30.080 that was, as he told us, characteristic of the early church. Stay tuned for this episode of the

00:01:35.800 John Hunter Weston Show. Father David Torkington, so good to be with you.

00:01:39.720 Hi. If you could lead us off with the side of the cross.

00:01:44.160 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:01:50.140 Amen. So, Father, take us away on this. I mean, I just read your book, Early Christian Spirituality.

00:01:59.200 I'll start with this, and I'll ask you this first, and then you can take it from there.

00:02:01.860 The one thing that really struck me is the concept of time. Even though I go to daily mass,

00:02:13.440 I say daily rosary, I say daily rosary with my family, I say my morning prayers, and so on.

00:02:21.220 The concept of devoting very significant amounts of time to prayer, and I'm going to let you explain

00:02:30.660 about all that prayer. It's a really good thing. As soon as I read that, I was like, oh,

00:02:35.660 yeah, and our Lord, didn't he say, can't you spend at least one hour with me? And didn't he say,

00:02:41.220 that's one verse in the scriptures that I read. It happened to be that day as well,

00:02:45.600 the day I was giving my talk, the day after which I got stuck for so long. It was, our Lord says to

00:02:51.300 one of the churches, he says, you have suffered lots for the faith. You've even recognized the wolves

00:02:59.600 who are supposed to be leading you as shepherds, but I have something against you. You've lost that

00:03:06.120 first love, that first fervor. And I was like, oof, wow. Anyway, tell us about prayer, about the time

00:03:14.920 needed for prayer, and what you propose to give us at LifeSite for this year of the Jubilee.

00:03:22.240 First of all, let me begin by saying that the early Christian spirituality to which we must return

00:03:31.020 has four essential elements. It is royal, it is contemplative, it is sacrificial, and it is

00:03:44.700 redemptive. Now, let's take the first. It is royal. Why? Because it is the spirituality first lived by

00:03:56.160 Jesus Christ, our Lord, Christ the King. It is royal, because after he ascended into heaven, he was given

00:04:07.440 all power by God the Father, all power, power sufficient enough to totally change and transform the world

00:04:20.040 for the better. But there's always a but when you hear good news, is there not? And there's a but here.

00:04:30.940 But the power he was given was love, and love of its very nature cannot be forced upon anybody.

00:04:42.820 A person has to freely choose to receive that love, and this comes to the point of time

00:04:49.940 that you brought up right at the beginning, the importance of time. Therefore, unless we create

00:04:58.880 quality space and time somewhere in our life to freely position ourselves to receive that love of God,

00:05:10.400 then that love of God cannot change us, because forced love is a contradiction in terms.

00:05:19.940 That's why, one way or the other, we've got to learn what the early Christians learned to do,

00:05:27.280 create quality space and time in our life of prayer. Now, I've said elsewhere, because you'll find this

00:05:33.860 in the great spiritual writers of early Christianity, that they met at nine o'clock, midday, and three in the

00:05:44.260 afternoon, as well as getting up at midnight for prayer, to say what they call their shamer. But in addition to this,

00:05:55.860 a new form of prayer was introduced, and it was called meditation. In other words, if you are going to come to know

00:06:05.980 and love God, you've got to give space and time in which to learn to love God, and God's love is firstly to be found

00:06:17.300 embodied in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord. And so, through Our Lady, through the apostles and the very first

00:06:27.560 disciples, when they went to Mass, there may be two or three apostles or disciples, and they tell people

00:06:36.340 about our Lord's life, his death and his resurrection, but most specifically about the greatest demonstration

00:06:45.600 of God's love ever that took place on Calvary. So that at nine o'clock in the morning, they were taught to

00:06:56.480 meditate on his condemnation to death. On twelve o'clock, on him being put to death and crucified. At three o'clock,

00:07:07.960 on his death. And finally, in the middle of the night at midnight, on his resurrection. But of course,

00:07:18.440 you have to remember, we're talking about a society when they had no electric lights. Poor people

00:07:24.300 particularly tended to go to bed at sundown and rise early in the morning, but their nights were far

00:07:31.420 longer. So getting up in the middle of the night wasn't so difficult as it would be, say, for us

00:07:39.500 today. Now, I'm not making points that these are the times when we've got to stop. I'm making the point

00:07:45.880 that they had to create quality space and time in order to meditate most particularly on the greatest

00:07:52.960 love ever shown on earth, the greatest demonstration of God's love shown in and through Jesus Christ.

00:08:01.420 in his death on the cross. And this introduced a new form of prayer that they called meditation.

00:08:08.620 And then, gradually, meditation developed. Because when you come to love someone, when love is developed,

00:08:20.220 you not only want to be near them, you not only want to be close to them, you want union with them.

00:08:29.660 Now, frankly, you can't be united with somebody who's been dead for two or three years, any more than we

00:08:39.900 can expect to be united with somebody who died 2000 years ago. But, but, we can, and we are called

00:08:50.940 to be united with somebody who is alive now. And Jesus Christ is alive now. So, from meditation, gradually,

00:09:02.780 this develops into what came to be called contemplation. When through love, the Holy Spirit led them up

00:09:11.900 into Jesus Christ into Jesus Christ into his glorified and mystical body so that they could

00:09:22.460 contemplate the Father together with him. Not only that, but to receive what St. Thomas Aquinas calls

00:09:36.380 the fruits of contemplation the fruits of contemplation. Because in the love that is received, what the

00:09:43.260 fathers of the Church called the pleroma, that they received with Christ as they contemplated him,

00:09:50.780 within this love contained within it, were what we called later the theological virtues,

00:10:01.740 the cardinal virtues, the moral virtues. In other words, we receive the inner help and strength to become

00:10:11.580 more and more like Christ together with the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

00:10:21.260 This is what made those early Christians replete and radioactive with the love of God in such a way 0.77

00:10:34.060 that they were able to transform an ancient pagan empire into a Christian empire in such a short time.

00:10:45.020 It couldn't have happened in any other way. The world had never seen such love before because the love of

00:10:53.980 Christ becomes embodied in those first Christians who were prepared to give their lives. Hundreds and

00:11:02.540 thousands of thousands die for him in what they came to call blood martyrdom. And those who didn't die in

00:11:09.340 blood martyrdom died in what came to be called not red martyrdom, but white martyrdom, the daily dying to self.

00:11:20.620 Now, what we've got to realize if genuine renewal is going to come about is that this daily dying to self

00:11:31.320 must come to begin with in our prayer life. Now, Our Lady of Fatima, who's really put the whole of early

00:11:42.040 Christian spirituality into absolute simplicity when she said, we are called to repent, to pray, to sacrifice,

00:11:50.680 to repent, to continually turn back to God, but within prayer itself. If you give time, yes, give just 15 minutes,

00:12:04.200 then I tell you in that 15 minutes you'll have 50 or more distractions and temptations. And you'll say to

00:12:10.440 yourself, it's a waste of time. I'm saying to you, far from being a waste of time, every time you turn away

00:12:19.400 from those temptations and distractions, you're saying no to self. You're dying to self. You're

00:12:27.880 practicing acts of love. And when you do it and receive nothing in return, as God received nothing

00:12:37.480 in return time and time again in the Old Testament by loving his people, then you are practicing

00:12:44.840 divine loving. You've got to learn to be stripped of the cupboard loving that is endemic to us in order to

00:12:58.040 learn divine loving that that's the only loving that will in the end unite us with Christ and then through

00:13:08.760 him with him with the father. And this is why we've got to get back to prayer. This is why I have inaugurated

00:13:17.480 a new form of mission and it's called a retreat. It's called metanoia or turning back to God.

00:13:27.960 And I have called it this as a subtitle. Back to prayer, forward with Christ the King.

00:13:38.920 Because it's only by turning back to prayer that we receive the love of Christ the King, which does what?

00:13:46.440 Draws us up into him. So that together with him and through him, we go beyond the meditation on the

00:13:55.480 the Christ who once lived on this earth, through contemplation to enter into him now in his risen glory,

00:14:07.640 into his risen being, but beyond that, into his acting. And what is he doing now? How is he acting now?

00:14:18.600 He is taken up into loving his father and receiving his father's love in return, back into that Trinitarian love.

00:14:30.040 Now, through contemplation, we're being taken up into that. But the self-centered you and me that begins this

00:14:41.880 journey cannot possibly be united with Christ that this be brought about. That is why, within prayer,

00:14:51.400 as we persevere and get nothing in return day after day, month after month, we're practicing the

00:14:58.200 selflessness that purifies us in such a way that we can be prepared and purified to be united with

00:15:10.840 Christ and then through him with the Father. We're back to the great mystics. We're back to

00:15:16.440 Saint Trees of Avila. If you want to experience the love of God, you must first learn with Saint John of

00:15:23.960 the Cross to go through the dark night. The dark night is, first of all, seeing, experiencing your

00:15:32.440 sinfulness and having it purified by the Holy Spirit. Do the scriptures not say that the first baptism is

00:15:41.720 of water, the second baptism is of fire, and it is the fire of the Holy Spirit to purify us. Now, isn't it

00:15:51.000 a nonsense to think of self-centered, sinful human beings being united with Christ until a purification begins,

00:15:59.880 until a purification takes place? This is why, in this jubilee year, I'm trying to inaugurate a movement

00:16:11.000 backwards, a retreat, to give everybody some time to retire, to be still, to realize

00:16:22.520 what I'm saying very briefly and understand it in more detail. That's why I have written the book that

00:16:31.960 you just finished, Early Christian Spirituality. This is why, for those on the retreat, I've also

00:16:39.160 written the book, Passport to Perfection, so that the realities that I've just summarized to you so briefly

00:16:47.640 can be seen and explained in more detail. Now, what people don't seem to realize,

00:16:57.320 I suppose because the majority of people don't remember what were called old-fashioned retreats.

00:17:05.320 I do, in the 40s and in the 50s. Now, they depended, in other words, renewal at ground level,

00:17:14.760 very much depended on the eagle eyes of the parish priest. He would see there was a need for renewal

00:17:25.640 in his parish. And so what did he do? He announced there would be a mission. He contacted the best

00:17:35.320 missioner, because only he really knows his parishioners, the best missioner for them. It might

00:17:41.320 be a Dominican, a Franciscan, a Carmelite. It may be a Redemptress, or it may be a Montfort father,

00:17:47.720 who were trained and specialized in missions. And they came and gave a mission. And believe me,

00:17:55.800 those missions were successful in what they were aimed at doing. And what were they aimed at doing?

00:18:01.800 They were specifically drawing a person's attention to the four last things, namely death, judgment,

00:18:12.360 heaven, and hell. And they were centered on sin to make people aware of the sinfulness that would prevent

00:18:21.160 them being united to eternity with God. Sin was central to them. And it was a good retreat if,

00:18:30.680 as the missioners used to say at the end of it, they caught many big fish in the box.

00:18:40.920 And the box to which they were referring was the confessional box. And believe me, it did work.

00:18:50.280 And they were successful. And renewal was brought about time and time again through these missions.

00:18:57.880 And the missioners who were specially prepared for it. But for some reason, after the Vatican Council,

00:19:06.280 they did continue for a bit. Why? Because I gave them. Now, for a short time.

00:19:12.840 And as I gave many, many, many retreats, they didn't disappear. But they tended to be for religious.

00:19:21.720 But the retreats seemed to evaporate. People seemed to have forgotten how successful they were.

00:19:28.920 And so, what I'm trying to do, John Henry, is this. We're in a Jubilee year. Other people may have

00:19:38.200 other ideas what they're going to do in a Jubilee year. But let me tell you the essence of any Jubilee

00:19:45.160 year is about turning back to God. Turning back to God to be reunited with God through an ever-deepening

00:19:53.080 prayer life. And this is what we must do. No, I'm not suggesting that we go back precisely to those

00:20:02.440 forms of mission that I experienced as a young man, successful though they were. But I'm calling upon us

00:20:12.920 to go back to practice a retreat. To retreat for a time from the world as best we can. And this is why

00:20:25.240 this retreat is going to be so flexible. Ideally, it would be the parish priest who, as in the past,

00:20:34.360 would be the one who would run this retreat. Because frankly, I'm afraid that are no missioners

00:20:42.120 to call upon anymore. The religious orders have been decimated. More than decimated.

00:20:49.800 And so have the number of parish priests. So they are terribly overburdened.

00:20:54.360 So the proposal is this. A material is prepared for parish priests to run these retreats

00:21:03.640 themselves. That's why I wrote the book that you've just finished, Early Christian Spirituality.

00:21:12.120 That they would first read, ideally. And then they would order copies of Passport to Perfection

00:21:21.960 for the parishioners to read. And he, with his own background knowledge, plus the book on Early

00:21:30.280 Christianity, would be able to lead and guide them. He'd be running the retreat, in other words.

00:21:37.640 Now, one thing I want to make sure, make quite clear before I go any further. Thank God we have been

00:21:47.080 given a sponsor. The sponsor means this. That no way must anybody

00:21:57.160 turn away. Turn away from these retreats because they have to buy a book. Those who can't afford it will

00:22:05.080 be given one free. This retreat is for everybody. We're not interested in it. It's not about money making.

00:22:12.680 It's not selling books. It's selling prayer. More than anything else.

00:22:22.120 And also, it is these books, Satellite, the 15-part series on prayer that I spoke to you about last time.

00:22:34.840 They're in place. They're ready. The books are ready. Now, what I'm trying to do is, particularly with Lent

00:22:44.120 on the horizon, is to do all that I can to spread the news to parish priests that the material is there

00:22:56.520 to run the retreats for themselves. And they will have every help that I can give them before the retreat,

00:23:05.240 while the retreat is on, help them to get the books or get them free for those who can't afford them.

00:23:11.960 And everybody who starts a retreat who is a leader will get the book that you've just read free anyway.

00:23:17.720 And then, together, they watch the 14-part series. Now, how we do this

00:23:28.440 depends on the parish priests. For instance, we've only had one retreat that has taken place

00:23:37.400 in a Catholic parish, and that is in the parish of St. Michael the Archangel.

00:23:42.440 A canon lawyer, would you believe it? I might get to heaven if I've converted a canon lawyer. 1.00

00:23:50.280 It was led by the parish priest who is a doctor of canon law, Father Welding. He led the retreat,

00:23:57.880 and this is how he did it, to show you how it is so flexible. Instead of doing it in a week,

00:24:04.040 as they would do it in the old days, he did it in two months. The parishioners who wanted to do

00:24:10.040 the retreat would meet once a week on a Thursday. They would watch two of the videos. They would then

00:24:22.200 try to read two to three chapters every week, and they would try to program into their day

00:24:29.800 daily time for reflection and prayer. And this continued over two months. So they could do it

00:24:39.720 while they worked. On the other hand, someone might say,

00:24:45.000 no, I want to do it in the old-fashioned way. I'll do it over one week, and I'll give up one of my

00:24:49.960 holidays, a week of my holidays, to do it. Fine, you can do that. And if you don't find a parish

00:24:57.160 priest who is running it, for whatever reason, you can do it yourself. And we give our instructions

00:25:06.520 on how you can do it yourself. Let's say the ideal way would be, if you were, and very few would be

00:25:14.920 able to do this, if you were to give two weeks of your holiday. And in the first week of your holiday,

00:25:21.160 you'd have a normal holiday and a complete rest. And then in the second day, you would do the retreat,

00:25:28.200 as we indicate. On the other hand, you could do it slowly over Lent. In other words, Lent is coming

00:25:37.400 now, Ash Wednesday. Every single week in Lent, you would watch two of the videos,

00:25:47.640 and you would read two to three chapters of Passport to Perfection. And you would program,

00:25:56.040 especially into your daily life, time for reflection and time for prayer.

00:26:03.000 So the different ways you can do it, the material is there. The 15-part course on prayer is totally

00:26:15.560 free. If you're leading a group, so is the book, The Early Christian Spirituality. If you have a large

00:26:24.680 family, look, we're living in very difficult times. And financially, it's very hard, very difficult for

00:26:33.160 some people. Please, if you can afford a book, Passport to Perfection for the retreat, buy it. That will help

00:26:41.480 us to enable others who can't to give them a free copy. Please, don't be afraid to say we're financially

00:26:51.480 stretched. These retreats. These retreats mustn't depend on money.

00:26:57.640 So this is how we propose to do it. And I'm proposing to people who run chat shows like yourselves,

00:27:07.960 if possible, to say, OK, we'll buy into this. We'll interview you at the beginning of Lent,

00:27:16.520 and we'll interview you every week during Lent. And in between that time, the listeners will watch

00:27:26.040 two of the videos while reading three chapters of Passport to Perfection. And then the following

00:27:34.920 Thursday or Friday, I'll be interviewed again. And in the interview, you would fire at me the questions

00:27:45.800 that have been coming from people who are on the retreat. And so together we could go through Lent.

00:27:52.760 This is a suggestion, and I'm putting you on the spot now, John Henry. I'm now putting you on the spot.

00:28:00.040 How about it? You and me running this retreat during Lent. And if you so wish, you could introduce

00:28:12.040 somebody else on the program or another two people on the program with you who are also watching the

00:28:20.840 videos and reading Passport to Perfection for them to ask questions too. And so in this way,

00:28:32.280 we consecrate this forthcoming Lent, and we've got plenty of time because it doesn't begin till the

00:28:38.520 5th of March this year. And then so we work through Lent, consecrating it to making a retreat to deepen

00:28:49.720 our prayer life, to lead us more deeply to union with Christ the King, to receive his power,

00:28:57.720 which is love. For that love cannot be received. It cannot be received without prayer.

00:29:07.080 And so you mentioned to me right at the beginning, I don't know whether it was before

00:29:14.520 I began to speak or before we started the program. You said, and reading the book Early

00:29:21.960 Christianity, the word that stuck in your mind was the word time, time. I'm sorry. If you haven't

00:29:31.560 time for love, how do you expect to receive love? And here, the words of that great abbot who I'm

00:29:42.760 continually quoting comes to my mind is a name, a great friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux,

00:29:54.440 very great friends. They worked together on a commentary on the Canticle of Canticle in order to

00:30:02.200 understand secular love, to understand divine loving, to understand how it grows and develops by using the

00:30:12.040 love of the love of two married people. And he said this. William of Tarnere said,

00:30:22.120 you will never love someone unless you know them, but you will never really know them unless you love them.

00:30:30.920 These retreats that I am suggesting, and that's why I'm calling them retreats,

00:30:36.440 retreats. They're not missions. They're calling people to step inside to relearn how to love.

00:30:44.840 Therefore, I'm calling them catechetical retreats, because they're aimed at the head and the heart

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00:31:25.320 One of the things I realized I didn't tell my children, I encouraged them to do the prayers and so on,

00:31:31.960 but I didn't give them that concept of, you need to devote time, significant time to this. When our

00:31:39.880 Lord told the apostles, can't you pray at least one hour with me? Or couldn't you stay awake one hour

00:31:47.240 with me? Or whatever it was. That was stunning, because it came at the end of a day where they

00:31:53.480 had been praying. That was the day that they had the Last Supper. So they were praying already,

00:31:59.560 and this was sleep time. It was after probably a pretty big meal. You're tired and everything else,

00:32:07.320 and it's night, and yet he's telling them, pray with them. That was stunning, because it made me

00:32:13.400 think, oh gosh, I needed to tell them. It actually, it's much more than, well, if you did a morning

00:32:19.880 prayer and you said your rosary, okay? Not really. I'm glad you're doing that. But you're also,

00:32:25.560 the concept also of just a meditation that's not necessarily verbal, that's just think,

00:32:35.080 I don't know how to describe it properly, but getting to contemplation, but the first step of

00:32:39.960 meditation, meditation, just thinking about. Our Lady pointed to that too, when she gave us the

00:32:45.880 first Saturday devotion. In addition, one of those parts that everybody forgets is in addition to

00:32:52.440 receiving mass, going to confession, and saying your, you know, at least five-decade rosary,

00:32:56.920 you're supposed to meditate for 15 minutes without praying the rosary, but just meditate

00:33:01.480 on the mysteries of the rosary. If you could explain that a little bit for us.

00:33:05.160 Yeah, I'll explain it quite simply, Henry. The last time I spoke to you, I did a monologue. You didn't

00:33:12.360 get a word in. And do you know what I was talking about? Quietism. And the whole point of quietism,

00:33:17.720 this heresy, pernicious heresy that was condemned by the church in the year 1687,

00:33:25.480 it completely took out contemplative prayer from Christian spirituality. It quashed it.

00:33:33.800 Because the founder of this heresy was leading people back into Protestantism and into serious 0.94

00:33:41.080 sexual sin. As you can read for yourself in Monsignor Ronald Knox's book, Enthusiasm,

00:33:47.480 chapter 11 to 12. The church, can you imagine at that date, particularly back to Protestantism and

00:33:56.280 into serious sexual sin that he was committing with the people he was guiding? No wonder there were

00:34:02.760 witch hunts all over Christendom. And any form of prayer that led to contemplation was taken out.

00:34:11.160 This is why you're saying, well, I didn't teach my children, because why? You were never taught.

00:34:16.200 Because I was never taught in the seminary. When I went to the Franciscan order, for a whole seven

00:34:22.760 years nobody ever spoke about personal prayer. And when later on I became the director of the

00:34:30.520 residential centre in London for, oh, nigh on 12 years, I audited other orders who came on the retreat,

00:34:41.560 and it was the same for them, because of quietism. Mystical theology was dangerous.

00:34:48.200 Mysticism, they said, begins in mist and ends in sism. Don't touch it. Keep away from it. Therefore,

00:34:57.720 they don't mind vocal prayer. That's fine. You're safe there. But any prayer that could lead into this

00:35:04.440 contemplation could lead to quietism. Therefore, nobody preached it. Nobody spoke about it. And

00:35:15.000 anybody who seemed to make headway in meditation towards contemplation, they were shut down.

00:35:23.960 They were quashed. Because it was dangerous.

00:35:27.720 And so when you're saying to me you never taught your children, neither did anybody else, nor did

00:35:34.200 religious orders teach their children, this has got to come back, John Henry. It's got to come back. Why? 0.81

00:35:41.800 Because in contemplation, St. Thomas Aquinas said is the only place where we receive the fruits of

00:35:51.000 contemplation, the cardinal virtues, the moral virtues, the theological virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit,

00:36:02.120 with which Christ was replete and resplendent. When he prayed, he contemplated. The apostles tell us in St.

00:36:12.520 Luke's Gospel, he said that Jesus always prayed every night, went into loneliness to pray.

00:36:21.320 Where they relaxed or went fishing or had a chat. He always went to pray. And when he prayed,

00:36:28.760 the prayer with which he prayed to give us the example, was he contemplated to continually receive

00:36:36.520 in his human, through his divine nature, into his contemplate, into his human nature, the fruits of

00:36:44.760 contemplation. And that's why he was imitated after, on the very first day when the Holy Spirit was poured

00:36:54.840 out on the apostles. The apostles were still sinners. They weren't there yet. They had a long way to go.

00:37:02.040 That's why they stayed in Jerusalem. But when Our Lady received the Holy Spirit, she was immediately taken up to

00:37:09.880 contemplate the Father in, with and through her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. When she was pregnant with Christ,

00:37:18.680 he was in her. Now she was in him, taken up through contemplation into him and contemplating the Father with him to

00:37:29.640 receive the fruits of contemplate and receive the fruits of contemplation. She was the sign of where we are all going,

00:37:35.480 where the apostles were going, to contemplate and receive the fruits of contemplation. That is the only way we are going to be

00:37:44.840 to be radically changed. Now, I have to insist that your experience, my experience, the experience of all of us,

00:37:53.600 this is new. It wasn't new in the early days of the church. It was commonplace to all. And in those days, there were no

00:38:02.200 monks. There were no friars. There were no Dominicans or Redemptorists or Jesuits. There was the family.

00:38:11.160 And the family was the place where this loving was first learned, this new type of meditation that then

00:38:20.600 led to contemplation. This is what I'm writing about. And you, as you have seen when you've been reading

00:38:27.400 early Christian spirituality, John Henry, this has got to come back. And I'm pleading and begging that this

00:38:36.520 Lent may be our very last chance this Jubilee year to learn about this prayer, to go back to the early

00:38:46.360 Christianity. Pope Pius XI said men must look for the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ. And he urged

00:38:55.960 that the faithful give public honor to Christ the King so that individuals and states would submit once more

00:39:01.640 to the rule of their savior. And that is why LifeSite News is raising up the image of Christ the King

00:39:07.800 across the United States. And you can help us reach millions more. Please pledge your support today

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00:39:19.440 I, when I was cancelled, what, 35 years ago? I thought, in a sense, I was free now to speak about the

00:39:34.560 terrible abuse going on in the church that I'd seen on an industrial scale so long ago. Why? Because I was a

00:39:42.120 traveling preacher. And as a traveling preacher, I was preaching to them what I'm preaching about now, about

00:39:51.540 prayer. And everybody thought or thinks that if somebody is giving retreats and talking about prayer, rightly

00:40:00.460 or wrongly, they are a holy person. Wrongly, perhaps, but nevertheless, they confided in me. That's why I knew more

00:40:09.320 about this sexual abuse on an industrial scale than anybody else, because more people were coming and

00:40:15.840 telling me. Right to Rome, they knew about it. All they were interested in was sweeping it under the

00:40:21.880 carpet and cancelling me. When I came out into the open, I thought, now, like Solzhenitsyn, when they threw

00:40:30.040 him into a labor camp, he said, now I'm free. I thought I was free. I now thought I could speak out.

00:40:37.560 But do you know, John Henry, nobody would believe a word that I was saying, because they couldn't

00:40:45.680 imagine. What I was saying was unimaginable, and they didn't want to imagine it. So I did. I made a

00:40:54.400 decision, a major decision in my life. I decided to disappear into semi-solitude, as I did for nearly

00:41:03.940 35 years. And in that time, I would try to re-understand again the spirituality of the early

00:41:14.260 church. And I would try to experience it through my own prayer life, because you cannot understand it

00:41:22.100 without praying yourself. It was a time, therefore, when I lived as a semi-hermit, and I still do. 0.98

00:41:28.500 And now, what the book that you read is the fruits of those years, just as the 14 other works are the

00:41:37.240 fruits of those years. But, and here is a major problem. The problem is this. In those years since

00:41:50.020 quietism, as the clergy have unfortunately fallen into serious sexual sins, St. Thomas Aquinas said,

00:42:00.680 if people do not get pleasure out of the spiritual life, they'll look for it elsewhere. And they did,

00:42:10.220 and we know they did. But what happened to the laity? A change happened to the laity, too.

00:42:16.460 A major change took place. The people don't even know that it has taken place. The Catholic religion

00:42:25.280 to which they belong, that was once a religion of love, has now become a philosophy of life.

00:42:33.080 Now, I don't know if it was on this programme, your programme, but I got a shot one day listening to

00:42:40.260 Father Mer, who quite out of the blue said this. He said, I've known Catholics for years, good Catholics,

00:42:48.100 bad Catholics, fervent Catholics, lax Catholics. They won't make any serious sacrifice for their faith. 1.00

00:42:58.580 Now, that shocked me. But when I reflected, I realised it was true. People won't die or make sacrifices

00:43:08.320 for a philosophy of life. Socrates did. He was a philosopher. But very few philosophers are prepared

00:43:15.740 to die for their philosophy. Hundreds and thousands are for a religion of love. But a religion of love

00:43:23.140 where we experience the love of God because of quietism has evaporated and people are not prepared

00:43:30.580 to change. Now, my forebears were recusants. And I've mentioned this before. They refused to go to

00:43:38.440 the non-Catholic Church to pray on Sunday for their pseudo-mass. They died. I'm a direct descendant of 1.00

00:43:48.640 Sir Nicholas Tempest, who was hanged, drawn and quartered under Henry VIII. I'm a direct descendant of

00:43:55.740 his for taking part in the pilgrimage of grace to stand up for their faith. I could enumerate many,

00:44:02.760 many more who were put to death, thrown into prison. But one thing they all had to experience was that

00:44:12.140 for nearly 400 years, those Catholics who'd lived in castles, stately homes and manor homes had to pay 0.99

00:44:20.980 20 pounds a month if they refused to go to the non-Catholic service. That's something like

00:44:27.560 $2,000 or $3,000 in today's money. They lost their furniture. They lost their lands. They lost their

00:44:36.280 possessions. And in the end, they ended up in jail. And they did that for nearly 400 years and were

00:44:44.400 prepared to make those sacrifices because they were men and women of prayer, because their spirituality

00:44:50.420 was centred around the sacrifice of Christ himself. We're not prepared to do that today. We want all

00:44:57.960 the goodies and goodies for the world we're living in, and we want the goodies that we get from our

00:45:03.320 faith as well. We want them both. We're not prepared. I'm afraid Father Mer was exactly put his finger on it.

00:45:12.840 So this is my problem. This is why we've set up the retreats. This is why I have asked Bishop Schneider

00:45:22.380 to preside over them. He's read my books. He's seen the material. He said, I'm with you. I'm your patron,

00:45:30.380 and I'm going to help you. And we've asked Our Lady of Mount Carmel. We've dedicated them to her. And these,

00:45:38.180 we want to come to as many parishes, and if the priests won't do them, the laity to do them, beginning

00:45:44.800 particularly this Lent, help me. As I'm asking everybody to help me, we've got to turn the clock

00:45:52.980 back. We've got to turn back to prayer. We've got to have time to love. You expect to, if you fall in

00:46:01.980 love with somebody, you want to give time to be near them, to be close with them, to allow them

00:46:09.800 to love you, and for you to love them. Now, if you're not prepared to give that time, you're playing

00:46:15.060 at it. You're playing at it. You don't really want the real thing, real love. It's exactly the same

00:46:22.180 with our faith. It's no good, unfortunately, for everybody to say, well, that isn't how I was brought

00:46:29.420 up, you know. I know it isn't. I know it isn't. And if it wasn't for the fact that I was forced into

00:46:37.040 solitude for 35 years to pray, to study, I wouldn't have seen it myself. I wouldn't have known it myself

00:46:48.060 if I hadn't had the time. And I want to share that gift with other people too. But, but, but, but,

00:46:56.160 sacrifice is necessary. Our Lady of Fatima said, the three things I repeat again, to sum it all up,

00:47:07.000 three things necessary to repent. Now, in Hebrew, there's no such word for somebody who has repented.

00:47:17.220 Only a word for someone who is repenting. Inside of prayer, you are repenting at speed.

00:47:26.660 Because as I've indicated earlier, you were endlessly turning away from distractions.

00:47:32.140 You're repenting at speed. You say, it's a waste of time, this. I should be out doing something.

00:47:36.960 I should be outside transforming the world. I should be outside, to quote a famous member of our hierarchy,

00:47:45.320 who said, you've got to get out there and take part in what he calls contemplation in action,

00:47:52.400 which means you've got to act without prayer. Nonsense. It's a non-entity. It's a contradiction in terms.

00:48:00.560 We've got to learn to meditate firstly again, to rediscover God's love as it is embodied in Jesus

00:48:10.220 Christ our Lord. It is in doing this persistently, consistently, persevering in doing this,

00:48:20.720 that God will then see that we're serious.

00:48:24.600 When he sees we are serious. As night follows day, the Holy Spirit will lead us on into contemplation.

00:48:36.220 And in contemplation, to receive the fruits of contemplation.

00:48:43.340 Now, I'm not going to detail this because time is short, but I detail it in the little book,

00:48:49.340 Passport to Perfection. Because in contemplation, we have to learn more deeply, more profoundly,

00:48:58.600 what the great medieval mystic, Angelo Foligno, calls divine loving, the same sort of loving with which

00:49:10.460 God loves us. In the Old Testament, there was a covenant between God and his people. It was a

00:49:19.020 unilateral covenant. God said, whether you return my love or whether you do not, I will go on loving you.

00:49:27.140 And the great prophet of this love was Osei, who had a wife called Goma. And that wife of his had so

00:49:38.880 many children that Osei said he didn't even know which of them was his own. And yet he went on loving

00:49:47.440 her. But this is what a prophet was. Somebody who practices what they are prophesying, what they are

00:49:56.040 teaching. And it's the same in the life of Christ. He went on loving, loving, loving, though they hammered

00:50:04.720 him to the cross, though they put him to death, though they tortured him to death. He went on loving.

00:50:13.560 Now, this is the loving that has to be learned somewhere along the line, because only then there is

00:50:21.660 a similarity between our loving and his loving. We begin like that. Look, we're all locked up in

00:50:28.000 ourselves. That's us to begin with. That's a fact. That's original sin. That's the teaching of the

00:50:32.780 church. That's the dogmatic teaching of the church. But it is also the teaching that we call for union

00:50:38.540 with God. God is all loving. So God sends the Holy Spirit so that gradually we give the time for prayer

00:50:47.540 in which to gradually allow the Holy Spirit to open us out so that union can take place. And then when

00:50:58.060 union takes place with Christ, in with them together with him, we open ourselves to receive the love of

00:51:07.180 God. In which St. Thomas Aquinas said in the pleroma, as the fathers of the church call this love,

00:51:16.760 are all the infused virtues, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. That's what we're called to do.

00:51:26.180 And we have not been doing it for centuries, John Henry. That is the truth. That is the truth. And

00:51:33.540 frankly, the only reason why I have been able to see it when others haven't is not because I'm a

00:51:42.860 mastermind. Exactly the contrary. Because I'm dramatically dyslexic. And I was a total failure

00:51:52.860 at school. Thought I was a fool. That didn't actually happen, as I found out later. But I 1.00

00:51:59.560 therefore had to turn to God because the retreat master said God knows everything. And I thought, well,

00:52:06.720 my teachers don't know anything. God does. So I turned to God and I persevered. And when anyone

00:52:12.680 else would have given up, why? Because they were going to university, because they had their exams

00:52:17.980 to pass. I had nothing. I had no hope. So I'm saying I wasn't a pious young man. The contrary. I just

00:52:27.000 needed desperate help and no one else could give it to me. So I persevered through thick and thin

00:52:32.780 and came through to see where we should all be going. This is one of the great secrets of the

00:52:40.120 spiritual life, that God's power works in weakness. And what I thought was the curse of my life has been

00:52:48.840 the greatest gift of my life, because it has enabled me to see the truth. And the truth is that we are far,

00:52:58.640 far away from God, and we've got to return to pray, as we have not been praying, not just for decades,

00:53:06.420 but for several centuries. It's about saying prayers. We've got to give, as you notice, the time that has

00:53:14.640 to be given. And the actual giving of the time is screaming out to God that you're sincere. Even when

00:53:22.300 there are 101 distractions, even when on this journey, you will have to see your own sins loom

00:53:29.540 large. And you will, because the Holy Spirit will draw them out of deep down in here, deep down in

00:53:36.140 what, in what Freud would call the id or the unconscious. That's where you are. That's, that's

00:53:42.840 where you will rule. That's how you will rule by the evil within. That has to be brought up.

00:53:47.320 That's why St. John of the Cross talks about the dark night of the Spirit. The Spirit within us has

00:53:54.440 to be purified. And I am appealing, therefore, to everybody to realise that it's time to retreat.

00:54:05.080 We've got to find the time to retreat, to learn how to pray once more, to be purified, to be united

00:54:14.000 with Christ, to receive the fruits of contemplation, to begin all over again. This is how the new

00:54:20.880 Catholic Renaissance will take place. This is how the spring, the new spring, as promised by 0.86

00:54:27.920 your name, St. John Henry Newman, will take place. But it's got to begin now, because believe me,

00:54:37.200 we are in the last minute of extra time. I'm afraid, I believe that we're, we are in such a state that we

00:54:50.000 really do need a shake up. If I have given the impression that I have in some way being disparaging

00:54:58.080 about those early retreats when, sorry, early missions, when we'll be called back to God and

00:55:11.840 we've been frightened by the sanctions that God is preparing for those sinners and hustled people 1.00

00:55:19.680 into the confessional, I'm afraid we need something like that now. I'm afraid we need it,

00:55:25.600 because we are still philosophical, intellectual Catholics. We need a good shake. And that's why I

00:55:31.640 believe, as Our Lady, I believe was promised, that there is going to be some form of illumination of

00:55:40.880 conscience, because John Henry, without that, I can't see it. We've got to be shaken to the roots. Somehow,

00:55:49.120 we've got to be shaken to the roots of our foundation. I've been trying to do it in my talks,

00:55:55.520 or my writings, or when I speak. I can't do it. I can't do it. I'm sorry. I'm not strong enough. I'm

00:56:03.760 not powerful enough. No matter what I say, I don't believe that the arguments that I can give, that the

00:56:09.280 course that I have prepared, that the lectures that I give can do it. I'm sorry it needs God. Now we've been

00:56:17.200 promised that the gates of hell will never prevail against the church. They're making a pretty good 0.99

00:56:24.880 job of it at the moment. And I'm afraid we need some form of divine intervention. I believe it's

00:56:32.920 coming. But how much better if we begin now? Anyone can begin if something dramatic like that takes place.

00:56:40.340 Oh, we all begin. Where are his talks? Want to read his writings? Where is his book? Then how much

00:56:46.820 the better to do it now of our own volition? Hence, these retreats that I'm pushing. Help me to push them.

00:56:56.500 Amen to that. Father, thank you so very much for joining us. We're going to do this. We're going to

00:57:02.180 go out into this retreat and do it with you. And we'll see. Please, God, many of you will join us.

00:57:10.180 It'll be a great Lent because it will be a way for you've heard about contemplative prayer. And

00:57:17.300 it's hard to even understand what that means. We've been disconnected from it for a long time. As Father

00:57:21.620 said, people thought only it's for religious and that's the ones who get there. And it's something

00:57:26.820 actually in his book he makes clear, as he said today, it is started in the families before there

00:57:33.220 were religious and it was born from them. So let's do that together. Join us if you would. It'll

00:57:40.340 be right here on LifeSite News. Thank you so very much, Father. And we'll be seeing you very soon.

00:57:46.260 God bless you. God bless you and God bless everybody. Indeed. We'll see you next time.

00:57:56.820 Aloha, everyone. This is Jason Jones for LifeSite News. We hope you enjoyed this video. For more

00:58:02.420 content like this, check the link in the description. You can also connect with us on social media

00:58:08.820 to stay up to date with the latest news on life, faith, family, and freedom.

00:58:14.100 Thanks for watching and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - February 12, 2025

Exposing the Crisis in the Church ｜ David Torkington

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