Hi, I'm Father Jacob Bertrand Jansick.

And I'm Father Gregory Pine.

And you're listening to the Catholic Classics Podcast, where we seek to grow our prayer lives by learning from the

church's greatest saints and teachers. Spiritual reading can be challenging for

many Catholics so this podcast is here to help. Each season will read

through a great work, unpack its timeless wisdom, and encourage you

with practical tips for the pursuit of holiness. The Catholic Classics podcast is brought to you by

Ascension. This season we're reading Ascension's edition of

Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales. To get your copy of the book

and download the reading plan for this season visit Ascension Press.com slash Catholic Classics or text intro to

33 777. Be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app. This is day 11. Today we'll be reading part two instructions for elevating the soul to God through

prayer and the sacraments, chapters 15 through 18, pages 151 through 160 in the ascension edition of the book.

Before we get into the reading though, a quick look at what we'll be covering today.

In this second part of Introduction to the devout life, St Francis has been talking about the two tools or means of deepening our devotion, prayer and the sacraments.

The first handful of chapters was on the first part,

prayer and meditation, and we've been focusing on that.

Now we turn to the second, though, the sacraments.

We've talked about the point that St. Francis made regarding the union of prayer, the union of

meditation, of service, of worship, of who we are entirely into prayer, that God wants all of us.

So too with the sacraments. The sacraments are a necessary part of this union of the devout life.

The sacraments are instruments or tools or dispensers of God's grace.

And through the seven sacraments, we receive or dispensers of God's grace.

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