Day 9: Take Courage and Persevere

Catholic Classics

Ascension

Spiritual Writings, Father Jacob Bertrand, Faith, Father Gregory Pine, Intro To The Devout Life, Catholic Spirituality, Fr. Bertrand, Meditation, Catholic Faith, Education, Christianity, Dominicans, Catholic, Spiritual Life, Religion & Spirituality, Fr Gregory, Francis Desales, Catholic Classics, Self-improvement, Devout Life, Classic Text, Introduction To The Devout Life, Catholic Church, Intro To Devout Life, Fr Gregory Pine, Classic Texts, Fr Jacob Bertrand, Mystics, St Francis De Sales, Fr Jacob, Spirituality, Prayer, Ascension, Saints, Fr. Pine, Spiritual Reading, Catholicism, Catholic Spiritual Reading

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do we remain faithful when prayer feels repetitive, life feels exhausting, or suffering lingers longer than we expected? Fr. Gregory and Rebecca explore how steadfast conversation with God gives us the courage to persevere in the spiritual life. Today, we read Part 2: Thirteenth Letter, Fourteenth Letter, Fifteenth Letter, and Sixteenth Letter.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Father Gregory Pine. And I'm Rebecca Dockertie. And you're listening to the Catholic Classics podcast, where we seek to grow our interior lives by learning from the church's greatest saints and teachers. Each season will read through a great work, explain its spiritual principles, and help you to apply its timeless wisdom to your life. The Catholic Classics podcast is brought to you by Ascension. This season, we are reading
0:20.9	Ascension's exclusive translation of the practice of the presence of God by Brother Lawrence. This is
0:26.2	day nine. Today we will be reading part two, 13th letter, 14th letter, 15th letter, and you guessed it,
0:32.0	16th letter. A few reminders before we get started. The best place to listen to this season is on the
0:37.3	Ascension app.
0:38.4	On the app, you'll find reflection questions, full transcripts, and video episodes for each day.
0:43.6	It's still completely free to listen on the Ascension app.
0:46.5	All you need to do is download the app and create an account.
0:49.5	You can download the Ascension app on your smartphone or tablet by searching Ascension in the app store,
0:54.5	or you can listen on your computer by visiting app.escentionpress.com.
0:59.2	Before we get into the reading, a quick look at what we're covering today.
1:02.3	We've got the 13th letter, the 14th letter, the 15th letter, and the 16th letter.
1:06.4	That covers all of the letters from part two of this collected volume.
1:10.5	Now, as far as themes go,
1:12.3	we're going to tune into a refrain for Brother Lawrence, which is take heart or take courage.
1:17.7	We're going to see especially that the steadfastness of spirit is given to us in the setting
1:21.9	of friendship. So friends here on earth, friends in heaven, but ultimately that we can
1:26.6	recollect ourselves because we are in the presence of friends.
1:30.0	Let's get started.
1:32.3	Thirteenth letter.
1:33.8	My good mother, if we were well accustomed to practice the presence of God, all bodily illnesses would be light affairs for us.
1:41.8	God often permits that we offer a little for the purification of our
	...

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