Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Catholic Talk Show. Today we're going to be talking about spiritual retreat and monasticism.

That's right. We're going to take a look at the great tradition of saints throughout the history of the church, retreating into the wild and deserted places to contemplate God.

So if you'd like to find out how the life of monks can impact your own spiritual act, stay tuned.

All right, great topic here. I'm excited to delve into this, a lot of austerity, you know, somewhere in all this. I think that's the word. Sterey in our lives. Always the seticism. All those things. Yeah, it's all those. Learn about how to be monks. That's it. Well, look, and you don't have to join the monastery to be a monk, but I think this is really about the spirit of monasticism, the spirit of retreat in the world in imitation of our Lord, right? There's so many times in Scripture where our Lord retreats to a silent place for rest, for prayer, for communion with the Father. And I think that if we are to follow our Lord in all things, we need to follow him in rest. We need to follow him in that kind of monastic spirit.

I mean, even when he's talking to Mary and Martha, he tells Mary that her choice, her path is the

better one, which is the monastic path, right?

And it even goes earlier into scripture, too, if you think about the creation of the world,

that God creates everything in the whole, the six days of creation or this is this ordered,

really symphony of everything created. And then God takes the seventh day to day of Sabbath,

and God rests on the

seventh day, not because God's worn out from creating, but in the sense, it's a, it's basking

in the goodness of what he's brought. He's called out something out of nothing. He's created something

beautiful. And so that we're made in God's image and likeness. And so one of the great challenges for God's people throughout the whole Old Testament and New Testament is how to be like God in that way,

to be able to work, to create, to bring forth, and then to be able to rest, to enter into that Sabbath as well, which is a challenge.

In biblical times, it's definitely a challenge today.

And so it's an incredible challenge today because we have so many distractions.

We have so many things beeping and buzzing and going off.

We have so much access to information and distraction that is really hard to ever even just quiet

your mind down, let alone the rest of your body.

And you can see that people are struggling and the impact

and the ill effects that that's having on people on their psyche, on their ability to perform well

at their job, in their family, in their marriages, as friends. So, yeah, and anxiety, it's a lot.

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