IIC 153: The ARRR Prayer and Integrated Human Formation with Fr. John Horn

Dr. Peter: [00:00:00] Why is this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast so focused on your personal formation? And within that, your human formation? Why is Souls and Hearts so focused on your personal formation? Why am I, Dr. Peter Malinoski, Dr. Peter, so focused on your human formation? You hear the answer in every podcast episode when I introduce myself first and foremost as a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you taste and see the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your father, and also Mary your mother, your spiritual parents, your primary parents. Why does this podcast exist? To help you embrace your identity as a beloved little child of God the Father, as a beloved little son or daughter of Mary, your mother. This Interior Integration for Catholics podcast in particular, and Souls and Hearts in general, is all about overcoming the natural level obstacles you face in order to embrace God’s call for you to partake in his divine nature, to embrace your adoption as God’s little son or daughter. Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, said, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” That’s from paragraph one. And at the funeral of Father Luigi Giussani, when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, he said, “Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas or a moralism. Christianity is an encounter, a love story. It is an event.” Christianity is a love story.

Dr. Peter: [00:01:49] Christianity is an encounter with a person, with the person of Jesus Christ, true God, true man. A love story. And this podcast is all about you accepting God’s invitation into a love story, a personal relationship, an intimate union with him. This podcast is all about sharing in the divinity of God, about you partaking of God’s divine nature, as Saint Peter tells us, as his son or daughter and as his heir. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 52, says, “God, who dwells in unapproachable light, wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created in order to adopt them as his sons in his Only Begotten Son. By revealing himself, God wishes to make them capable of responding to him, and of knowing him, and of loving him far beyond their own natural capacity.” And then the Catechism in paragraph 460, quoting the fathers of the church, Saint Irenaeus and Saint Athanasius, and then Saint Thomas Aquinas, paragraph 460 says, “The Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature. For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God. For the Son of God became man, so that we might become God. The only begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

Dr. Peter: [00:03:26] And today I’m very excited to bring to you a man, a beloved little son of God, a priest with nearly five decades of experience with personal formation. Stay with me for an adventure as we enter into this discussion with Fr. John Horn. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr. Peter. I am your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. I’m so glad to be with you. I’m a clinical psychologist, trauma therapist, a podcaster, a writer, and the co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com. We are continuing our ongoing series on the integration of personal formation, bringing in the best, the brightest, the most creative and influential Catholic thought leaders in this personal formation space. And we focus on practical, real-life ways that these Catholic leaders are living out the integration of the four dimensions of personal formation — human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation — that Saint John Paul II laid out in his 1992 apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis. Today, in this episode of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, titled Prayer and Integrated Human Formation, I am so pleased to bring you Fr. John Horn. Fr. John Horn is a priest of the Eastern USA Province of the Society of Jesus and was ordained in 1985. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. And I want to stop right there. I have so much respect for the Institute for Priestly Formation, the IPF in Omaha. It was founded in 1994, more than 30 years ago, responding within two years after the publication of the seminal apostolic exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis. In Church time, that is lightning fast.

Dr. Peter: [00:05:22] And Fr. Horn was there at the very beginning. Such great work. Fr. Horn is a formator of formators, and he’s currently serving as a spiritual director and professor in spiritual theology at Saint Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Florida. In the early years of his priesthood, he served in the Jesuit Refugee Service and in Jesuit secondary education. For more than 25 years, he has embraced and responded to a call within a call to serve diocesan seminarians and priests. This has been his apostolic mission in the Ministry of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. He’s also the co-founder of the Seminary Formation Council, and he has served as the president rector of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in Saint Louis. He serves in prison ministry as well, and he’s written several books, including Heart Speaks to Heart: A Review of Life and Healing Prayer, Eyewitnesses: Biblical Foundations in Christian Spirituality, Healing Prayer: Practical Mysticism and St Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. So with all of that introduction, it is so good, it is so good, Fr. Horn, it just warms my heart to have you with us. And of course, got all the professional credentials, you know, all of the background and so forth. But, I mean, I’m just really curious about, like, how you came to be here. You know, your experience of formation, anything you want to share with us, kind of on a personal note about your human formation journey, the integration of those four dimensions of formation in your own life and anything like from your background, your childhood, anything that sort of brought you to this moment.

Fr. John Horn: [00:06:57] Boy, that’s a broad question, but I’m grateful for it. And I’m delighted to be with you too, and our audience. Well, I entered the Society of Jesus in the Maryland province under the, my novice master was Fr. George Aschenbrenner, who was a very humble, childlike man. But he had recovered the consciousness examen after Vatican II and taught that to us during the novitiate, which is, you know, the daily discernment of spirits. And that was very formative. I was 24 years old, I guess that was almost 50 years ago. But that living tool of daily discernment has formed me. Father Tim Gallagher has written many books about this, several very good books. It’s transformative. I struggled with it for about a year because I always turned it into a personal evaluation, I was a little judgmental towards myself, you know. But as time went on and I learned to be gentler with myself and learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit inside, it took root. And I would say, I would just focus on that. And I’m very grateful for Fr. Aschenbrenner. Spiritual fatherhood too. I didn’t realize how much his knowledge of the Spiritual Exercises and his gentleness was actually forming me at the time. But in retrospect, through him, a great foundation was laid on interior Trinitarian relationships. Well, he said to us in our very first conference, as novices, he said, “Gentlemen” — this is paraphrased, of course, I’ve never forgotten it. He said, “Gentlemen, from this point forward, I want you to acknowledge and admit to yourself that you’re going to undergo a radical reorientation of your entire personality to that of Jesus Christ. And we’re going to begin.” You know, so the interior formation was, you’re going to find the humanity of Jesus and the indwelling Trinity, you’re going to learn how to listen and follow in obedience. And let’s just call a spade a spade. From this point on, you know, at the end of two years, taking perpetual vows. But he would say profound things with such simplicity.

Dr. Peter: [00:09:12] So I’m hearing that this formation that you experienced was in this relational context. There was conceptual elements to it, learning some of the theology or some of the details of it, but it happened in the context of your relationship with these mentors, with these priests that you connected with deeply.

Fr. John Horn: [00:09:32] Fr. Aschenbrenner most especially, but I did come into the novitiate through the charismatic renewal, through a Life in the Spirit seminar where I was in graduate school, and really the personalization of learning how to pray Lectio Divina. And I was slogging my way through graduate school just to try, in government, try to get a better job. But what was really happening was I was falling in love with the Lord through an enormous, in those days, Catholic U had about 600 every Saturday night in the charismatic prayer group that would break down into households during the week. And Georgetown, where I was, had an equal number. And it was those professional people who taught me how to pray, to listen and exercise the Gifts of the Spirit, where that awakened my call to priesthood, which was there from childhood, and helped me understand celibacy as a gift where loneliness could be transformed into solitude. And so I came into the Society of Jesus with a deep — well, I was very immature at the time, but, I mean, I was introduced to inner healing and deliverance prayer, prophetic gifts, you know. That became a part of my life where I just fell in love with the Lord in a personal interior way that had never happened. I’m a cultural Catholic, sort of your classic story. Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, Catholic college, Catholic graduate school, you know, and I knew how to pray mechanically. And I had wonderful experience of the Lord and the sacraments, but I didn’t know in a daily way how to abide in love and listen to the interiority that came first through the charismatic renewal, and then that deepened through the ministry of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius.

Dr. Peter: [00:11:20] You know, I know that you have, stretching back decades, as we talked about in the intro, stretching back decades, this investment in formation. You know, this investment in formation. In fact, the Institute for Priestly Formation, founded two years after Pastores Dabo Vobis was published. That’s, as I said, that’s lightning quick in church time, you know. So you guys were really Johnny on the spot, right. And so I’m just really interested to hear anything that you want to share with us, because this whole series is on the integration of those four dimensions of formation. So, human formation, spiritual formation, intellectual formation, and then pastoral formation. And so I mean, anything that you want to share with us, I know we definitely want to get to like, where the rubber meets the road, in prayer. And we’re going to talk about that. But just for those parts of us, those parts of our audience who might want to just hear what you have to say about the integration of those four dimensions, anything that you feel inspired to share with us, anything that’s on your heart, on your mind, with regard to those four and the integration of them?

Fr. John Horn: [00:12:25] Well, not in the current Program for Priestly Formation, but in the one that preceded this, there was a number 115 that said, “Spiritual formation is the integrating principle of all the other dimensions.” That doesn’t exist in the current new PPF, but it does state that living principle in a variety of ways. So I would say that I’ve discovered that grace builds on nature, of course, you know, from St. Thomas Aquinas. And human formation is essential, is the ground. And yet the spiritual formation, I have seen and experienced, it is the integrating principle. Otherwise, a kind of Pelagianism sets in the human formation. That can be counterproductive. You know, where I’m trying to increase in virtue, but I’m not relying on the Holy Spirit that gives me the love and the strength to practice virtue. So yeah, I would say that, I would want to emphasize that, you know.

Dr. Peter: [00:13:25] So, as Saint John Paul II said, “Human formation is the basis of all formation.” That’s straight out of Pastores Dabo Vobis. But you would say that spiritual formation is the center of all formation. Am I getting that right?

Fr. John Horn: [00:13:39] Yes. The integrating principle. I mean, of course, St. John Paul II’s words are true and beautiful. But if you want to integrate the four dimensions, you have to start with the spiritual.

Dr. Peter: [00:13:53] Well, that’s really interesting, okay. And that’s from the PPF 5? And you don’t know why that was dropped? I’m really curious about it because I’ve spent a lot more time studying the PPF 6 than the PPF 5. I did study the PPF 5 as well, but it’s been a while. Do you know why that shift happened? I’m really curious about it.

Fr. John Horn: [00:14:12] I don’t, I don’t. Yeah, I wish I did. I’m curious myself. In fairness to the bishops and the writers, I think it’s stated in other ways. Not so succinctly.

Dr. Peter: [00:14:23] Right. You know, it’s clear in the PPF 6, the PPF 5, going all the way back to, you know, PPF negative-12 probably, that the model of human formation is the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that is something that, you know, is very clearly stated and that we are to look to him as our model. And that has to happen in a relational way. Otherwise, you do get into a Pelagian or semi-Pelagian self-improvement program, right, where you’re attempting to grow in virtue, but it really is an effort to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Fr. John Horn: [00:14:56] What happens is you make a project out of yourself. Holiness — and it’s actually very dangerous, because you end up using religious language to reinforce a lot of self.

Dr. Peter: [00:15:08] So let’s talk about the prayer. Now, you know, I’ve heard of the ARRR prayer or the pirate prayer as it’s known. It was sort of on the fringe of my awareness, right. But then when Dr. Peter Martin connected us, I looked into it a little bit more deeply. And so I am just really curious about what it is, how it came to be, and then, yeah, just for us to be able to share with the audience, to share with all of you who are watching, who are listening. Like, what does it actually look like? Right, we’re not going to try to manualize prayer. I want to reassure anyone that’s worried about like, you know, this is how you say it or whatever. But we do want to kind of get into this. So, yeah, the idea, one of the beautiful things about it is it’s simplicity. So take it away. Like give us a little background on this.

Fr. John Horn: [00:15:52] Well, you gave me this question ahead of time to prepare a little bit. And I was thinking and praying about it. And it was delightful to remember, like how it came about, I hope. You’re going to be surprised by the simplicity of it. It actually, a-r-r-r, we used to joke about it being a type of yawn, like a wake-up call, like you’re waking up. I don’t know if that works for our audience, but it came really through colleagues at the Institute for Priestly Formation just having good conversations that were intentionally planned, you know, in terms of preparing for the course on Christian prayer and virtue. But this came from a conversational synthesis from friends and colleagues, Kathy Kanavy, Fr. Richard Gabuzda, and Fr. Tim Gallagher, others in the early stages. It’s a synthesis. Now, there is one major influence. He’s deceased, Fr. Armand Nigro wrote an article called Prayer: A Personal Response to God’s Presence. It’s basic introduction to Lectio Divina. It’s an excellent article for beginners as well as mystics, and in that article by Fr. Nigro, who traveled extensively giving retreats in dioceses and retreat houses, he makes this statement that very gently laid my heart wide open.

Fr. John Horn: [00:17:13] And he says, basically, most of us, if we’re doing a holy hour, will often sit and think about God. But that’s not prayer. Thinking about God’s not prayer. There has to be a response to permitting him to love, prayers permitting God to love me, he says in the article. Prayer is responding to God’s love. But that presumes, those beautiful definitions presume that I know how to interiorly taste his presence. So I started to realize, I thought, I think I spent half my life thinking I was praying, but I was just thinking about God. It’s very non-relational, you know. So that article, I’ve used that ever since, like for all these years. And I find it helps people enormously in terms of lectio divina and how to listen. And it’s very practical and yet mystical. That was one of the foundational references or resources for the acknowledge, relate, receive, respond. So we just talked about our own experience in prayer and what was essential. And we came up with that acronym.

Dr. Peter: [00:18:18] So the four in the acronym: acknowledge.

Fr. John Horn: [00:18:20] Relate, receive, respond.

Dr. Peter: [00:18:23] Acknowledge, relate, receive, respond. Okay, great.

Fr. John Horn: [00:18:27] Do you want me to say a small something about each?

Dr. Peter: [00:18:30] Yeah, I would love to hear like what captures — first of all, for those of you that have listened to me, those of you that are watching me, you know how much I love acronyms. You know how much I love acronyms. So you know to have a prayer that’s summarized in an acronym. That is like, super cool for so many of my parts. But yeah, let’s walk through each of these. And again, we’re trying to nourish those intellectual parts of us that want to understand first. We want to respect that. That’s part of the intellectual formation. But don’t worry. We’re actually going to get into the experiential aspect of this as well. So yeah, just to kind of give us like, what is the A, the R, the R, the R. Let’s walk through it.

Fr. John Horn: [00:19:09] Sure. And I’ll give you three questions at the end that can bring it alive more practically. Well, A, acknowledge. Imagine if I don’t acknowledge what I’m thinking, feeling, and desiring. If I don’t acknowledge what I’m thinking, feeling, desiring when I go to pray to Jesus, to Mary, to the Father, what am I bringing into the relationship? If I’m not aware and acknowledging what I’m thinking, feeling, and saying. Because that’s where God’s going to speak to me, through my thoughts, feelings, and desires interiorly. So I have to be present to myself in order to be able to receive. I mean, if I’m not present to myself, how can I receive? For instance, one of my favorite authors, Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen, talks about, in his little book on Eucharist. He says, when at the offertory, at the preparation of the gifts, what are we offering spiritually? Am I present to myself? Am I acknowledging what I want to offer, so that with the bread and wine that’s being transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, what am I humanly and spiritually offering for ordinary transformation? And then he says, make sure you offer what needs transformation. You don’t offer something really good and beautiful. Offer your doubt. Offer your anxiety so that a gradual — however God wants to do it — ongoing transformation happens at Mass. But if I’m not acknowledging what I’m thinking, feeling, and desiring, then I’m really not even offering anything at Mass. Like what’s going on, you know? So I leave church the same way I came in. The anxiety I had when I came in, I didn’t offer it, so it’s not transformed. I mean, the full presence of objective truth, of Jesus’ risen presence was there, but I wasn’t acknowledging what I was thinking and feeling. So it sort of predetermined subjectively what I’m able to receive.

Dr. Peter: [00:21:05] So the sacrament our Lord himself cannot reach fully inside you. That’s kind of what I’m hearing, is that there’s no-go zones. There’s things that are walled off. There are things that are not acknowledged, not accepted. And so we’re not allowing our Lord to reach those places, I guess is kind of what I’m hearing you say.

Fr. John Horn: [00:21:21] He’s there and he’s knocking, and he certainly can walk through locked doors and all the rest. But we’re talking about sort of a qualitative relationship in faith. Am I going to move from like a contractual relationship to something intimate? And am I going to move away from prayer being a “doing” to actually receiving, you know, as a creature from the creator? So, in other words, let me try to put this very simply. From the risen presence of Jesus, I’ll receive in proportion to how much I’m bringing to the relationship myself. Let me put it this way. If someone gives you a gift that you really, really need, but you’re not present to how much you need it, you’ll just accept the gift and you’ll have a certain level of gratitude. You’ll thank him for the gift. But if you’re not in touch with how much you really needed the gift, the more you’re in touch with that, the more you can acknowledge the infinite needs that I have when I come to prayer.

Dr. Peter: [00:22:31] So I’m sort of imagining like somebody who has got a severe infection but doesn’t know it, hasn’t really manifested yet. And so they’re able to receive an antibiotic and they’re like, well, thanks. It’s nice to have an antibiotic — not knowing that that’s going to save their life.

Fr. John Horn: [00:22:48] Exactly. That’s a great analogy.

Dr. Peter: [00:22:51] I love it, I love it. And I was thinking about what you were saying to this idea of, you know, not just “doing” the prayer or “doing” the liturgy, but the being with. And I was imagining like, being with in my entirety. If I don’t accept, if I don’t acknowledge, because that’s the A, right. Is it acknowledge? Yeah, it’s acknowledge. If I don’t acknowledge the entirety of where I am and what I’m feeling and where I’m at, then we can’t be in relationship in all that stuff.

Fr. John Horn: [00:23:23] Right. Think of someone who’s undergoing an intellectual conversion. He or she is bringing those really good questions to prayer, you know, and all that comes with those questions, as they’re searching, you know. Maybe someone coming into the church, but really has these wonderful, deep, personal questions they need answered, and they have to be aware of that. They are aware of it or they wouldn’t be seeking so much. But the more they bring to the table, so to speak, the altar or table of daily prayer. They’ll be nourished according to how much they’re acknowledging their thoughts and feelings and desires. That’s how real intellectual conversion happens, I think.

Dr. Peter: [00:24:08] That’s what, in the lead-in, we were talking about that, where Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, that, you know, Christianity is an encounter with a person. It’s a love story. It’s not a bunch of facts or teachings or dogmas, in its essence. It has those things, you know, but it is ultimately a relationship. A love relationship. A relationship of intimacy, which is what you started out with.

Fr. John Horn: [00:24:36] Yeah. Let me do the acknowledge this way. So I’m listening to the Gospel, and the Gospel is a living portrait. Let’s say, Jesus’s baptism. I mean, it could be anything, but… is that where I want to go? Yeah, let’s go with the baptism. So I’m listening to the baptism, and I’m sort of a third-person observer. I’m at Mass or I’m praying Lectio Divina in private prayer and it moves me. The Living Word moves me. But if I pay attention to what I’m thinking, feeling, and desiring, if I ask these three questions — I’ll just be really simple — what am I seeing? What am I thinking and feeling about what I’m seeing in the baptism? And now the clincher. What happens, what transpires when I relate what I’m thinking and feeling about what I’m seeing to Jesus, or the Father, or Mary? So I could sit, like Fr. Nigro says, I could sit and just think about all that. But I have to relate, which is going into the second. Like, I hear the words, I’m drawn to the Father’s, “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, or my favor rests, or in whom I take great delight.” Different translations. And I’m drawn to those words. But what am I thinking and feeling? What am I seeing? What am I thinking and feeling about what I’m hearing and seeing? Well, if I bring that, and this is a wonderful way into contemplation. If I don’t just sit in my thoughts and feelings, but I bring them to Jesus, something will transpire for me that will move me from being a third-party observer into the first person. You know, almost without me knowing it. It’s just sort of built into us anyway, because he made us for himself. But that simplicity, I mean, that, I don’t think that ever leaves us. Now, we don’t do it like step, step, step. But what happens if I actually relate my sorrow rather than just think about it? So I do have to relate. A lot of times we ruminate, you know, and say, well, where’s that going, in terms of a relationship?

Dr. Peter: [00:26:57] So even if it’s something that feels really disordered or feels really sinful, let’s just say that. You know, we’re taking in, “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And the feeling comes up of anger, because I can never please you, God. It doesn’t feel like you accept me as I am. I’m never good enough for your love. All right, let’s just say that that’s coming up, and there’s anger and fear about that. You’re saying, bring that all in.

Fr. John Horn: [00:27:23] I’m saying, bring that all in. And what happens if you don’t? There’s an inner divorce if you don’t. And that’s where it’s, you want to talk about in prayer what you don’t want to talk about. Where shame wants me not to be vulnerably receptive and poor in spirit. Yeah, Fr. Mark Barron is a wonderful priest in the Archdiocese of Omaha. He told me I can say this, but he was in the Gulf War as an Army chaplain. He came back. I served him in spiritual direction for a while when I lived in Omaha. And I saw him when he came in. His countenance was — I could tell he suffered a lot — but his countenance was joyful. And I said, “Mark, how have you retained your joy in the midst of the war?” And he said, “Well, every day I try to struggle for a time of prayer alone with the Lord. And I’d say to him, help me to talk to you about what I don’t want to talk to you about today.” Because you can imagine what he was seeing in a war zone. And he said, “I just made that a principle.” This was around the ARRR. He had been through the the intensive summer program, but we just laughed together. And it’s a beautiful thing. So yes, you know, there’s this wonderful — it comes up in Advent, there’s a wonderful church father, kind of hidden, named Didymus. And it says, to paraphrase, “The Holy Spirit found us in a state of deformity, but is penetrating our hearts to restore our original innocence and to teach us that there is nothing human that is unworthy of love.” Isn’t that beautiful? That comes up in Advent, in the liturgy of the hours. It’s like, why wouldn’t I bring what’s most difficult? That’s where I need to be loved the most, where it hurts the most.

Dr. Peter: [00:29:20] Well, I’ll tell you why you wouldn’t. I mean, we know from Genesis 3, you know, immediately after the fall, Adam and Eve, they’re fleeing into the bushes. They’re hiding, because that’s what we have an inclination to do. That’s what we’re pulled to do, in our fallen human condition, to avoid the very one that can heal us. I see that all the time.

Fr. John Horn: [00:29:43] Me too. I see it in myself.

Dr. Peter: [00:29:46] Yeah, yeah, I see it in myself, too. I think it’s part of living in this fallen condition. Anger, fear, limited vision, limited imagination, you know, in terms of, like, the capacity to appreciate the parable of the prodigal son. Because when the prodigal son was coming home, right, there wasn’t a lot of human kind of appeal, shall we say. You know, he probably smelled bad. Ragged clothes, trail of sort of moral brokenness. And what was the response of the father? It wasn’t about his moral merits. It wasn’t about that he had earned the love of the father back, you know, like it wasn’t because he had completed a Pelagian self-improvement program that was now going to render him justified and regaining his position within the family. It wasn’t any of that, right. It was the love of the father who came out running to greet him. That, to me, is like one of the most powerful images, one of those most powerful realities about bringing it all, even if it’s hatred toward God. As a psychologist, I see this all time. Poor God images, you know, coming from all kinds of transferences and projections and stuff like that. But if we don’t allow God to correct that, you’re going to wind up with it being fossilized, crystallized, you know, like a fly in amber. It’s going to become like permanent. And yeah, it’s repressed, you know. And maybe you can repress it for a while. But there’s an old psychodynamic concept, the revenge of the repressed. It’s going to come back up because God’s not going to allow it to stay that way, because of the way it drives a wedge between so much of me in the relationship with him.

Fr. John Horn: [00:31:24] Yeah, I gave a homily last week where, I mean, I just — don’t worry, I won’t give the whole homily. But I asked the men here at the seminary, I said, “What happens to your capacity for hatred in your humanity if you hate it?” You know, in that day in the Office of Readings, there was something from Gregory of Nyssa, was talking about how Jesus hated sin. I said, “You know, it’s the old cliché of hating the sin, but loving the sinner.” I said, “It’s a cliche, but really, I want you to examine yourself. What happens if you hate your human capacity for hatred? Where is that going to go?”

Dr. Peter: [00:32:03] Yeah, absolutely.

Fr. John Horn: [00:32:04] Towards yourself, towards others. And if you don’t let that be a part of prayer. I mean, the way Jesus prayed the Psalms to the Father. You know, as a Jewish man praying to the Father, all that anger and sorrow from the Psalms, that, of course, the mystery of the Trinity. He’s perfect love. He hasn’t sinned. But if we don’t allow ourselves — so, yeah. But then the receptivity, you know, the vulnerability. If I do relate, it’s I acknowledge, I relate, but then a lot of times I need to have a little patience. Of course God’s right there, immediately present. So he’s going to answer, but not necessarily on my terms. There’s this wonderful quote from Jean Corbon, who’s deceased, who wrote a beautiful book on liturgy called Wellspring of Worship. And in it, it’s a kind of foundational, like that Fr. Armand Nigro article. This book has in it a quote, it says, “The most fruitful human activity is to be able to receive God.” That was part of the original conversation among colleagues that synthesized this acronym. But you think about that. The most fruitful. You think of the Annunciation, of course. The most fruitful human activity is to receive God. Now that’s true. That just changed world history. But how about day-to-day faith for me and you and our listeners? Like, if I’m not aware of what I’m receiving from the Lord around, especially in suffering and trials, well, I don’t know, like somehow I’m not in a real relationship then.

Fr. John Horn: [00:33:50] But of course, the Lord is going to always come to me. “All you who labor and find life burdensome, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The burden will still be there, but he’ll lighten it. He’ll give us his experience of the cross, not what our fears would say, or repressed hatreds. Well, anyway, I’m going on and on here. But the receptivity, the receptivity and vulnerability and we get a taste of that. You just want your day to be more and more prayerful. You just can’t wait to get back to prayer. It’s not a duty to do, you know? And the integration starts happening pastorally, humanly. It starts affecting my work and how I work. It starts affecting my marriage. You know how I look at my wife or my children. It starts affecting, like, how I see the world, you know? I mean, I know you know this, but if I’m not receiving vulnerably in vulnerability, especially around fears. Wow, I don’t know, like, different idols get formed very quickly.

Dr. Peter: [00:34:54] Well, it’s like you’re trying to be a self-sufficient sheep without a shepherd.

Fr. John Horn: [00:34:58] Exactly. That’s a great way to put it.

Dr. Peter: [00:35:00] I raised sheep on my farm. Not a lot. Part of the reason why I wanted to raise them is I wanted to find out what they were like. And I have never run across an animal that is less equipped to live on its own than a sheep. I mean, it is amazing how ill-equipped, what poor decisions sheep make when they’re left to their own devices, when they are, you know, following their own inclinations, you know? They’re one of the very few animals that can neither fight nor flee effectively.

Fr. John Horn: [00:35:31] Oh, I didn’t realize that.

Dr. Peter: [00:35:32] Yeah, they are really, really. And the thing is, though, that doesn’t stop them from being obstinate. You know, it is not like they just, you know, really cooperate with the shepherd, you know? Like, you know, even a shepherd that they know. No, they’ve got their own ideas. They know that the grass is better on the other side of the fence. And they know that if they poke their head through, they’ll be able to enjoy that grass. And what they don’t know is that they won’t be able to get their head out. And so they’ll be trapped in the fence until somebody comes to rescue them, you know. So, yeah, I mean, and I think about that imagery in receiving, right? Like, you know, if we’re to be like the little children, right? “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them. For the kingdom of God is made up of such as these.” We’ve got to be able to receive. You know.

Fr. John Horn: [00:36:13] I think in the background of the ARRR, Peter, is — it’s not explicitly stated, but we teach it, my colleagues and I — is abandonment to divine providence. It’s the prevailing word in de Caussade’s classic, and then Fr. Stinissen does a wonderful contemporary version of it called Into Your Hands, Father. I recommend it. It’s one of the most important books I ever read. You know, he just says, around the ARRR. He’s not speaking about the ARRR, but the spirituality and theology undergirds it. And it’s basically, he says, the prevailing word is surrender, and the prevailing image is a child in the father’s arms, completely dependent upon the father. Like Jesus in the manger. Jesus at the cross. So too us. And the simplicity and depth of that disposition in prayer, of being the child in the Father’s arms, the baby in the Father’s arms, in surrender and trust. That disposition is what’s necessary for the ARRR to be fruitful.

Dr. Peter: [00:37:27] Let’s take it to the last R. So we’ve got acknowledge, relate, receive.

Fr. John Horn: [00:37:33] Well, I do want to say about receive that we’ll find, what all the good books tell us is, we’ll find that we become more who we are in Christ. We don’t become someone else. We become more who we are. And we find that his humanity is, that we literally are a living image of Christ, of God, and that he takes us into the interior life of the Trinity, to experience what he experienced from the Father and the Holy Spirit, and that, that’s the reign of God that’s at hand, most especially in suffering. Yeah, the receiving. It’s receiving where, you know, the acronym the 12-step groups use, that is FEAR: false evidence appearing as reality. You know, what will we receive from God? I mean, usually fear will just play great tricks on our mind, but it’s going to increase our capacity for love and consolation. It’s not going to make a slave out of us, you know, just to do more work. Anyway, okay, so let’s go to respond. Well, someone can — and you might have a great analogy for this — but if I receive all this, we can live a very pseudo-prayerful life if I keep receiving and becoming aware, but I’m not really responding with a clear yes.

Fr. John Horn: [00:39:03] And I end up with these resistances where I learn all the spiritual language, but I’m not actually responding. So the disordered self remains disordered. I’m not being re-fashioned and reordered so that I’m not becoming gentler or more full of self-control or patient or, you know. The response is necessary for me to walk the walk, you know. But it’s more of a allowing ourselves to be captivated and just following generously and magnanimously. It’s not receiving love and then going off on our own strategy and doing things for God. It’s, He’ll show us. In other words, the response is, I don’t compartmentalize and separate myself after experiencing the love and mercy. And then okay, now we’re going to strategize and bless my strategy, Lord. No, no, the response will be like what books I buy, who I know, who I hang out with, how I use my money, how I conceive time. All that will follow if I just stay in love. If I just learn to abide in love. So what’s really important for response is what in the Spiritual Exercises is called repetition, where I just become, in an ordinary, everyday way, I become aware — back to acknowledge — I become aware of what’s most prominent in my heart today, in my soul today. It might be anger. It might be peace that the Lord wants to multiply.

Fr. John Horn: [00:40:46] It might be joy that the Lord wants to multiply. It might be anxiety. But if I don’t acknowledge, relate, and receive around what? Around what’s most prominent in my heart today. And usually it has a sort of specific focus. Like I look back over my day, and in the landscape of my day, I may have had a fit of intense anger, but is that what was most prominent throughout the day? Not necessarily. Maybe it was, but not necessarily. Maybe what was most prominent was a quiet calm. So I acknowledge and relate that. I mean, as food is to cooking, my interior thoughts, feelings and desires are for the ARRR. Like, what is it that I’m relating? What’s most prominent affectively? And I do want to, I hope it’s not too much. But I do want to say this. It changes our image of God from the Sacred Heart being a metaphor, to the Sacred Heart being as real as the Sacred Heart is. Reality is reality itself. So that Jesus, the Sacred Heart, is risen, and he has particular thoughts, passions, desires, preferences. Put on the mind of Christ, St. Paul says. There’s an enormous risen affectivity in God. Dietrich von Hildebrand writes beautifully about this in a book called The Heart.

Dr. Peter: [00:42:18] I just finished reading it. I just finished reading it this month, yep.

Fr. John Horn: [00:42:22] You’re kidding. Okay, well, really important because most people, it seems like the general population doesn’t allow God to have this practical, mystical communication. You know that, it’s more cerebral or something.

Dr. Peter: [00:42:41] I think so many Catholics are de facto Arians, who deny the humanity of Jesus Christ.

Fr. John Horn: [00:42:48] I do too. I think it’s why The Chosen is so popular.

Dr. Peter: [00:42:52] Yeah, that could be because, I mean, there is an image of a real humanity in the portrayal of our Lord in that series.

Fr. John Horn: [00:43:02] Yeah. Anyway, so when I’m responding to the passionate desires that I’m starting to come in touch with through ARRR, my goodness, like honestly, everything changes. So it is quietly revolutionary.

Dr. Peter: [00:43:22] Well, let’s go and try it. Let’s experience it. Would you be willing, we talked about this a little bit. You know, would you be willing to lead us in the experience of what this might look like? I mean, I know you’ve got decades of experience with this. Yeah, let’s just see if we can invite our listeners to enter in. Now, you know, be reasonable, listeners, like if you’re driving, if you’re operating heavy machinery, if you’ve got to have attention for other things, you know, let’s be thoughtful about this. And know that you can experience this later, maybe when it’s a little quieter and so forth, to really be able to enter into it. But I’m inviting all of you, since we have Fr. Horn with us and it’s such a gift. Let’s bring this to where the rubber meets the road. Let’s bring this into relationality in a full way.

Fr. John Horn: [00:44:09] Well, I’d invite all of our listeners to think of the Holy Spirit speaking through the prophet Zephaniah. I’m going to read Zephaniah 3:14-17. But I invite you to hear this being the Holy Spirit speaking personally, directly to you in the first person. So let’s just take a few seconds of silence and check our disposition inside, to turn inside, to trust that the Lord wants to bless us through this living word. So the Holy Spirit says to us now through the prophet Zephaniah: “Shout for joy, O daughter Zion. Sing joyfully, O Israel. Be glad and exalt with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem. The Lord has removed the judgment against you. He has turned away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord is in your midst. You have no further misfortune to fear. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, ‘Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty Savior. He will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you in his love. He will sing joyfully because of you as one sings at festivals.'” Lord, we thank you for removing the judgments against us. We can think and feel that this is too good to be true. And yet we believe that it is. Help our unbelief. And thank you, Holy Spirit, for speaking to us about the Father singing over us, having removed the judgments against us and being in our midst. Help us to hear the song that you were singing over us, and help us to believe that we cause your joy. We surrender to you anything inside of us that would say the opposite, that we could not cause your joy. Help us to hear the song that you’re singing over us now or in the days ahead, because we trust that you are a good Father and that you’re sending your Spirit into our hearts. Amen.

Fr. John Horn: [00:47:54] So the ARRR would be, our listeners probably need to, if you’re driving in a car or something, you go home and you look this up in the Scriptures and you say to yourself, well, where am I drawn? Where am I drawn? I’m going to acknowledge, back to those three questions. What am I seeing when I hear these words? It’s kind of a portrait that’s being given to us. What am I seeing? What am I hearing? And just acknowledge that, whatever it is. It could be that I’m repulsed. I feel nauseous. It could feel like it’s playful, and I can’t wait to hear the song. It could be anything. But what am I thinking and feeling about what I’m hearing and seeing? And acknowledging that. Once I know what it is, what I’m feeling most prominently, in simplicity, am I willing to relate that to the Lord?

Dr. Peter: [00:49:08] Well, can we hold up just a second there? There’s just a part of me just wants to say this, that to acknowledge something doesn’t mean that you’re endorsing it.

Fr. John Horn: [00:49:16] Oh, that’s great. Thank you. Yeah.

Dr. Peter: [00:49:18] You know, like to acknowledge that I have this feeling, this impulse, this desire, this attitude, this image, that that does not mean that if I own it as it exists, if I acknowledge the reality, it doesn’t mean that I’m embracing it, that I’m endorsing it, that I’m promoting it, that I am advocating it. It’s just saying that it’s there and it’s real, and it’s something that we need to acknowledge and accept as something that is part of my experience right now.

Fr. John Horn: [00:49:51] Thank you. That’s utterly important. What if I’ve been in situations, religious situations in the past, where people have used lectio divina in a manipulative way, and that’s coming up in me, my sorrow about that having been done. You know, and then so that would need to be, yeah, just to really not dismiss that, but to trust the Lord wants that to come up, whatever it is.

Dr. Peter: [00:50:20] Well, I think of the father of the demoniac saying, you know, “I do believe. Help my unbelief.” He’s acknowledging the unbelief. Yeah, I love it, I love it. Okay, so I interrupted. I couldn’t help myself. You were going to the relate.

Fr. John Horn: [00:50:37] Well, let’s see what happens if I’ve been manipulated in lectio divina in the past, and I relate the sorrow or the fear that this might happen again. If I relate that to the Lord, I am in the mystery of — I mean, people need to earn your trust, but Jesus is Jesus, so, you know, you want to trust him. He’s trustworthy. Not all people are trustworthy, but Jesus. So I relate whatever — it might be, increase my joy to, like how much joy can I take before I live life on my own? He’s always wanting to increase our joy, but we tend to cap that, which is a gentle way of talking about sin. So anyway, the encouragement is, in my own experience here, I’m praying this, was just a joy and a playfulness. Remembering my grandmother, who used to sing Brahms Lullaby to me when I was a little boy. Now, admittedly, you know, I prayed with this passage before, and that’s come up before, but it’s a repetition for me where that doesn’t go away. That’s a beautiful memory, where I’m leaning into, so I relate the playfulness and the joy of praying this with you all.

Fr. John Horn: [00:52:02] And the memory comes back. I’m receiving the memory. I’m back to the receive. And receiving the memory of how the Lord used Brahms Lullaby, my grandmother when I was a little kid, and I also like country western music, and different songs can come up that make me laugh, that actually the Lord uses to give joy and console around my ordinary need for everyday nourishment from the scriptures around the trials of life, you know? So I’m kind of jumping ahead. That’s what I was receiving. Now my response is, am I going to let myself savor that, or am I going to compartmentalize it as soon as I get off the podcast? You know, or am I going to? I mean, I don’t want to grasp at it and try to hold on to it. I have a choice of whether or not I’ll let myself savor and believe, like what God’s doing, you know, in an ordinary, deep way. So yes, I do want to savor that, whatever else I have to do today, it can make a difference in my day in terms of receiving the Lord. And yeah, I hope that makes sense. Is that making sense, Peter?

Dr. Peter: [00:53:20] Yeah, I love it. I just love it. I think it’s a very human way of praying, you know, that acknowledges that we are body and soul composites, that we’re created beings that have the affectivity, or another word, the emotions that go with that and that we’re not always, you know, even though Aristotle called us rational animals, sometimes things don’t seem like they’re all that rational. The animal part may make a lot of sense. The rational part may not feel that way, but it’s okay because God knows us far better than we know ourselves, and he can appreciate our weakness. He knows that we are dust and ashes. He knows that we’re limited. I take a lot of consolation in St. Therese of Lisieux, who relied on God’s justice, not just his mercy, but his justice, in not asking from dust and ashes, not asking from little children, you know, something more. He knows we’re unprofitable servants. And it’s okay. It’s okay, just to know that deep in our bones it’s okay, and that what he wants most of all from us is for us to be with him, to connect and relate. And if we do that — as a clinical psychologist, there’s a huge difference between those that can actually tolerate receiving, going back to receiving, God’s providential love, believing that God’s providence is active for them particularly, and then responding to that providence. There’s just a whole world of difference between those that can do that and those that don’t.

Fr. John Horn: [00:54:55] What the ARRR, three R’s, A and three R’s, does is it takes us into the practical mysticism of everyday life, where we’re living in the mysteries that we pray in the Rosary or we see in Scripture. What I’m trying to say simply, is that the vehicles for God’s communication are our thoughts, feelings, and desires. And the ARRR, you know, certain thoughts, feelings, and desires are already connatural, they’re already Christ within, Jesus within me. There are other thoughts, feelings, and desires full of shame or that are from the enemy of our human nature, from Satan. And then there are other thoughts, feelings and desires that are just our human spirit that are, you know, perhaps very self-centered. But the point is that the A and the three R’s, it helps us reverence and be with in an ongoing union and purification. It allows us to be on the right train, the train of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Peter: [00:56:05] I love it. I love it. I am so grateful to you. I know we’re coming up against a hard stop here, so thank you so much, Fr. Horn, for, you know, all this time together, and I’m wondering if you might be able to give us, all of us, me, our listeners, a brief blessing before we end for today.

Fr. John Horn: [00:56:25] Yes, of course, it’s a privilege and an honor. Thank you for the invitation, Peter, yeah. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, enkindle within each of our hearts the fire of your love, and help us to see ourselves in the light of your glory and the light of your gaze. Descend upon and remain with all of our listeners in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dr. Peter: [00:56:58] All right, so due to time constraints, Fr. Horn had to leave. But we will put links to his books and to the Institute for Priestly Formation and to the books that he mentioned and referenced in this podcast. And so I’m going to invite you to join the conversation. Ask me questions on YouTube in the comments space for this video. I will answer them. And like this podcast episode. Subscribe to us on YouTube at our channel, Interior Integration, the number 4, Catholics. Interior Integration 4 Catholics. That helps us get the word out to those who need it. We’re trying to get a thousand subscribers on our YouTube channel by the end of the year. Getting to a thousand YouTube subscribers unlocks some features for us that will help us get the message of Souls and Hearts out, the message of this podcast out to many more people. So watch, like, and especially subscribe on YouTube. Leave us written reviews on Apple Podcasts. You can also talk to me, Dr. Peter, in my conversation hours every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on my cell at (317) 567-9594. It’s not a clinical consultation, but an opportunity to talk about any of the topics in these podcast episodes. So that’s every Tuesday and Thursday, 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on my cell, (317) 567-9594. We were talking about the ARRR prayer. Obviously I’m going to get you some links to some resources about that prayer. Very practical prayer. Very human prayer. I also want to let you know to remind you about the Litanies of the Heart. Those were written by Souls and Hearts co-founder, Dr. Gerry Crete, and they are attuned to your own experience.

Dr. Peter: [00:58:43] It’s a prayer that involves the entirety of your being, like the ARRR prayer, the Litanies of the Heart. Go and check those out on our landing page at soulsandhearts.com/lit. We’ve got a guide for praying the Litanies of the Heart. We have them in English and in Spanish. We have them in print copies, and we also have them in audio versions with music, without music. Lots of different ways to pray. The Litanies of the Heart, the Litany of the Closed Heart, the Litany of the Fearful Heart, the Litany of the Wounded Heart. Also the Latin: nemo dat quod non habet. You can’t give what you don’t have. That’s what that means. You can’t give what you don’t have. And the truth of this old maxim rings out loud and clear in the realm of personal formation. You can’t give what you don’t have. Catholic formators, yes, I’m talking to you. That means you Catholic therapists, you spiritual directors, Catholic coaches, seminarian formators, priests, any faithful Catholic who accompanies others professionally on an individual basis. I’m asking you to consider seriously how you are working on your own human formation. Human formation is the basis of all formation, according to Saint John Paul II and Pastores Dabo Vobis. You need to get that right in your life or there will be bad consequences downstream, both for yourself and for those who you form. I see it all the time. And we have an offering for you. We have an opportunity for you. The Formation for Formators Community, the Formation for Formators Community in Souls and Hearts.

Dr. Peter: [01:00:19] That’s the FFF. It will be starting up with new Foundations Experiential Groups in early March of 2025. This is an excellent opportunity for you to engage in your own human formation, informed by internal family systems and Catholic parts work, all grounded in a Catholic anthropology, to remove the beams from your own eyes in your own human formation before examining the specks in the eyes of those you accompany. To learn more about the FFF community, the Formation for Formators community, to learn more about those Foundations Experiential Groups, check out our landing page at soulsandhearts.com/fff. The Institute for Priestly Formation puts spiritual formation at the center of their work, the spiritual algebra I discussed in episode 134 of this podcast. You can check that out, we’ve got links to that. Souls and Hearts and the Formation for Formators Community focuses on the human formation arithmetic. That’s why Saint John the Baptist is our patron, because he prepared the way for the Lord. We focus on shoring up the natural foundation for your spiritual life. Thank you for being here. Thank you for engaging with this podcast. Thank you for praying with us today, for engaging, acknowledging, for relating, for receiving, for responding. Thank you for just doing this formational work, your own personal formation. It builds up the entire mystical Body of Christ. I benefit from that personally. And so, pray for me. I am praying for you. And with that we will close by invoking our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Special thanks to the Human Formation Coalition, who provided the support to make this transcript available.