Ordained a Franciscan priest in 1983, Albert Haase is a popular preacher, teacher, spiritual director and guest on talk radio shows. A former missionary to mainland China for over eleven years, he is the award-winning author of eleven books on popular spirituality and the presenter on five best-selling DVDs. He is currently chaplain at Cedarbrake Catholic Retreat Center, Temple TX.
His book Becoming an Ordinary Mystic offers a daily path to connecting with God and cultivating a life with him in which we draw close, listen, and respond moment to moment.
You can find Father Albert on:
Or check out his work at albertofm.org.
Resources
Becoming an Ordinary Mystic by Albert Haase
Spiritual Directors International
Abandonment to Divine Providence by Father Jean Pierre de Caussade
Episode Audio:
Chapter 1 - The Disciple's Journey is the Mystical Journey
We love to talk about the everyday moments of life here at Daily Growth Discipleship. It's in these everyday moments, when you're driving to work, getting coffee, sitting in parent-teacher meetings, or trying to put your kids to bed that God desires to shape you and transform you. It's tough though because we are naturally terrible at listening to God's voice in those moments because so many other things demand our attention. When we do finally come around to time for God, we feel like we should always be further along in our journey. It's like picking up a book you haven't read in a while and having to go back and read a few pages just to remember what's actually happened to lead you to this point in the story. In this chapter, Father Albert offers a solution for these feelings. It's not about keeping your ears tuned to what God's doing in Heaven, but rather keeping your ears to the ground, listening to what he's doing in the everyday moments of your life.
Chapter 2 - Becoming Aware of God's Ambassador
In today’s tech filled, media driven culture, our lives are filled with noise. We are constantly bombarded with information and news about our Facebook friend’s latest trip to Australia, the latest movies coming out, celebrity gossip, the newest tech gadget, politicians most recent lies or scandals, growing tension between various countries, and the list goes on. It’s hard to know how to absorb all of this information let alone process and do something with it. Our friend’s post makes us want to travel more. The latest iPhone release causes us to see our current phone as outdated. The news of the latest tragedy around the world makes us want to take action. And all the while, we still need to go to work, maintain good relationships with our friends and co-workers, pick up the kids from school, make dinner and spend time with our spouse. It doesn’t seem possible to do everything. We want to live in the moment. We want to live each day surrounded by the awareness of God’s presence in our lives. But with so much noise, it seems impossible to keep up with everything the next moment brings. But Father Albert has a remedy for this way of thinking. And he helps us see that living in the present moment is not only possible, but also a sacred calling.
Chapter 3 - Why Mystics Never Walk Alone
Imagine never knowing how well or how poorly you were doing at your job. Nobody telling you if you did things correctly, and nobody telling you if you didn't. If you're honest with yourself, you would probably feel no desire to get better. In fact, you probably wouldn't even know what "better" looked like. You would also probably make the same mistakes over and over again, not knowing that what you were doing was actually a mistake. Walking alone in the spiritual life is a lot like this. You don't have anyone telling you whether you're pointed in a good direction or not. In this chapter, Father Albert reminds us if we are to become aware of God's presence and work in our lives in the present moment, we need someone to walk alongside us.
Chapter 4 - Learning from the Cracks in Our Souls
Have you ever wondered why you struggle with certain sinful desires? What if I told you that the sinful, or even just the destructive impulses, you have as an adult come from wounds that happened in your childhood? Father Albert calls them the crack in our souls. And by understand why these cracks exist, we can become mindful of our weaknesses the enemy uses to tempt us into sin. But by paying attention to these cracks, we can resist the enemy and instead put on the mind of Christ so that we are transformed evermore into his likeness.