Three Secrets to Starting

Dan Burke identifies three secrets: (1) Clarity — know exactly what you're going to do and when. (2) Community — don't go it alone. (3) Accountability — have someone who checks in on you. The 21-day rule gets you started; research shows 66 days for a habit to become automatic. Start with 5 minutes daily. Build to 15, then 30. (Ep 597)

To appreciate the full significance of this teaching, it helps to situate it within the broader framework of the Catholic spiritual tradition. The great masters of the interior life — Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, and Ignatius of Loyola — each brought their distinctive charism and experience to bear on questions like this one. Their convergent testimony, spanning centuries and diverse vocations, gives this teaching a depth and authority that goes far beyond any single author's perspective.

Understanding "three secrets to starting" requires attending to both its doctrinal foundations and its practical implications. The Catholic tradition insists that authentic spiritual knowledge is never merely theoretical — it must be tested in prayer, refined through experience, and ultimately verified by its fruits in the life of the soul. This is why the Church's greatest teachers on the spiritual life are not only theologians but saints — men and women who lived what they taught, and whose writings carry the authority of verified experience.

At the same time, the tradition is careful to anchor experiential testimony in sound doctrine. The Doctors of the Church do not simply report their own experiences; they interpret those experiences in light of Scripture, the Fathers, and the Church's magisterial teaching. This integration of experience and doctrine is one of the defining characteristics of Catholic spiritual theology, and it is what gives the tradition its remarkable combination of depth and reliability.

The richness of the tradition becomes apparent when we listen to the voices of the masters themselves. Each brings a distinctive perspective to this teaching, yet all converge on its essential truth.

St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

In the acts of the reason to come to a conclusion is like being moved in the processes of nature, because in reaching a conclusion the reason discourses from one thing to another: wherefore as all natural movement is from a starting-point, so also is every conclusion of the reason.

(Source: de_potentia_complete.txt)

St. Teresa of Avila writes:

The Saint was in Valladolid 4th January 1575, on the point of starting for Avila, where she intended to stay but a day or two, going thence to Toledo. (See her letter to Don Teutonio, of 6th January 1575). She must therefore have made a longer stay in Avila.

(Source: book_of_foundations.txt)

St. John of the Cross writes:

He doeth all this that, starting from that point, he may, by little and little, delude the soul, and bring it to believe, with great readiness, all his lies. For the soul that is blind con- siders.

(Source: ascent_of_mount_carmel.txt)

St. Francis de Sales writes:

For natural reason and faith, being supported on the same prin- ciples, and starting from one same author, cannot be contrary to each other. Here then are eight rules of faith : Scripture, Tradi- tion, the Church, Councils, the Fathers, the Pope, miracles, natural reason.

(Source: 03_catholic_controversy.txt)

St. Ignatius of Loyola writes:

" And as I approached again, and looked at him a second and a third time, he repeated what he had said and then went away. Finally, after some time, he returned to the red tower to complete the dictation. As I was about starting on my journey, and St. Ignatius spoke to me the day before my departure, I could not write out the narrative in full at Rome. At Genoa where I went I had no Spanish.

(Source: autobiography_oconor_1900.txt)

The Church Fathers writes:

It sufficeth for that for which it was made, but it is not sufficient to stay things running their course from their appointed starting-place to the end appointed. For in Thy word, by which they were created, they hear the fiat, “Hence and hitherto.” Chapter XI.—That Portions of the World are Not to Be Loved; But that God,.

(Source: Confessiones_english.txt)

St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

And as the understanding of first principles, which is the starting-point whence the conclusion is derived, does not proceed as a conclusion from something else, even so creation which is the principle of all movement, is not.

(Source: de_potentia_complete.txt)

St. Teresa of Avila writes:

I have already said,* yet it is of such importance that I repeat it here : let no one think on starting of the reward to be reaped : this would be a very ignoble way of commencing such a large and stately building. If built on sand it would soon fall down.’ Souls who acted.

(Source: interior_castle_stanbrook_1912.txt)

The Church's doctrinal tradition provides authoritative grounding for this teaching. Proposition T4.G.010 (sententia_communis) states:

Prayer is a necessary means of salvation for adults. God grants the grace of perseverance to those who pray for it perseveringly. Without prayer, the necessary graces for salvation will not ordinarily be received.

• Aquinas: ['After Baptism, continual prayer is necessary to man, in order that he may enter heaven: for though sins are remitted through Baptism, there still...
• Fathers: ['He who prays well, lives well. He who lives well, dies well.

For the engaged learner, understanding "three secrets to starting" opens a path to deeper prayer and more fruitful cooperation with grace. The sources cited above show that this is not abstract theology but a lived reality that has shaped the spiritual lives of countless saints and ordinary Christians across two millennia.

The practical challenge is to take this teaching into one's own prayer and daily life. This might begin with reflective reading of one or more of the sources quoted above, followed by prayerful consideration of how this teaching applies to one's current spiritual situation. The tradition consistently emphasises that spiritual growth comes not from accumulating information but from allowing truth to penetrate the heart through prayer, sacramental life, and faithful practice.

As St. Francis de Sales reminds us, the devout life is possible in every state — what matters is not extraordinary circumstances but extraordinary love applied to ordinary duties. This teaching invites precisely that kind of response: a deepening of one's relationship with God through understanding and practice, sustained by the rich resources of the tradition.