 Thank you so much Scott. Thank you all. It's a joy a blessing to be here I think it's okay to walk isn't I supposed to walk through Mary to Jesus is I think that's how it works So that that's how I took it. So oh, this is I love this theme Although I have to say I was duped when I was first invited. I thought this was all about Encountering Jesus in the dessert And I came and there's just been lots of fasting I don't know what's happening here Oh, this is so great to see everyone back together Here like this. This is a this is amazing After after being a year off from many conferences and pilgrimages It's so fun to see people gathering back at church gathering back for conferences I just let a pilgrimage to Rome last month again, and it just feels like okay We're starting to get back to normal, but it's been a challenging year for all of us And I'm excited to get into this theme of into his likeness the idea of how can we be transformed not just in the good times But even in the desert, and that's what I want to do here So speaking of pilgrimages, how many of you been to the Holy Land anyone been to Holy Land? Okay, who wants to go to the Holy Land? All right, I'm gonna take you there this morning We're gonna go there this morning at least in our imagination. Are you ready? I want to take you one of my favorite spots when I lead pilgrimages to Israel one of the first places I go is up on the northern part of the Sea of Galilee, and it's where a dramatic scene took place a conversation between Jesus and Peter Jesus and Peter and Jesus asks Peter a very Personal question. He says this Do you love me? Do you love me now at first glance that should be like a no-brainer That's that's you know, this would be of course Peter loves Jesus This is Peter the guy that dropped the fishing nets behind and followed Jesus as a disciple for three years Of course, he loves Jesus This is Jesus the Peter who who has made the rock upon which Jesus was gonna build his church of course Peter loves Jesus But if you read this in John's gospel Pope Benedict once reflected on this that the the particular Greek word that's used here for love Would make Peter pause You see the word that's used here is Agapau based on Agape love, which is this total Sacrificial love the love that Jesus modeled for us on the cross Jesus doesn't use in John's presentation of this. He doesn't use Another word like Philia love, which is this basic ordinary human friendship. That's not the word Jesus uses. He uses this higher level of love total unconditional perfect self-giving love Now even that word I gotta I gotta tell you if you're if you're reading the Gospels and you look at Peter's life I think earlier in Peter's career Peter probably would have just jumped at that. He was said, oh, yeah, of course Jesus Yeah, I love you with Agape love But something happened a few days ago before this scene on holy Thursday night Peter we know denied Jesus three times and Here is this is Easter now Jesus is risen from the dead It's after the resurrection and this is the first biblical account We have of a one-on-one one-on-one conversation between Peter and Jesus. So just picture this you're Peter put yourself in his shoes You know what you did on holy Thursday night, you know, you failed Miserably you completely dropped the ball. You denied your Lord and Jesus is risen. Everyone's all excited. They're jumping up and down But then all of a sudden, you know things are settling down and Peter looks you in the eye and says hey Pete Let's have a chat Who do you think it? Uh-oh and then the first question asked of you is Do you love me? Do you love me with this high-level Agape love? I Think that makes Peter pause I Think Peter is a different Peter now He's a humbled Peter. This isn't the earlier sanguine Peter Remember the Peter that would just jump at everything right? He was the Peter at the last supper at the last supper just a few hours before he denies Jesus He says Jesus I'll go anywhere with you. I'll go to prison with you. I'll die with you and Then he denies them three times This is a different Peter who doesn't overestimate his abilities. This is a Peter that is not overconfident This is a Peter that it has more honesty more self-awareness And he comes back and he says Lord, you know that I love you But if you look at the Greek what's fascinating is that the the presentation of this scene it has Peter saying I Love you with the word felio Felio love that ordinary human affection Fine good, but far from perfect He's basically saying Lord you of all people know you of all people know how incapable I am of this Perfect total self-giving love you know how I denied you and So this is an honest humble moment for Peter and that Jesus comes right back and asks the second time Do you love me with feel you with without get me love and Peter's like, oh, why are you asking again? No Lord? You know That the best I can give you is feel you love and finally the third time Jesus asked the question He changes the word he changes the word for love. He doesn't change the standard But he's going to come down and meet Peter where he's at and he says Do you love me with feel you love? So he's willing to take whatever Peter can give and then Peter comes back and says Lord You know everything You of all people know how incapable I am of a God. They love you of all people know the best I can give you is this weak Imperfect feel you love now. Why am I telling you this story because what's most amazing about this story and about what? We can learn about Discipleship especially discipleship in the desert is what happens next the next part of the story is the most amazing part of the story once Peter Comes to Jesus as he really is not as he'd like to be not as he hopes to be but as he really is Weak imperfect with lots of faults now. Jesus can really begin to work with him and work in his soul He's going to take Peter's weak imperfect feel you love and Transform it With a God they how does he do that? He goes on these hells Peter. What's gonna happen? He says Peter One day he gives his prophecy one day you will go where you do not want to go You will be led where you do not want to be led and when your arms are stretched out What's he talking about? He's giving a prophecy about Peter's future martyrdom Peter's future martyrdom in Rome when he's gonna be crucified Upside down in Nero's Circus one day Peter will live this heroic total self-giving love But it all began right here on the shores of the sea of Galilee I think this is the most significant moment in Peter's life This is what what spiritual writers might describe as Peter's second conversion He had that initial conversion early on when he was first called by Jesus But now when it comes to a deeper awareness of his own inadequacy And he comes before the Lord the Lord can finally begin to work in him in a profound way Peter is going to be changed from this point on you look at the story Peter's a different man The same Peter that denied Jesus three times holy Thursday night Then all of a sudden you're gonna see him in the next couple of scenes the next apostles leading the apostles Who's the successor for Judas the Holy Spirit comes he proclaims the gospel the 3,000 people they're baptized all in a single day He goes to prison as he wanted to early to but now he really will go to prison Multiple times and it'll go all the way to Rome and be crucified The great st. Peter the rock upon which the church is built our great a hero Apostle It all began right here in this moment Before Jesus when he learned to come to Jesus as he really is That's the heart of what I want to talk about today now. I want to share with you Some something's very dear to me How many of you Love religious art anyone love religious art. I love it. I just got back from Rome as I mentioned I love being able to show people the beautiful art the Vatican museums and many of the churches I'm gonna share with you here one of my favorite pieces of art This one is right up there with Caravaggio Raphael Michelangelo for me. It's this one here if everyone can see this was drawn by my little daughter a little Eleanor drew this for me So it's just a just a bunch of scribbles right and You know if if you know, I she gives this picture to me She gave this to me many years ago and and I asked her what is this? She says that's you daddy What'd you think of a dad that would just rip it up and tear it to shreds You know, don't you ever draw a picture for me until you get it exactly right? No, no good father would do that, right? As a dad, I see more than just my daughter's scribbles I I see I see her heart that she's wanting to draw her daddy a present What's that to give her daddy a gift? I? Think our Heavenly Father looks at us the same way So here's my question for you. Do you have areas of your life that you feel are a bunch of scribbles? Do you have areas of your life, maybe your prayer life you feel like it's just all over the place You just don't know how to pray Do you feel like your moral life? Maybe you're struggling with a certain sin you just keep bringing that same sin to confession for years Whether it's something about pride or impurity or the way you treat your spouse Maybe it's maybe it's you fall into discouragement all the time, you know the sin of discouragement or you fall into Vanity you compare yourselves to others you just keep having the same weakness and you feel like I'm just not making progress It's just a bunch of scribbles or maybe a certain friendship. You have a relationship with one of your kids It didn't go well And if you had to do it all over again, you do things differently and you feel like it's just a bunch of scribbles What do you do when you have your Peter moment? We're gonna talk about that because it's in the desert of our lives the desert of our spiritual lives our moral lives our Relationships it's in the desert that God wants to meet us and can transform us in the most profound ways in Discipleship if we if we let him but before we get to all that I just want to highlight though that the father Sees more than just your scribble lines He sees your heart. He sees your good intention and and he'll meet you there And then you can transform your scribble lines of your life into a beautiful masterpiece If you dare to meet him in the desert, so that's what we're going to talk about in In this presentation here this morning on this on this day. Let's begin by turning to our lady We will go through Mary to Jesus Asking her to intercede for us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen You know, there's been a lot of talk about discipleship over the last five seven years or so You're hearing it a lot from our Holy Father Pope Francis his first major document was all on the idea of being a missionary Disciple that created a lot of buzz a lot of conversation about being a disciple But it wasn't just him it was emphasized by Pope Benedict emphasized by John Paul the second You're seeing many diocese setting up committees about discipleship. How do we build discipleship in our diocese? Many parishes forming committees and teams thinking hey, how do we do discipleship? We're gonna do so so lots of talks about discipleship these days You can go online type discipleship you'll find seven keys to be a highly effective disciple Or here's five ways to do discipleship in the parish, and I love all the enthusiasm all the recreativity I think this is a crucial theme for our church in these days But I'm concerned that all this talk about discipleship is more just talk and not grounded in the word of God Is not grounded in scripture and what God's inspired word in scripture teaches about discipleship And what the tradition in our Catholic faith has told us about discipleship and what we find in the Magisterial Teachings about discipleship, so what I want to share with you today. I want to be very clear on this We talk about discipleship all the time and focus we've been doing this for 23 years But what I'm gonna share with you is not Edward Sri's ideas about discipleship or Curtis Martin or focus or anything else What I'm gonna share with you is this is just from God's inspired word This is from the tradition and if I had to pick one key word one key word that sums up the heart of Discipleship it would be this word right here imitation invitation the Disciple imitates the rabbi Let's talk about this for a little bit What is a disciple the word disciple in Greek? Methay means teach or a student or learner, but I don't want you to think of like a student at Ohio State You know sitting in a big lecture hall Thousand people in the lecture hall and there's the professor up on the stage and the Disciples student is taking a bunch of notes. You don't have much of a relationship with your professor You just have to do well on the exam at the end of the semester and get a good grade That's not biblical Discipleship so don't think of professor student relationship today. That's not the kind of student. We're talking about a Disciple was someone who had a teacher a rabbi But they didn't just show up for class and take notes They shared life with the rabbi They lived with the rabbi. They shared meals with the rabbi. They prayed with the rabbi They studied with the rabbi They served the poor and the suffering with the rabbi and the goal was imitation The goal wasn't just to memorize the rabbis teaching. That was a key part. Don't get me wrong There's a lot of memorization going on but the ultimate goal was to imitate the master's whole way of life So you're watching the way he prays you're watching way he debates other rabbis You're watching the way he lives and it was his whole way of life That was meant to rub off on you and you were you're called to to to live the life that he was modeling for you I think about what Jesus himself says Jesus in chapter 6 verse 40 of Luke's gospel says that when a disciple is fully trained He becomes like the rabbi himself He becomes like the rabbi himself That's the goal if you're truly trained as a disciple you become like the rabbi So just my friends right now just imagine being one of those disciples imagine being Philip or Andrew James John You're one of those disciples What are you doing? You didn't just show up for class with Jesus when Jesus called people What did he do when he sees Matthew in the tax collector's office does he go? Hey Matthew? Hey go go sign up for classes at the synagogue with me take on Monday Wednesday Friday at 11 a.m You know take my class so what he did he said come follow me When he sees Peter and John on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and they're fishing What does he say to say hey John go meet me up on that mountain tomorrow at 3 p.m I'm gonna give this amazing sermon on the mountain there and bring a notebook take a lot of good notes I'm sure they were all taking good mental notes Maybe somewhere even writing things down, but but the key thing is That's not what they did. It wasn't just simply show up for class. It was follow me So imagine being one of those apostles for three years Jesus is taking you basically on a three-year camping trip Have you ever gone camping with someone? You really get to know people when you go camping with them But for three years you're with Jesus zigzagging around Galilee crossing the sea all going all over You're watching Jesus every morning Pray You're watching all that he does in his way of life is meant to rub off on you. So while Jesus taught many things And surely you're gonna remember his teachings You remember people's actions even more. Don't you actions speak louder than words And so while Jesus talked about praying prayer is important Every day you're watching Jesus get up early and go to a lonely place To go pray and you start noticing that like that's really important Jesus talked about being light to the world Going out to the lost sheep of the house of israel But then you watch Jesus himself constantly going to the sick to the suffering To those that were lepers to those that are outcasts always go into the peripheries You're watching Jesus have this urgent pressing need to go to the lost And that that would inspire you you watch Jesus he talked about forgiving for you know forgiving and loving your enemies But if you were st. John and you were there on good Friday and you watch Jesus as he's being nailed to the cross say father Forgive them They know not what they do that's going to leave much more of an impression Than the lecture he gave on forgiveness It's the whole way of life. It's like parenting Being a we got lots of parents here, right? It's such a daunting task being a parent You know, especially when they're older and their teenagers and they're smart Yeah And they notice your weaknesses more You know like they imitate you like I can teach my kids all about patience and kindness and service But they're going to learn all of that by watching mom and dad and how they're patient with each other And and how they are serving and how they're kind that's where they're going to learn about it Like I remember a couple years ago. I was getting frustrated with my kids And I was just like would you stop getting mad at your little brother? I'm like, well why are they getting mad at your little brother because they're watching dad lose this temper right now You know, so they imitate us for better or for worse Uh, but imitation that's where you learn the art of living you learn the art of the virtues by imitating others And we are disciples of jesus our rabbi is jesus christ and we're called to imitate him and his virtues There was a great rabbinic saying that said this that said if you find a good rabbi Cover yourself in the dust of the rabbi Isn't that beautiful image so you can picture like a rabbi might be walking through the town and there'd be You know the line of disciples behind him walking very closely The idea is you want to walk closely to the rabbi if you walk close to the rabbi The dust from his sandals may pick up and start to cover your garments But it was a beautiful image to describe you want the dust of the rabbi's way of life to cover you We want the life of jesus his love his patience his generosity his kindness his sacrifice We want his whole way of life to cover us. It's all about imitation That's why st paul st paul when he is Writing to his disciples in corinth. What does he tell them? He says memorize all my teaching He emphasizes that in his letter to the chrithians, but he also says be imitators of me As I am of Christ The art of discipleship is all about imitation is about imitating our master jesus Now i'm going to switch gears on you. So we've talked about rom We've talked about the sea of gaoli and the holy land. I'm going to take you on a world tour We're going to go somewhere else now. Has anyone ever been to london anyone been to london here? Okay in london. It's fascinating if you did you go on the subway the the tube the underground you go into the subway system in london And you go down there and you see these three words everywhere They're on the walls They're on the platform on the ground you hear them in the speakers and audio voice saying these same Three words over and over again. I I don't understand it I've been on subway systems all around the world here in the united states. I've been in rom I've been in paris. I've been in Bangkok and I don't see these three words all over the place There's something about england where they're really nervous and what is it? Mind the gap. Why are they worried about mind the gap? What is it? They know because there's this gap between where you are on the platform and where the train is And they're worried if you don't mind the gap what might happen you might fall So you have to mind the gap My question for you is do you mind the gap? The gaps that you have in your life Do you mind the gaps you have in your relationship with god? Let's start there Do you mind the gaps in your prayer life? Like do you do you pray consistently every day? Every day no matter what? Or do you pray when it's convenient when it fits in your schedule when you like to pray? Are you do you fail in consistency in prayer? Do you mind the gap or maybe you just read things in prayer you turn your holy hour into study hall and you just read things You're not you don't take time to listen to god And allow him to speak to you. You're doing all the talking You know, are you aware of those gaps in your friendship with god in prayer and are you working on it? How about your gaps in your marriage? Are you aware of the ways that you fall short as a husband? Are you aware of the ways that maybe you need to love your your wife better? And be more thoughtful of what she needs and what she's going through Are you aware of the gaps that you have in your marriage? And are you doing something to try to bridge those gaps? Are you aware of the gaps you have with your children? Maybe there's a certain child you have a strained relationship with maybe a certain child needs more of your time more of your Attention, are you aware of those gaps and are you working on it? A christian disciple is constantly thinking about the gaps That they have in their lives You see there's two basic questions Every disciple asks if you're a true disciple. You're not just a catholic going through the motions You're not just a catholic that shows up at church on sundays throws money in the basket volunteers every once in a while You're not just an orthodox catholic that stands up for all the truths But what's happening on the inside? How do I know i'm really growing in holiness? How do I know i'm growing as a disciple growing in my friendship with christ? How do I know that? I mean wouldn't it be really cool if there was a holiness thermometer? I mean you could just check in every morning and go oh good. I grew in 14 degrees of holiness last week awesome You know, it'd be really awesome if there was something like that The key is imitation Ask yourself don't ask yourself Did I did do I listen to catholic radio? Do I watch ewtn? Do I do catholic things in my parish all that by the way is awesome It can enrich that friendship with christ, but that's not the mark of our true identity as a disciple If you're a disciple you're minding the gap in your life if you're a disciple you're thinking about these two Crucial questions. Are you ready? Here's the first one first question. What am I made for? What am I made for? I am made for transformation in jesus christ I'm made to be transformed to to be to be clothed with his life to put on christ as saint paul said To think like him jump all second describes discipleship as someone who thinks like christ loves like christ serves like christ I'm taking on christ qualities. That's what i'm made for jesus himself says that we're called to be perfect as our heavenly father is Perfect. That's what we're made for Now here's my question how many of you have reached this stage of perfection anyone here? Because if you did I want to meet you because that means you're a saint And if I touch you I can become a second-class relic and that'd be really cool We're made for perfection in jesus christ, but none of us are there That's why we have to ask the second question The truth about myself Where am I right now? So here I am this is edwards three here in 2021 But I've got Some good qualities I sincerely I really do love jesus My faith is is very important to me and my I love my wife. I love my kids. I love my friends love my colleagues I love the students I teach I love the people I serve. I really do But I also know that that love is tainted by selfishness by pride by many sins many weaknesses Many hurts from my past. There's things that just get in the way From me loving like christ loves allowing christ to to transform me So I have a lot of good qualities. I have a lot of things I need to work on a lot of gaps This is where I am right now. This is the truth about who I am This is what I'm made for I'm made to be transformed in jesus christ How do I get from a to b? How do I get from where I am right now to where christ wants me to be that my friends is the journey of discipleship This is what discipleship is all about it's about being transformed or as st. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 3 18 It's about being changed into his likeness From one degree of glory to another We long for that change. We long for that transformation We want to share in christ like this How do we do this? Being aware of our gaps is the first step and I want I want to press this issue with all of you Just a little bit here because one thing that we see sometimes in our our crazy modern world where we live in such a secular culture And you look all around and you're just saying well, I mean everything's falling apart We don't get anything right. We don't even get bathrooms, right? How are we going to figure anything out in the society? And we could get really discouraged but we could also kind of pat ourselves on the back and say well I believe in god I mean a lot of americans don't believe in god. I believe in god I don't just believe in god. I go to church every sunday Well, I'm in the 90th percentile now I even go on the holy days. Okay 93rd percentile You know, I volunteer at my parish 94 percentile You know, I do all these catholic things. I watch these catholic videos. I listen to these catholic podcasts I watch catholic tv. I listen to catholic radio 95th percentile I'm doing really good and I'm generous. I give money to my church 96 percentile I stand up for all of the truths of the catholic church I stand up for all those tough teachings on human life about abortion. I stand up for the definition of marriage I stand up for for belief in genesis 127 that god made us male and female men. I'm 99th percentile right now I'm doing really good And don't get me wrong. It's quite heroic to do all those things in the kind of culture that we're living in I just want you to know All of that's essential But it doesn't make you a disciple in and of itself The bigger question is what's happening on the inside Anyone watching olympics right now? I've been watching a lot olympics Imagine if I told you, you know, I should be on that olympic basketball team Really I should Because I'm really really good at basketball. I can't believe the the u.s. Olympic committee didn't choose me He said wow, dr. Sri. We didn't know that about you. I said, yeah, I'm really really good And you say what what what makes you so good? Because I'm I'm really really good at following all the rules I'm amazing. I don't go out of bounds I don't double dribble I don't travel with the basketball I mean really the u.s. Needs me Yeah, you all are laughing at me and mocking me as you should Because you know that simply following the rules doesn't make you a great basketball player. It's essential, right? But it's just the starting point. It's just permission to play the same is true in our walk with jesus Simply following the rules is not enough. It's essential. Absolutely. We should be willing to die for the truths of our catholic faith But that's just permission to play The real question if I want to be a great basketball player, do I have the skills of being a great basketball player? Do I know how to shoot do I know how to block out do I know how to pass dribble all those things? Same thing in the christian life. Do I imitate jesus christ? That's the essence of discipleship And this whole biblical language of discipleship is so catholic This is just the way that the saints have viewed our catholic life What book did saint teres read the most? I need any little flower fans out there What was what was the book she turned to over and over again? It's what it's the second most famous book in the world. The bible is the most read book. What's the number two book? The what The what of christ Ah imitation Right, the great spiritual classic. It's all about imitating jesus. Are you seeking to not just be an orthodox catholic? A catholic that does the right things says the right things Believes the right things all of that absolutely essential But is there something more going on in your heart? Are you really striving to imitate jesus in your prayer life? In your life in your marriage with your children with your co-workers and your parish? Are we taking on? The imitation of christ, okay now let's get to the heart of discipleship here I want to talk about how do I experience this transformation if I want to experience this change What do I need to do the first thing is? Am I striving to imitate christ? That's the key Do I really have that going on and one thing you find is that whether maybe I bet many of you had conversions? You know a long time ago. Maybe it was in your high school. Maybe it was when you're in college Maybe it was when you first got married or you first started having kids some of you It's been in recent years. Maybe some people just entered the church recently as well But whenever you have that lights on experience and like all of a sudden just everything changes And you just want to follow jesus and you want to just start growing and holiness and imitating and what do you find? You find that the christian way is really really easy No You find how hard it is How difficult it is To follow christ It's kind of like you know my kids when we go to the mall this always happens I don't know why this happens, but it's the craziest thing So we go to the mall and then all of a sudden one of the kids sees it and they just take off and they start running toward it And then the second kid notices the older brother running and then so then they start running then the third one They all start running. What is it that they see the escalators? They love the escalators And my kids are so fascinated with the escalators. Which escalator do they want to go up? They want to go up the downward escalator. They think it's so fun to go up the downward Oh, no, you're embarrassing the three family. Would you please stop? So they were going up the downward escalator now if you're going up a downward escalator It takes extra time extra effort because the whole thing is pulling you down If you're just sitting there coasting, what's going to happen? You're just going to go down And so when you're living in just a secular world, they're just a mediocre christian You're just kind of coasting in life. You're not having to battle against anything You're just going along with the culture you're going along with your own weakness your own passions And it's just taking you down But once all of a sudden you get that lights on conversion I want to follow Jesus, you know, and then you have to take us a little extra effort and it can be hard I think about my daughter Josephine She's older now, but when she was five I remember we left her with some babysitters and The we came back after our evening out and asked her how things were going She saw, you know, there are a bunch of different families coming all together and there were all these kids playing And we said how was Josephine doing and the babysitter said oh, there was an interesting moment They were all kind of dog piling on each other and then Josephine jumped on top of the dog pile And all I said was just simply oh, Josephine be careful That the babysitter is telling us the story and and then Josephine jumps out of the dog pile really quick he goes okay And looked really scared and the babysitter said Is everything okay, Josephine and Josephine says I've been trying to be good And then the babysitter says How's that been going for you Josephine? And Josephine almost breaks out in tears. It's really hard It's true not just for little kids, but even us adult children of God. It's hard to be good It's hard to go up against that downward escalator, isn't it? And so when we strive to imitate Christ We come to realize that the Nike approach to spirituality the Nike approach simply will not work remember Nike's slogan Just do it sometimes. I think we think I can just do it And that's simply not the case So what do we do though? What do we do when we hit those moments? when We're like Peter And we've we've run up against our own weakness Well, we feel like little Josephine. I'm trying to be good, but we can't What happens then? Whoops, I'm gonna go forward here. This is my little daughter Eleanor That's a couple years ago. She's she's a little bigger now But tell the fun story. Have you ever seen a kid take their first step? That's really fun when they take their first step. Have you ever seen a kid though? I think even more exciting than the first step is their first jump Have you ever seen a kid take the first jump learning to jump is hilarious? It's just so funny because it's so how do you teach someone to jump? So she's like a little over one and and I remember all the older siblings had her in the living room They made a big circle around her They're trying to teach her how to jump and they're all jumping and Eleanor's just sitting there going like this Not knowing how to do this thing and they said okay. Eleanor ready bend your knees Okay, ready now three two one jump and then they all jump and then she just goes like this No take off And they're laughing and she's laughing And the kids okay, you could try again ready bend your knees and then push off the ground push out there I'm ready three two one jump and they all jump and then where it goes They'll take off the second time She's laughing again and and they just they keep trying but after about seven or eight failed takeoffs Eleanor was not laughing any more She was getting frustrated She was just just not wanting to do it anymore. She just walked away. She's like no jump. No jump Doesn't want to try Do you ever feel that way? in your life Where there's certain parts of your life that just aren't taking off like you hope like maybe your prayer life isn't taking off Maybe your marriage didn't take off the way you hoped The way you parenting your children maybe didn't take off or something Is something big you were planning in the parish and really hoping this this would just revolutionize the parish And it just didn't take off Do you ever have those moments where you feel like it just isn't working? And when you face that You you you can be tempted like Eleanor to get discouraged You get tempted like Eleanor to get discouraged and to To think that you just it's just not going to work and you'll be tempted to give up This is the most important moment In discipleship. I mean there's the foundational moment of when we're first called But when we run up against our weakness our limitations as disciples when we're striving to imitate christ And we realize we can't What do we do in those moments? That's how peter felt on the shore of the sea of galley. This is how Eleanor felt in jumping What do we do in these moments? I want to share with you an insight from one of my favorite saints saint therese of this you She wrote to her sister They were they're exchanging letters and the sister was describing how she just felt Frustrated with her own weakness. The sister was saying, you know, I've got All these weaknesses all these gaps. She needs the word gaps but that idea here And it feels like a mountain. I have to climb like there's just this mountain of weakness That I have to to overcome and therese writes back and says You're trying to scale the mountain of sanctity But god wants to meet you down low In the valley of humility You're trying to scale up to god And scale this mountain to overcome all your weakness to meet god up there But god doesn't want to meet you up there god wants to meet you down here in the fertile valley Of humility. She says it's a beautiful line. I love this image Because I think that's that's where many of us are at that we we can come to recognize. Yep I've got these gaps. I've got these weaknesses. Then what do I do? I just can't overcome them I'm not changing. It's not it's not it's not being fixed and we can be discouraged. Why am I not taking off? But the lesson we want to learn from the saints and what therese describes so beautifully here is that god doesn't want to meet us up here in this Imaginary ideal vision we have for our lives that I should be the perfect catholic man this perfect catholic husband's perfect catholic father I should be this now. I am called to perfection But I have to face the reality that that's just not where I'm at and god doesn't want to meet me up here. Why? Because I'm not there And the same is for you god doesn't want to meet you way up here because you're not there right now god wants to meet the real you Where you are right now as you are right now not where you'd like to be someday Not the ideal image you have for yourself Not the image you post on social media not the image you have of your family and for your christmas picture ever looks perfect No, no, that's not the real you god wants to meet the real you with all of your insecurities With all of your weaknesses all of your addictions all of your sins all of your hurts the wounds that you're caring That's the real you do you allow jesus to meet the real you As you really are Peter wasn't posing In john's gospel there on the shores of the sea of galley He came as he really was Lord, you know how incapable I am Do you come to jesus as you are and dare to meet him in the valley of humility? When we can come to him broken as we are and allow him to enter in That's when we experience the deeper transformation Where he begins to heal the roots of our sins He heals the roots of our our weaknesses and imperfections. That's where the real transformation takes place And so what we want to do is realize that yes, we should be striving to imitate christ discipleship involves this Intense upward movement. I'm going to give everything to follow jesus But in the end we realize as teres says that's only so much And we're going to fall short And we have to come and allow god to come down and meet us in the valley of humility And it's there that we experienced how loved we are Not for what we do not for how much we give not for how much time We spend in the chapel not for how many decades of the rosary pray All of those things are good they enrich our spiritual life But we are loved simply for the sake of who we are as beloved sons and daughters And jesus wants us to know that fundamental point so profoundly at the core of our being Do we know how loved we really are by god? It's a love that we cannot earn Love cannot be earned You can't earn the love of a parent You cannot earn the love of a coach a teacher a boss and you certainly cannot earn the love of god It has to be received Love can't be earned. It has to be received And it's received most profoundly in those moments like peter In those moments when we're in the valley of humility and we allow god in our weakness To love us and it's there that we experience how much we are forgiven That jesus no matter what we've done no matter how many times we've done it no matter how many times we fall Every time we turn to him especially in the sacrament of reconciliation We go into that confessional and we experience this free total love this forgiveness And it's there that then we begin to be healed and transformed Now I want to tell you about again. I'm going to tell you about my my favorite saint here. Therese Do you know about therese's conversion story? Do you want to know about therese's conversion story? I love the story of therese and her conversion. Did you know? Therese used to play in a punk rock band and did drugs and found jesus. No, that's not what happened Therese was not a Protestant minister who became catholic Well, but therese her her conversion story would never become a lighthouse catholic cd You know, although I think it should because it's beautiful conversion story that we can all relate to It's it's a story about the ordinary types of miracles god wants to work in all our lives Here's her story So when she was very young about four and a half her mother died before her mother died She was outgoing confident joyful. She was really close to her mom But then her mom died and that all changed she became very insecure timid and she really struggled in controlling her emotions And and she was very pious and spiritual and she knew that this was a weakness even from a young age And she's constantly trying to work on this idea of controlling her emotions But every little the littlest thing would set her off somebody says something She did something wrong and she feels bad about and she would just start crying She couldn't control her emotions and then she felt bad about the fact that she couldn't control emotions So she would cry for having cried about her weakness. You know, so it was a real problem This is continuing all the way until her teen early teenage years She's 14 years old and she's still struggling with this and one day It's christmas eve and she goes to mass with her her family for the christmas midnight mass And if you've ever done midnight mass with your kids anyone ever done that Are you a little grumpy after midnight mass supposed to be christmas? But you're just exhausted and the kids have wiped you out and you know So so anyway the the father comes home and he's in a little grumpy mood I can I can understand it and um and there's this tradition They have in france of putting the shoes out on christmas eve for the little children And and then you put and then you put the the the presence into the shoe And and the and the father comes home and sees that teres put the shoes out And teres is going up the stairs. She's going upstairs I don't know teres is coming downstairs and her sister saline is going up the stairs and they both over here the father Out loud grumbling and complaining about the shoes The father's saying oh, she's 14 years old. Does she really need this at least this will be the last year So teres hears dad complaining about the shoes. What would teres normally do? Cry break down in tears And saline sees this and sees that teres's eyes are welling up with tears and saline's like Wait, wait, don't go downstairs. No, no don't don't ruin christmas. Just just stay up here And then all of a sudden teres finds this inner strength holds back the tears Goes downstairs Sees the shoes opens it up and just is joyful and then jumps in her father's arm says Thank you daddy for the presence the dad is like sees the excitement of the daughter and he's happy again And saline is like did that just happen Teres normally would totally break down at this moment now teres describes this as her conversion moment She describes this as the christmas miracle The miracle of god's grace in her life now some of you are wondering What's so miraculous about that? Those of us who've raised teenage daughters know when a teenage girl learns how to control her emotions. That is pretty miraculous But for all of us we should see That what was going on in teres This is the miracles the ordinary miracles that work the god works in ordinary people's lives That when we're struggling with someone she battled for four for ten years struggling against this weakness Bringing it to confession making sacrifices and then one day God's grace works in profound ways and she was from that point forward changed That should give all of us hope Because maybe we don't struggle with that kind of thing struggling with tears. Maybe we struggle with anger Or maybe we struggle with lustful glances Maybe we struggle with pride and always thinking we're right. Maybe we struggle with with uh selfishness I always want to do what I want whatever we struggle with we've got these weaknesses god can come in And transform us if we dare to meet him in the valley of humility Let me read this quote From teres. She says we must do everything in our power give without counting the cost practice virtue at every opportunity Deny ourselves constantly prove our love by all kinds of attentions and marks of affection in a word Do all good deeds in our power for the love of god. That's that upward movement of discipleship But then listen to the next sentence but Since all that is really very little it's important to place all our trust in him alone Who sanctifies all deeds and can sanctify without them? That is what the little way of childhood is all about Yes, we should give everything but in the end we're going to realize how much we fall short and when we do We allow god to encounter us in the valley of humility We allow him to meet us in our peter moments or a little elinor moments allow him to meet us and experience his love His forgiveness and his transformation Now if I had more time and I know that that was a dangerous line scott says that's always dangerous when a speaker says that But i'll just throw this on the board There's four key things that you need for your life If you want to experience this transformation. I'm not going to have time to go through it I cover it in the book that I wrote they have in the bookstore here. It's it's called into his likeness Just the title this be transformed as a disciple um The four key habits of a disciple these aren't again This four random things. This is what the earliest disciples dedicated themselves to after pentecost This is what the early church turned to For centuries whenever the catholic church summarized what is the catholic faith all about it turned to these four Things in our modern era. We have a book that summarizes the catholic faith. What's it called? How many sections of the catechism are there? Four four pillars. Where did those four pillars come from acts 242? So when i'm sharing with you again, I want to be really clear This is from the heart of the church. This is what the church is saying We need and I like to think of these as four encounter moments These are different ways that we encounter god first one is in prayer I'm going to talk about that more in our in my workshop this afternoon But you all know the need for daily prayer not just saying prayers But encountering jesus every day being faithful to prayer is more important than any feelings you get from prayer More important than praying when you are you know, it fits into your schedule But being faithful every day is an act of love and we encounter jesus when we're faithful to daily prayer Secondly the sacraments acts 242 describes. This is the breaking of the bread Which is the eucharist the center of all the sacraments We need to have a sacramental life to receive in the eucharist regularly going to the visit make visits The blessed sacrament going to confession regularly every true disciples should go to confession at least at least once a month If there's anyone here that doesn't have enough sin in one month's time to bring to confession again I want to meet you come to me. You know, let's let's let's talk because you're a saintly person But we all have to keep going regularly to not just be forgiven But in the sacrament of reconciliation, we receive grace to overcome our weaknesses The the next habit is fellowship And the church has always seen the importance of having good friends other brothers and sisters that we are running with us People that support us in our faith life and also encountering jesus in the poor in the suffering So the works of mercy were often put into this third category of the habit of a disciple And finally the apostles teachings. This is so important right now Because so many the issues that we're facing in our culture are our intellectual issues What is a human person? What makes us happy? What is love? What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? There's all these intellectual challenges that we face today and we have to form our mind regularly With the truths of the faith and not just take in what netflix and youtube and instagram is feeding us all the time We have to really form our minds because there's a battle going on for your mind The culture wants you to think a certain way And if you're not careful about your diet of what you're taking in in social media And what you're taking in with music what you're taking in and what you're taking from hollywood on screens All those things you will be led away by by the culture We have to fill our minds with the teachings the apostles the teachings of our catholic faith So those are the four habits of the disciple wish I had more time to get into those But those are a little more straightforward. You can read more about them In the book I wrote here called into his likeness Let's close with a glory be in the name of the father and of the son the holy spirit amen glory