 It is a joy and unspeakable blessing to be Scott Hahn's wife and the mother of these six incredible children and 21 amazing grandchildren. We just had our first child who's married move back to the area. And I told one of my sons after sitting at mass and cuddling the three-year-old the whole time and kind of telling her about the mass and having one come up close on the other side and one on the other side, I said, something has awakened in my heart. I never let be there, which is how much I long to be with the grandchildren. I've just never let my heart go there because I figured there wherever God wants them to be. And I said, I want you to know my heart is not satisfied. I have awakened a hunger that now I want them all here. No human pressure. I'm just telling you I want them all. So anyway, all right. Here in Steubenville, we have a lot of change going on. And when my youngest son was seven, we were going up Sunset Boulevard and I noticed that an old car dealership was being dismantled and there was a sign coming soon what was gonna be built there. And I said to him really, not intending an answer, it was more rhetorical, but I said, isn't this exciting? And he said, it's very sad. I said, sad? And I'm not kidding you. I wrote it down because it's an unusual response. He said, my children will never know the town of my youth. I said, you're seven years old. The town of your youth is still being built. But you know, many of us feel that way about the church. Don't we catch ourselves thinking, my children will never know, or my grandchildren will never know the church of my youth. But the church of our youth is still being built. And as lay people, we are a part of this. Jesus is using you and me to build his church. Now the scripture read by every presenter is Luke 4 quoting Isaiah 61 at Jesus' first homily. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. And I loved Father Lewis's comment last night. That's us. That's not pointing at the poor out there, but us because we desperately need to hear the gospel. This talk is called How to Be a Contagious Catholic. And I want this to be in two parts. The first is how do we receive this good news and let it transform us, our hearts, our marriages, our relationships? And then secondarily, how do we imitate our Lord by proclaiming the good news? How have we received this good news? Through the word and the sacraments, we may have had faithful parents who brought us his babies to baptism and then nurtured our faith so that we could respond to the Lord. Or some of us heard God's word through a faithful witness and we received power to become children of God responding in faith and following up with baptism after that. Open your Bibles to Acts chapter two. On Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit filled St. Peter, he preached powerfully and he concludes with this Jesus whom you crucified. Verse 36, let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. And they were cut to the heart. They were cut to the heart. And they cry out in verse 37, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him. And that's us. We are those who are far off and our children and our grandchildren. Now once they were baptized, how did they grow? Just look down a little further to verse 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. These new believers learned the faith from the apostles. They met together, building the church. They had mass together, they prayed together. One of the toughest things about COVID is how scattered we have been, how isolated people were, and how much we have longed to be together, together at these conferences, together at mass. The apostles teaching would have included the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says to the people, if you turn to Matthew five, you can read it for yourself along with me. Matthew five starting in verse 13, you are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how is its saltiness to be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid, nor can men light a lamp and put it under a bushel. But on a stand and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. You and I have been called to be salt, to season, to preserve. I like to think of movie popcorn salt when I pray about my witness to others. You know how you go to the theater now that we can again go to a theater and you pay this awful amount for a ticket. And of course before you even open the doors you can already smell the popcorn, right? I mean, it just emanates out of the movie house. And so you walk in and you're like, okay, it's ridiculously expensive but I really want some of that popcorn but I'm not gonna buy a drink. I'm not paying that much for a diet coke, you know. And then of course you go in and you begin to eat the popcorn and what happens. You ask your husband to go get you a drink. Okay, and they know that. They salt the popcorn to make people thirsty and that's my prayer. Lord, I wanna be salt to make people so thirsty they have to know you. They have to be introduced to you. We've been called to be light, to shine. Not like turning on high beams and blinding somebody, not shouting with the truth but shining with the light of truth to draw others to the light. This is too good to keep to ourselves. Now how do we do this? We do it by the power of the Holy Spirit through whom we were baptized, in whom we've been sealed through confirmation. Too often we think of this as the priest's job and I'm really sensitive to this now that I have a son who's a priest. There is no way he can do everything needed to bring the world to Christ but he doesn't have to do it alone. This isn't a message simply for priests, does include them but it's not just for them, it is for every Christian. St. John Paul II made this clear in his encyclical to the lay members of Christ's faithful people. Number 14, to be baptized into Christ means we have been baptized into Christ's own mission to redeem the world. He is priest, prophet and king and so he has drawn us into his priesthood as we offer our lives in union with Christ's offering in the mass to consecrate the world to the Father. We participate in his prophetic witness as quote, we have the ability and responsibility to accept the gospel and faith and then to proclaim it in word and deed, end quote. And we extend his kingship as we bring quote, Christ's kingship to bear in worldly affairs, administering justice and charity. In this we sanctify the temporal order being in the world but being different from it, end quote. You and I are directly connected to Christ's saving mission. Turn to John 15. I'm so glad that Ted referred to this passage already. John 15, and I wanna read verses four and five. This is Jesus to his disciples quote, Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, it is who bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing, end quote. Christ is the source of our life and we need to be intimately connected to him. We will be fruitful if we abide in him and his life flows in us and then through us. We don't just belong to the church like we belong to a club, we are the church. He is the one who has called us from death into life. He is the one who has made us his children by virtue of our baptism. And then he is the one who sends us out to be his faithful witnesses. That sounds great, doesn't it? So why don't we do it? Well, I think there are three things that stop us. A lack of love, our fear and a whole lot of excuses. What's our lack of love? Well, one thing I call the little bo peep syndrome. If we just leave people alone, they'll find their way home. How many people have stopped coming to mass through COVID? They found it just as meaningful to watch mass on EWTN or some other place. They can DVR it and have the Sunday to themselves and then just tune in. They don't know what they're missing. Many Protestants have stopped going to church because they found a better sermon, they found better music. A significant number need to be invited back and our wordless witness is not sufficient. It's not enough for us to just live our faith. We've got to find the words to welcome them back. Or on the other hand, we don't just let them alone, we become theological pit bulls, okay? Triumphant, triumphalist, it's you versus me and we get inspired and we wanna give it all to them. It is like a fire hydrant. So I think a lack of love keeps us from sharing effectively. Fears diminish our courage. Fear of the unknown, I don't know how somebody's going to react, what are they gonna think of me if I start talking about Jesus? Or a fear of failure, I don't know how to do it perfectly. Will I remember what to say? What if I can't answer their questions? And so we opt out. We let the fear overwhelm any love that God could place in our hearts because they need to know Him. And if we are the one in relationship to that individual, how do we know God is not asking us to share with that individual? And then we have so many excuses. I'm either too young or I'm too old. I'm not well, whatever it is. Or faith is just private. Some people's faith is so private they don't even know it exists. But perfect love casts out fear. And so we need to come up for the Lord and say, who do you want me to share with today? And it may be very random things. I didn't intend to give this illustration, but I just wanna throw this out there as just one example that God may put something on your heart and just go ahead and share. You're gonna come back with hearts very full from this conference. And someone might say to you, where did you go? Why did you go to Steubenville, Ohio for days in the middle of the week? What are you gonna say? Okay, so I was at the store and I was shopping for one of my children's birthdays and I noticed a great sale on China. And I have looked at these little cups. They're Lenox tea cups. They have hydrangeas and butterflies. They are so feminine. And over the years as we've had grandchildren, I thought I would love to use as an illustration of the importance of purity these China. I'd like to do something with China. And our friend, Michael Ann Martin, who is Curtis Martin's wife, wrote a book about dates with her daughter and she used this as an illustration taking her daughter out using a paper cup on one side and a China cup on the other and talking about which one was so much more valuable. And then she got to keep the tea cup. So I've always thought I would love to do that with my granddaughters. Well, here was a great sale on the very cups I liked. So I bought 16 and I already have 12 granddaughters and I know there will be more. So that's only three married kids, you know. So anyway, I went up to the cashier and she said, wow, you must be really into China. And I'm thinking, do I tell her lie? I'm buying these cups? Absolutely. And so I said, well, purity is really important to me and I have a unique relationship with my grandchildren. And so this is what I'm gonna do. And I explained the whole thing. And I looked at her and she immediately said, up top. And she gave me a high five and she said, this is awesome. I'm gonna go buy some. I've got neighbor kids that are really important to me and I'm gonna share this with them. We don't know what fruit God will bring. We don't know, but he will give us the opportunities. I wanna talk briefly about Jesus' final words to his disciples and how that gives us a path forward in sharing our faith. And of course the last word someone says before they're gone are usually very, very important and significant. First, I'm gonna look at Acts 1.8. Acts chapter one, verse eight. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. We also receive the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses. So let me talk first about how to be a witness and then where. First, we need to embrace the idea of ongoing conversion. We need to preach the gospel to our own heart each day. It helps us be thankful as we recognize what God has done. A very holy priest who was giving me spiritual direction, Father Ray Rylan said this, sleep is like a little death and getting up in the morning is like a little resurrection and when we get up we can, we can wake in without remembering who we are as a son or daughter of God. And he said, so it's important to do an act of consecration for the day and to fill your heart with thanksgiving for who God is and what he has done in you. Second, we need to share the good news with others. And we can just talk about how God's at work in our lives, praying about something and seeing that answer to prayer, trusting Almighty God with something very difficult. I wanna give you five steps about sharing. So step number one, share about his work in your life. And you don't need to have had a dramatic conversion. You know, I was a baby who was prayed for, my parents baptized me, they taught me the faith and I believed that God existed because I believed them. But at a point in time, when I was very aware of sinfulness, God used a powerful message that connected my feeling of shame with Christ's offering on the cross. And I realized I needed to say, I believe you. And it was a moment of conversion for me, even though I wasn't a really bad kid, but I needed to know God personally. And that was a conversion moment. So if you've baptized your children, that's awesome. You have placed them in a state of grace, but we have to all respond to that state of grace. And there will be ongoing conversion moments. You may be sharing with somebody who was baptized at one point in their life, awesome. But how has God at work now? How are they responding to grace now? Number two, let them know that God loves them more than anyone ever could or will. And he wants a real relationship with them. Many people know God the way I know the Pope. If Pope Francis walked into this room, I would recognize him. He would look at me and say, who are you? He does not know me. I know about him, I do not know him, but God wants us to know him. I love this illustration. And I think this really brings it into a beautiful focus and maybe you could use this illustration when you share with someone. There was a little boy who loved to whittle. And one summer, he whittled a little boat and then in his backyard, there was a creek. I'm from Pennsylvania originally, so might call it a creek, but we called it a creek. Anyway, he would take his little boat and set it in one part and then he would just watch it meander down and then he would pick it up and do it again. But one time, it got away from him. He just, he couldn't find it. Later in the summer, he was passing by the downtown toy store and he saw his boat in the window. And so he went in and he said to the shopkeeper, that's my boat, I made that boat. And he said, well, you'll have to pay for it. Without another word, the little boy raced home, cracked open his piggy bank, counted out the money, raced back to the store and put the money on the counter and when he went over to the window, the shopkeeper heard him say, now you're mine twice. First I made you and then I bought you back. That is what our Lord says to each and every one of us. First I made you and then I bought you back. And at what price? Step three, what their appetite, they may not know their need. Even if they're basically good people, everyone knows they have violated even their own sense of right and wrong. They haven't always told the truth. They haven't always honored other people's possessions, however it would be. God's standard is perfection. We've all violated that standard. And that includes not just sitting against God's laws. We've also failed to obey all the laws, to love God with all our heart, our mind, our soul, our strength. When I thought about my own sins, I knew I needed Jesus. Now baptism is in fire insurance from hell. It's not one and done. We need our children and grandchildren and God children to understand it's the beginning, but then those graces have to be responded to. And sin has consequences, broken relationships with God, broken relationships with others. And hell is real. Don't hold back the truth. It is not kind or gracious to not tell them about hell. There was once a milk ad, I don't know if you remember this, where it's like you have flames in the background that are definitely depicting hell. And you've got someone with chocolate cake who is searching for milk. And I'm thinking hell is chocolate cake without milk? Are you serious? For me, the two worst ways I can imagine of dying are drowning or burning. And how is hell described? Continually drowning in a lake of fire. God does not want us to go to hell. He has provided Christ so that we do not have to go to hell, but hell is still a real option. It's crucial truth people need to know. That's the bad news. And loving them is not withholding it from them, but the good news is that Jesus wants to forgive sin. He's provided for it. That's why he sent Christ out of love for us to restore us to a right relationship. And for those of us who are Catholic, the confessional door is open. Jesus wants us to seek forgiveness. My husband had a teaching with our kids that when they hit the teen years that they ever needed to go to confession, all they had to do was say, please find me a priest. They did not have to reveal why they needed to go to confession, but it was such a great insight. And confession restores us. The priest is ready to say the words of absolution if we ask. Step four, we need to give an invitation to respond. This is a moment of grace for deciding. How do we share as a Catholic? You know, I was out gardening just a couple months after coming into the Catholic church and I'm like, Lord, this seems like such a slow way of having people become Protestant and then having them become Catholic. Like, can we shorten it? How do we evangelize as Catholics? And I didn't hear a voice, but what kind of shot through my mind is, why don't you share the whole verse? Well, I used to use Revelation 320, but I used the first part because the second part didn't make any sense to me. Revelation 320 says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man opens the door, sorry, here's my voice and opens the door. I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. And I thought, that is so weird. Like, I understand opening the door of my heart. Why are we talking about eating? So I didn't use that part of the verse. And as I thought about it, I thought my whole goal in sharing that verse was to try to describe to someone the intimacy that God wanted to have with them, that he wanted to come into their heart and make a dwelling place in which he reigned as king and Lord of their lives. And I realized in the church, we're talking about even more intimacy. He wants to come in not just as host, but as the feast himself. He wants to feed us his very self. That's the level of intimacy that God desires with us. And step five in sharing with others is we need to understand Jesus is not simply asking someone, will you accept me as your savior? He needs to be acknowledged as Lord. And this comes with the other other verses in his final words, Matthew 28, 18 to 20. Quoting, Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always to the close of the age. We are called to go out and share the word so that people seek baptism and then we are to teach them everything Jesus commanded. We are not to hold back truth that seems inconvenient and goes against our, goes counter to our culture. Jesus promises his power, he has all authority. So there's nothing he lacks that he cannot grant us in terms of the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to do what he has called us to do. And he promises his presence, he's with us. This is again, not something I have to do on my own, but I pray, I've talked to my son who's a priest and I said, please wear your cassock out in public. Walk the blocks of the parish where God has assigned you. Meet the people, take possession of it. Let them know whether or not they're Catholic. If they ever have a need and you're walking by, they can stop you and ask you to pray for them. Be Jesus out in the public. We want to invite people to walk with us together with Jesus. Now that's how to become a contagious Catholic. Where should we be a contagious Catholic? We read in Acts 1-8, it's a Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth. How do we do that? Well, Jerusalem is beginning at home. It's our family, our extended family. This might be the toughest place. People in my home could probably fill out my confession list just as well as me. They know our weaknesses, but that's part of God's plan to help us grow in humility, right? Don't give up on your relatives who seem to have abandoned the faith or never embraced it. You have a natural love for them. Pray for their conversion. Look for opportunities to share. We realized at one point in time that we'd stop praying for Scott's father to ever come to faith. He'd actually gone from attending church sort of perfunctorily to deciding that that was sort of hypocritical. And when we had all these little tiny grandchildren, he stopped going to church and we would all go to church when we were visiting and he wouldn't go with us because he felt like that was more honest. And at one point we realized we need to pray for his conversion. We love him in a way that very few people in the world love him. We know the truth. He needs to know the Lord. And so we began to pray every single day for his conversion and it was years, but it did happen. It happened before he died and God brought him to himself. We can witness to the world as individuals through our marriages and family life as God establishes this civilization of love in our own homes. If we embrace a life of generous self-donating love, our families can testify to God's grace in the world. And then we can reflect this beautiful relationship between Christ and his church. Just being able to share when someone says, oh, do you have grandchildren? How many? Now it's not a numbers game and there will always be people who have more. But what a joy to be able to say 21. One person said, do you even know all their names? I'm like first name, middle names, birth date and I can tell you their age. These are some of the most precious people in the world to me. In our families, we share the faith the way Jesus did through our words and through our deeds. We baptize our children, we cataclysm, we teach the faith and we continually challenge them to choose Christ. We share our own ongoing conversion moments and we let them share theirs. We expect faith, we look for signs of faith and we celebrate faith. Now sometimes we can miss what God's doing in their little hearts. We had an experience when our oldest son was five, Michael was five, Gabriel was three and Hannah was about maybe six months. We heard that there was a bad weather report and so we went down to the basement and sure enough a tornado came very close to our area to actually destroy the tent that was set up for graduation back in Illinois. And so that was only a couple blocks away from us. Well, of course we were praying very fervently in the basement and then after that, it was a Saturday and we needed to get up to have our baths and get ready for mass the next day. So we're up there and I'm trying to get Michael undressed to go into his bath and he's like, it was just like, you know, it was like the Holy Spirit was coming and saying, open the doors, open the doors. And I'm like, huh, okay honey, let's take off your pants. It's time to get ready. And all of a sudden he was still trying to explain it and Scott said, wait a minute, wait a minute, what are you saying, Michael? And he said, when I heard that sound, it was like the Holy Spirit was saying, open the doors, open the doors of your heart. And Scott said, I'm gonna talk to Michael for a minute. You go ahead and baby other kids. How cool is that? That God is touching the heart of one of our children and using the sound, the fear, the prayer to make a very personal call to him. And there are many little conversion moments like that. We need to have eyes to see what they are. Dr. James Dobson was playing with a very, paying basketball with a very famous basketball player. His name was Pistol Pete Marovitch. And he said to him at one point, how are you feeling? And he goes, great. And he died of a heart attack the next moment. Literally fell on the floor, not able to be revived. And he shared with his radio audience when he came home, he just really embraced each one of his children. And he said, it's so important that we know where we are with God so that we can be in heaven together forever. And so Scott, who always said a little blessing over the children, adjusted it. And he added that little element. And I wrote it out and let's see if I can find it. Well, okay, may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with you now and forever till we're in heaven together. And he still, I recently, our son who's almost 40, was leaving with his family and he asked Scott to pray over him in this blessing. It was so powerful, you know, with all the children around and our sons and son-in-law. Likewise, pray over their children every single night, that prayer of blessing. A homeschooling family who suffered a terrible loss of a four-year-old who drowned, their son Peter, said this to me, we didn't have time to teach him math facts, but he knew his prayers. We know where he is. We need to be heavenly-minded enough to be earthly good. St. John Paul II said, quote, the faith-filled witness of Christian families is an essential element in the new evangelization to which the Holy Spirit is calling the church in our time, end quote. What's Judea? That's Jerusalem is our home, Judea. Surrounding area, friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners. We're called individually to be evangelized and to re-evangelize those within the church who are not faithful and then to reach out. Can we invite people back to mass on this side of COVID? Let's pray for a growing hunger for our Lord. I think many, many Catholics, I know we did, sitting there watching mass on TV, you just felt the divine absence, you know, not being with Jesus. And wow, when we were able to return, to be close to him, to receive him. It is such a gift. And we need to find the way to reach out and draw them back in, you know? Pick a Sunday, you've got donuts, bribes work, you know? Just, hey, join us for mass and we'll have donuts and coffee afterwards. I wanna give you one example of someone who really challenged me on this. Her name is Susie. She and her family moved to a new neighborhood and she decided to go around her cul-de-sac and introduce herself to all the families. She made sure that she mentioned she was a Catholic. Many of them had a Catholic background. She began to invite them to come with her to mass or she would drop off a confession schedule, information about confirmation classes. If they weren't married yet, when the pre-Kana classes were gonna happen or if their children weren't baptized when baptisms would happen and many of them responded in two years out of four of the homes, these were the results. Wife confirmed, two kids baptized, husband received first communion and confirmation. Number two, first baptized adult and then he received first communion and two children were baptized. Number three, two children received first communion. Number four, two children received first communion and their parents' marriage was blessed. That's one woman, one cul-de-sac, four homes. What holds us back? Have we not received the pearl of great price? Have we not been set free, liberated from the bondage of sin and death? What holds us back? I'm at a priest who was assigned to a new parish up in Minnesota. He was Hispanic, he was fluent in Spanish, there was a large Hispanic community there and he had a lot of anticipation as he went to have his first mass. 14 people showed up. So he said, okay, we're gonna go out and he began to knock on the doors of everyone who would come to his parish and he began to ask, have you been married in the church? Can I bless your marriage? Have your babies been baptized? Has everyone been confirmed? And he said, three years later, there were 1,400 at mass. Praise God, praise God. And Archbishop mentioned in a small group of us that were gathered around that he's about to close 50 churches. And I said, I think there's another solution. And he looked at me like, who are you? But I thought I'm just gonna say it. I'm just gonna plant the seed. I said, we can evangelize the baptized. We can go through our roles and everyone who isn't attending mass, go and knock on their door and invite them to come back and let them know that they're missed. Then we can evangelize all of those who are not Catholic. And I said, and then we can teach faithfully, open this to life and fill the pews with large families. I said, well, we can do those things but I'm still gonna close 50 parishes. How many of you are God parents? Do you know that after the parents, you are the ones who have the primary obligation for the faith formation of your God children? It's good that you pray for them but are you sharing with them? Are you challenging them? Jesus said, love one another as I have loved you. And they will know we are Christians by our love, our love for each other. Are we witnessing to that? And then we're to be as witnesses in Samaria, to our countrymen, our fellow citizens. As lay people, we have many avenues for witnessing to the gospel, especially as we are faithful in carrying out our duties in our families and in the workplace. In our culture, we defend the poor from injustice and we work for respect for all life from preborn to elderly. We're to evangelize our culture. We are to speak the truth in love. All law expresses someone's morality. We need to have it line up with truth. Romans 13 once says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there's no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. If we have good leaders, we thank God for them. And when we have lousy leaders, we pray for them. We bear under the hardships and we work for better leaders and we pray that God will change their hearts. We can be subject and still share wisdom. The mayor of Steubenville, the whole time he has been mayor has asked us to have prayer before we officially start the council. So no one can fault us. It's all volunteer. It's not part of the meeting. And yet he asks either pastors or he has asked every member of council to lead in prayer. I've led numerous times and I'll quote a scripture first. I'll lead us in prayer. And then he always asks us to lead into our father. And so we are all praying together. It's powerful. James 3, 17 and 18 says, quote, but the wisdom from above is first pure and then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits without uncertainty or insincerity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace, end quote. And we need that wisdom and grace and peace at our city council, at the state legislature, in Congress and around the world. Steubenville is known for our nutcrackers. I don't know if you've heard this, but in the last few years, we have developed something 150 nutcrackers that are six feet tall and it's a beautiful sort of outdoor display of art. And I won't get into more detail, but during COVID, we weren't sure what could happen. And they decided to put half of them on 4th street and half down at the fort, kind of really spaced out so that people could still enjoy them. I got a call from someone who was very upset. He said, I wanna know who's going along and spraying down the nutcrackers after people touch them? Are you gonna put up signs? Keep spacing between families and our police watching? And I said, you know, we're going to allow for personal responsibility here and we're putting them on 4th street. So if all you can do to enjoy them is to drive slowly by, we hope you'll do that. But I said, no, no, we're not. He said, this is just irresponsible. And I said, you know, there are worse things than dying. And he was like, what? I said, dying outside a state of grace and none of us have to do that. And there was this pause that I could tell he was thinking, I am talking to my counsel woman, right? But why not say the truth? The worst thing that can happen is not death. It is death apart from Christ. We can't remain uninvolved in the affairs of culture in which God has placed us. A lot of pre-evangelization is needed. If we can't even talk about being a man or a woman, a girl or a boy, how can we talk about being a son or daughter of God? God created each one of us. He did not make a mistake. Our world is languishing for lack of truth. And we've got to find the loving way to deliver it. Proverbs 3.27 says, do not withhold good when it is in your power to do it. So as citizens of our state, we have to find the way to do good, to take part in a powerful way. Even if our culture turns away from God, we still play a vital role in our prayers. 2 Chronicles 7.14, quote, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land, unquote. That doesn't say 100% of Americans. That says, if my people, we can effect change through our humble prayer, confessing sin and asking for forgiveness. And then finally, to the ends of the earth, do we care that beautiful Christians do not know the fullness of the faith in the Catholic church? Truth Jesus wants them to have. Grace, he knows they need to live the Christian life to the fullest. Do we care that some Catholics have wandered out of the church and need to be restored? Do we care that many people in the world do not know Christ? We've got to become mission-minded and to inspire our children to be mission-minded, to read the lives of the saints who were missionaries, to find out about effective orthodox missions and support them, to contribute to the Franciscan mission trips or to mission trips done by focus. Scott said, how do you wanna celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary? I said, could we do a mission trip? He's thinking. I said, look, our children aren't engaged, they're not connected to anybody else. This is the perfect time to take our whole family and let's build a house in Tijuana. And so we paid for all the materials and all the flight for ourselves and two workers who really knew how to do all of this. And we built a very simple house, a very simple structure. And when we gave the keys to this little two-bedroom home that had no running water, had no bathroom, it was just two rooms. The mother of the family, she couldn't speak English, I couldn't speak Spanish, but tears were just running down her face in thanking us for a home that they never would have had. And we found out 12 people were going to move in. It was an amazing experience. What weakens or destroys our witness? Life out of home, sorry, home life when our walk isn't lining up with our talk, okay? We can't be overly spiritual. We need to be the same at home. And we need to ask forgiveness when we're not. Synicism about the church, watch your talk. Do not give yourself the freedom to cut down your priest, to cut down your bishop, to cut down your pope, where you need to clarify anything that isn't correct. If something is set at mass that you do need to clarify for your children, do so, and then lead your family in prayer for your priest. You want a better priest, pray for your priest. Not just a new one, pray for him. Three, imbalance. Proving we're right versus the truth in love. Make love our aim. Four, ingratitude for all the grace we've received. All the grace. Five, uncontrolled children. We need to know how to parent because that can really hurt our witness. And we've got to watch the influences of secular education, of television, of culture. They will still make their own choices, but we need to be engaged parents for our whole lives. Our whole lives. Number six, cafeteria Catholicism. It weakens our witness when we decide that we will be the magisterium. I like the church's teaching on this and this. I don't like the church's teaching on this and this. It's not a smorgasbord that you come in and you choose by the grace of Almighty God. He has placed you in the heart of the church and our hearts are to say, Lord show me the way and to respond. What strengthens our witness? Grace. Grace is available. I need to get to confession more often. It's not very convenient. Isn't that ridiculous? I remember how much I longed to be able to go to confession during the COVID months. And now I find, oh, I'm not even thinking about it. So that's my commitment to you. I'm gonna get to confession more often. Eucharist, draw close to Jesus' heart and ask Him, give me your love for my neighbor. Give me your love for my child, my grandchild, my husband, my wife. As beloved sons and daughters of our heavenly Father, we're members of Christ and His body, the church and temples of the Holy Spirit. So we need to learn the faith, to live the faith, to love the faith and to share the faith. This is our time. In the great providence of God, this is the century in which we have been born. These are the relationships God has given us. And we need to say not, why now? Why is this falling apart? This is so hard. It's what do you want me to do, Lord? And I will do it, just like Ted said. Mary's response, be it done unto me according to your will. He's already promised us His power and His presence. And He will give us the grace. So as you go forth today, after we have this wonderful mass that will again give us even more grace, I hope and pray that your heart will say, Lord, who do you want me to share with about you? Who needs to know you? Our world is dying to know Christ. And so let's return home to our families and our neighborhoods, our parishes, our workplaces, our towns and states and countries and be the salt in life that our Lord has called us to be. And by the grace of God, He will do this work in us and He'll do it through us. Let's close in prayer. In the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, amen. Oh, dear Lord Jesus, I thank you for your mercy that has touched our hearts and drawn us so close to you. As your beloved sons and daughters, you have loved us, created us and redeemed us. And it's too good to keep to ourselves, Jesus. Please help us to imitate your son by proclaiming good news to the poor. Give us eyes to see those around us and the courage by your Holy Spirit to say what you want us to say. We pray this in the precious name of Jesus, amen, amen. God bless you, God bless you.