 Before I begin, fellas, I really wanna start with just a word of thank you. It's a great privilege for me to be here before you. I actually had been praying for this conference for many, many, many years, from when I was studying here at Franciscan in the summers. And Father Jonathan Sanandre came to the sisters and he just said, tonight is going to be a holy hour of deliverance. And would you sisters please pray? And so we did. We all went to the chapel and we did intercessory prayer for a whole hour while the priests and the seminarians and the deacons were in this field house begging for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and for being set free in the Spirit's power. And I've never forgotten that, the importance of intercessory prayer for priests, for seminarians and for deacons. And so each year I usually come to the Bosco Conference. I always look for this date and I do pray for this on a particular week. So it's a great joy and privilege to be here. Priests have always been a very precious part of my life. I have no memory of myself except outside of the church. And it's always been a great memory. My pastor was a very tall, passionate priest. He used to pick me up and actually he was gonna drop me and I don't know why I thought that was so fun in the first grade, but there was. Throughout the years, my first confession, confirmation, just grace upon grace and place upon place, a priest has guided me from one moment of the Lord to the other. Some of my special friends here, Father Henshey, Joseph Henshey, I don't know if you know his name, but Bishop Barron sure knew him and so did Cardinal George. So Father Henshey is a stigmatine priest, God rest his soul. He was at the, well, he taught at the Angelicum and he was at the knack and any of you know him? I mean, he's just like, yeah, he's the guy to know. Father Henshey, one time I asked him, I said, Father, how do you make a good confession? In the best Boston accent he had, he said, oh, sister, it's three to one, three to one. For every one minute you think of yourself, you spend three minutes thinking of God. And I thought, that's good wisdom. Father Anthony Droganis, who I couldn't find a picture of his priesthood, but this is his graduation. He's a Ukrainian, though he was in the Roman Rite and he was the pastor at a parish where I actually received my calling during adoration and it was downtown Baltimore where I was working as a young woman. And Father Tony preserved St. Alphonse's Church downtown at a time when the Akana class were coming through and just taking all the statues out. You know that great age of the church. And Father Tony said to his bishop, in all due respect, your Eminence, what will I tell the people who gave their nickels and dimes for all these beautiful statues? And the bishop left them alone. And then St. Alphonse is still today, is a pilgrimage place for people. And Father Tony was a great confessor for me as well. Father Henry Hughes, oh God love Father Henry Hughes. I've known him, oh my gosh. I have no memory of myself except for Father Henry Hughes. And who was he? Just a dear friend, a spiritual guide. When I was discerning my religious vocation, I remember going home from college and going to see Father Henry Hughes and just saying, Father Hughes, I think God's calling me to be a national Dominican. What do you think? You know me. And he said, Nashville, you wanna be a Nashville Dominican? I think you'd be a great one. So there I went with his blessing. Something not many people know about Father Henry Hughes is that he is one of two priests in the diocese of Baltimore that did not sign the disobedient petition on Humana Vitae. Every other priest at that time gathered at St. Mark's Parish and signed a We Will Not Follow Humana Vitae. The only other one was Cardinal Stafford. But he had enough family connections that he was allowed to go to Rome when he didn't oblige his fellow fraternity. Father Hughes was sent to be chaplain at an insane asylum. That was his reward for being a faithful priest. As God would have it, because Father Hughes didn't have a parish, he was available for my mom and all her friends to do online adorations and Thursday reparations. And so that's where I grew up really in the back of the chapel at Our Lady of Victory in Baltimore, Maryland with my pillow, because when you're four years old, all night adoration can be a little long. But there I was with Father Hughes and he was collecting this Anawim, this remnant of Israel in Baltimore and leading them to the Lord in prayer and fasting and reparation. So you are such a gift to the church. And this particular week, you are learning how to use that gift, how to release that gift, how to maybe have that gift transformed. But as you are right now, you are a gift and don't underestimate that. So the title of my talk is, You Can't God Can, So Let Him. And you may recognize that phrase from Alcoholics Anonymous. No, no, don't nod your head. It's supposed to be anonymous, right? It's nice when you laugh at my jokes. So I chose that title because I was actually asked to speak to you this evening on the subject of spiritual slavery, being bound to sin, freedom in Jesus. Seriously, that's what the email said. Speak to them about release of captives, oppress go free and all that good stuff. Sarah was like, this is what we want you to give. Give it good, sister. So I did. I don't know that I'm an expert in any of that, but I know how terribly important it is to be free, to be free. I go to confession every two weeks. Some people think that's too frequent and those who live with me think it's not frequent enough. We can talk about that in confession. At various times in my life, I found myself confessing the same sins. Now, as I mentioned, I've been terribly blessed, deeply blessed by a great priest, very helpful in my spiritual journey, but every once in a while, I'll get a priest who will say to me, now sister, be grateful you're not confessing new things as if that's supposed to give me consolation. Maybe it's supposed to calm me down. I can be rather intense. But this phrase, at least you're not getting worse, really does not match the gospel today, does it? Where Jesus convicted us, challenged us, invited us to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. And I have heard a few homilies that try to let us off the hook and make us feel good about that. Jesus was just, he didn't really mean what he said. Bishop, help me, right? Last night, the bishop was pretty clear about Jesus meant what he said and he said what he's meant. Amen. No, I'm from the south where the Baptists are. Amen. Thank you. Okay, so he meant what he said and he said what he's meant. Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Not a perfectionism, we have enough of that going around. But to be truly perfect in charity, to dare to love others with the very love of God, all persons, as Deacon Ralph Poyle was trying to encourage us, to love our enemy, to love ourselves, fellas. I want to be free of my attachments that keep me from loving perfectly. I want to live in the fullness of God's grace. Don't you? Do you want to live in the fullness of God's grace? Satan has tricked us to think that only the Blessed Mother was full of grace. She is full of grace. She was on this earth full of grace, absolutely. Her capacity for grace was so great that she could with the Holy Spirit give flesh to the Son of God. That's what full of grace means with the Blessed Mother. But my dear friends in Christ, that promise to be full of grace is a promise that you have been given by the Lord in the Holy Spirit. Amen. That you, who you are, what you are, where you are, could have the fullness of God's grace dwelling within. For freedom's sake, we have been set free by Jesus Christ. For freedom's sake, we have been set free by Jesus Christ. Amen. Now I accept that I might be buried with a few thorns in my flesh, and you might too. But for Pete's sake and St. Paul's sake, let's make sure, fellas, that we are not consciously or unconsciously holding on to things, patterns of behavior that prevent us from being set free and living in freedom. St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians speaks to us, convicts us. By the way, you know Catherine of Sienna, right? The Dominican sister, right? Pope, prelate, bishop, priest, prince. Like nobody got away from Catherine, right? You know that, right? And you still invited me up. What were you thinking? Well, I'm gonna let the Blessed Mother work and console your heart. I'm gonna get you guys fired up and get you serious about this conversion. It's time, tonight's the night, to start this work of freedom. St. Paul says to us, listen carefully to him. After all, brothers, you were called to be free. Do not use your freedom as an opening for self-indulgence, but be servants to one another. Since the whole of the law is summarized in the one commandment, you must love your neighbor as yourself. If you go snapping at one another and tearing one another into pieces, take care. You will be eaten up by one another. Instead, I tell you, be guided by the spirit. And you will no longer yield to self-indulgence. The desire of self-indulgence are always in opposition to the spirit. And the desires of the spirit are always in opposition to self-indulgence. They are opposites, one against the other. When you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. He was on to talk about drunkenness, bad temper, arrogance, and a whole list of other things. I'll leave that for your lexiodivina. Oh, come on, that was a joke, really. For freedom's sake, we have been set free. Now it's kind of hard to find a picture of freedom, like I'm from the Chesapeake Bay, I love to sail. I really love to go sailing. It's just such an amazing experience. Anybody here gone sailing? Are you? Oh, just a few, just a few. To be honest with you, this looks terrifying to me. And yet, and yet, I think it captures really what I'm trying to offer you this evening is a reflection on what it means to be free. And walking in freedom with the Lord is a little terrifying, right? You're not holding on anything. You're not clinging to that rock as they sing down south, because you're too weak to even hold on. When we walk in freedom in the spirit, really? It's just the spirit within. And this is what Jesus is offering to you in the Holy Spirit. Hark into what the bishop said last night, please. Please, hark into that. Let that evoke within you a stirring of, my gosh, could it be true? Could I be recaptured in this power of the Lord? Could I walk on water like St. Peter? Dare I try? Dare I start over? Dare I begin? To walk in freedom for freedom's sake, Christ has set us free. Amen. Amen. Amen. Claim it, brothers. Claim it in the name of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Lord. Claim it for freedom's sake, you have been set free. Or at least he's trying to set you free. Somewhere in the Magnum Corpus of St. John Paul, the Seconds writings, I came across this quote. It might be George Weigel's brilliant synthesis, but here's what I wrote in my Bible 20 years ago. To be human is to be a moral agent. And the great drama of every life is a struggle to surrender. The person I am is the person I ought to be. Whoever wrote it, the truth stands. It is indeed a dramatic experience for a person to change deeply ingrained patterns of behavior that are negative, default ways of thinking and choosing that are negative. In fact, some would say, it's a moral and psychological and physiological miracle to surrender the person I am, the weak, wounded, broken, shackled person I am, the person who is not fully free in grace. And I know that to the person I'm supposed to be. It is no small struggle to stop being a person who is sarcastic, judgmental, self-righteous, condescending, vain, unforgiving, resentful, manipulative, deceitful, controlling, exacting, adulterous, slothful and greedy. Did I get them all, Father Dave? That was my last confession. That was not a joke. What about you fellas? Is that your list too? Was it funny because it resonated? That's usually what humor does. Sarcastic, judgmental, self-righteous, condescending, vain, unforgiving, resentful, manipulative, deceitful, slothful, greedy. What would you add to it? Gambling, overindulging in alcohol or pain meds? Looking at pornography? Lust? It happens to the best of them. St. Catherine of Siena told me, leave no stone unturned. Fellas, the battle is upon us. Satan wants your soul, because he wants your ministry and he wants your people. He will keep you shackled as long as you let him, but not tonight. It's no small miracle to have inner peace when the coffee wasn't hot that your secretary brought. Come on, you know it, right? I said two creams, not one. I want two sugars, not three. I like my meat rare, not overcooked. It's hard to respond kindly to that heckling parishioner or your procreal vicar or the summer seminarian who's just trying to figure out how to turn the oven on. Sorry, fellas. Somebody had to go under the bus and it was you. I have some good stories from dear priest friends about procreal vicar and seminarians, but we won't go there tonight. But really gentlemen, it's no small miracle to maintain your inner peace when things are hard. Things don't go the way you want them to go. The schedule doesn't fit the way you wanted it to go. It's hard, it's difficult. And what you're here for today, this week, tonight, is to look honestly inside, don't be afraid to go spiritually spelunking with the Holy Spirit. Look inside yourself and have an honest conversation with God about the things that need to change. For freedom's sake, you have been set free. Saint Philip neary, when he was on his deathbed, he said to one of the young priests, when I get better, I'm going to change my life. Come on, every day we are called to conversion. Every moment we're called to conversion. Who are we to think that there isn't a constant conversion that must happen in our heart, our mind, our passions, a constant pleading for God's help, a constant relying on him, his grace, a constant need of deliverance, confession, maybe even counseling. Any way of thinking, fellas, any way of thinking or acting that is contrary to being a saint. I'm not talking about a plastic saint. I'm talking about somebody who truly lives in the freedom of the Lord. Just free. Anything that's contrary to that needs Jesus. Amen. Anything. Saint John Henry Newman said to live is to change. And to be perfect is to have changed often. You came here this week with a particular way of thinking and living and being. God bless John, he gave a great witness today in the life and the spirit. Just when you think you got it pretty much safe and okay, the Lord hit you with a two by four and he says, is that you or is that me? It's happened to me, folks, right? It's happened to me. Somebody asked me if I was nervous coming up here and I said, absolutely not. And you know why I'm not nervous to be in front of you? Because I have failed so many times, there's nowhere to go but up. I mean, no, really, it's true. I'm not kidding. The Lord has taught me so many beautiful, hard lessons about self-reliance. I may slip into that again sometime down the road but not tonight, not tonight, Lord. Thank you so much, not tonight. Fellows, amen. Let's admit it, each one of us right now is engaged or needs to be engaged in the dramatic struggle to surrender the person you are to the person you ought to be. You ought to be in freedom. The professionals say it takes 28 days to change a habit, to change patterns of thinking, patterns of being, patterns of choosing. And that's true for those whose hearts are free, relatively free, and are able to work with God's grace. I think that's true. But for someone who is stuck in patterns of behavior or held prisoner by Satan to certain thoughts or actions, that little step to change, to not be this way and choose to be another way, to not to be sarcastic and choose to be a one whose word is gracious, that little step can be not impossible because I'm a Dominican and the will is always able to do what it needs to do, not impossible but it's really hard. It's really hard. Think about St. Paul's lament. I do not understand my own actions. For what I desire to do, I fail to do and instead do what I hate. Now with Dr. John Bergsma here, I am not about to do a Greek scriptural exergesis on that but I am gonna point out that the patterns of behavior that we have, sometimes, oftentimes they need a little more help because there's a real rewiring in the mind that needs to take place. We need a real deliverance of the soul for both. Truth be told, becoming the person God's created us to be often and I would dare say in our times, giving what we are living in and what we've been through, almost always requires confession, counseling and deliverance. Father Jonathan spoke this morning so deeply profoundly beautiful about the lies that Satan says to us and we accept them as true and they sit there deep within our being and they keep becoming our default and those need to be set free. Truth needs to be spoken to those lies so that we can become the person God made us to be. Over the years I've read many books on this subject of conversion. It's kind of my life project. I am my life project, convert me, Lord, change me but I also work with people and so I read a lot and I try to help discern the spirit. What's happening in this person's life? What is it that keeps them trapped? All of the books have offered lots of good information but this one in particular by Dr. Gerald May I think is my go-to again and again. His book on addiction and grace. How many of you have read this book? Okay, how many are gonna read this book? How many of you need to read this book? Yeah, thanks. I'm telling you, he's really got it. Dr. May was a very devout Catholic. He was a successful psychiatrist. He studied the psychophysical nature of addiction, patterns of behavior that a person can't seem to change. It's a little technical but I find it very helpful. So one of the things he was able to research was that in the mind, in the brain, there are 10 billion to, I don't know, trillions of neurons and each neuron is talking to other neurons through neurotransmitters. Now wake up, I'm listening, this is important. So these neurons in the brain talking to each other through neurotransmitters and neuroreceptors, they're firing back and forth through synapses at a remarkable speed. And he said that the brain fires off about 500 trillion of these synapses a day. So this is constant movement in your mind, in your brain. It's just physical, it's chemical. It's just, unless you're fishing, there's nothing going on there, right? That's why guys like to fish. I like to fish too, okay, okay, come on, I like to fish too. That's my Thursday talk, going fishing. But a simple knee-jerk response, that takes 100,000, a few 100,000 neuron synapses, but he says that complex activity, like really having to choose an action, judging its millions, billions of these connections, millions, billions. And what Dr. May was able to really insightfully put his finger on was that when the collective power of cellular patterns, when these neurons and neurotransmitters are wired a particular way in your brain, and they maintain a particular behavior, when that is greater than the collective power in the cellular transmission to change, you have an addiction. You can't help but snap back at that moment, because you have wired yourself from repeated behavior. When something doesn't go right, you fly off, or you get scared, the fight or flight. So it's one level to look at our behavior and say, I'm not changing the way I'm choosing. I have to have that cigar. I have to. I have to drink that Diet Coke. I have to eat that first, second, third, fourth, fifth donut. I just have to. Your ultra server has to genuflect with precision. Yeah, we all get stuck in things that it has to be this way, or I implode. Tell me, fellas, I'm not the only person struggling with this, like Ralph admitted it. We all have, come on, put your hand up. This is the moment. We're not an alcoholic synonymous. We all have patterns of behavior that are not positive. They're not Christian. They're not free. They're like our default. We just judge people. We're just snarky. We just like to bring people down, boss people around. I'm the pastor. I'm right. I'm the seminarian. I should be right. We just do this stuff, right? We just do this stuff. We all have it. Becoming free of addiction requires an ontological at the root of your being, at the root of your being and acceptance that you can't undo those neurotransmitters on your own. Not without God's help. Not without God's help. But you do have to want it. You do have to want it. Venerable Louis de Grata said that the path of virtue is painful to the nature when left to itself. But nature assisted by grace finds it easy and agreeable. That's Dr. Maze. That's the heart of his book. The first part is laying out what is an addiction? And the list is hilarious actually. And there are attachment addictions and aversion addictions. And they go all over the place from the shoes you have to wear, to the car you have to drive, to the TV show you have to watch, to the phone you have to touch. I can't not do that. And he says, but God's grace can get into that, can get into the neurotransmitters, can get into the synapses and unhook one way of behavior and connect it to a new way. But you first have to admit what it is. And I think that's what the team's been trying to do with you this week. Most of the fellas have been gentle. I'm not being so gentle right now I think. But hey, there's Catherine, you know, she could be worse. Love you too much to leave you there. There isn't a person in this room who doesn't have something they are attached to that is an obstacle to God's fullness of his grace in us. Why do I do the things I don't want to do? St. Paul lamented. Dr. May might respond, perhaps St. Paul, you really don't want to change. It's a biblical psychological conundrum. My point is simply this, changing your behavior is no easy task, especially when it's hardwired. But we can do this with God's grace. Amen. The person I ought to be, fellas, this all has great ramifications for you personally, for you personally. The church needs you to be fully set free in your particular ministry as a priest, as a deacon. God wants you to be free. You are his beloved son, and he wants the poorest spirit fully in you that through you, you can transform your parish, transform the church. But I want you to also consider the ramifications as someone who sits in the confession and listens to others in their path to holiness, and recognize as well that those behaviors are difficult and maybe you would be able to understand where this person might need counseling, might need deliverance, or might need Alcoholics Anonymous to help get rid of some addiction, being able to identify that properly because we are hardwired to act and to think a certain way. The great genre of every life is the struggle that one faces in trying with God's help to rewire those negative patterns of behavior. And this truth became very personal to me two years ago when I began to work with men who are in recovery. Now, when I say work with them, I'm not talking ministry. I'm talking like I work with them because I manage 110 acres of land at our retreat house. And well, there's mulch to be put around, there's trees to be cut down, there's plants to be pulled up, splitting wood, digging trenches. I work with these fellas, right? I got another habit, not so pretty and I just roll up my sleeves and I work with them. And they're all in recovery. I call them my St. Joe fellas because St. Joseph gave them to me when I was in dire straits. So at our retreat house, I serve as Martha and Mary and I care for those who come. In my next talk, I'm gonna invite you all to come down and go fishing in our lake. So, you know, please come by. In 2020, when COVID hit, we were not able to host retreats and so that meant we weren't making money. It's just what it is, fellas, right? So there I was with all this work and a lot of work to do and nobody could come and help me. And so I was out there in the blistering heat, digging up trees, putting down rock, digging trenches, transplanting bushes. I was all by myself. Did you hear that pity party? Yeah, so it's true. I have the best husband ever. I do, I do. He is everything the bishop said. He is the line of Judah, the fierce line of Judah. He crushes the gates of hell. He brings people from the dead. He's the king of king and the lords of lords and I love him dearly. But when there's yard work to do, he doesn't show up. So I did what every woman would do. I complained and I did complain. I said, Lord, I need help. I need work. I need men and then I went to his father and I said, Joseph, Joseph, do something. Send me some men. And so they came and every Friday they come. What these gentlemen have taught me is something that I hadn't, I, gosh, what I've learned from working with these men who are in recovery is something that would have taken lifetime of reading theology books. I just, I look at them and I marvel because these fellows are very honest about their addiction. They are not hiding anymore. And I think most of us in the church, we hide. I think a lot of us do. I know I did for years. I'd go to confession, but I wouldn't stand up on a podium and tell you I have issues with control. I think I am my higher power. And if you come home with me, you'll know that I think that. I don't know that I've ever confessed that really. But being with these fellows and their honesty because what they say to me is, sister, we had everything and we have nothing now except the truth that we need God. So they're not calling themselves their higher power and that we're lying on themselves. And fellas, I'm asking you tonight to take that step to truly surrender whatever it is you're grasping on for your security, your identity, your fear, your control, your safety, whatever that is, let it go, rely on God and ask for his help. You can't, but God can. And so let him, let him tonight take you. And the first step in this is to be honest with yourself. Look inside, ask the spirit to show you those patterns of behavior that are obstacles to his grace. If you know why they're there, tonight's the night to surrender them. Father Jonathan talked about the lie that someone spoke to him about his not trusting or believing that he was worth it. You know, when men and women live in that lie, they try to compensate in lots of different ways and they're all negative. What's the fundamental lie that you might be believing right now? Ask the Holy Spirit to show that to you and speak a word of truth into your being. Be honest with it. Be honest with it. Trust that God is ready to make a moral and psychological, physiological miracle of you to set you free completely in his grace. God can. He loves you so much. He loves you just as you are right now, but not enough to leave you there. Take the next step, fellas. Don't be afraid. Go diving. Ask the Holy Spirit tonight to set you free. He's the only one that can do it. Tonight can be the start of a radically free life and God wants to set you free. In a few minutes, Father Dave will speak and prepare us for the Eucharistic Holy Hour, before he does that, though, I'd like to, I'd like you to pray with me, Cardinal Mary DeVal's Litany of Humility. Surely you know that, right? Okay. You know, it's a litany of deliverance. Cardinal Mary DeVal was, gosh, you know, he was the Secretary of State for the Holy Father top of his game, really. And because he was so incredibly successful, so talented, he always had to ask God to keep him free so that he wouldn't be self-reliant. They wouldn't grasp at any of his gifts, that he wouldn't move into a position of bossing people around and bullying them around and lording over them who he was, Cardinal Mary DeVal. And he prayed this prayer, this litany of humility. And I just want to ask you tonight, fellas, before we have the Holy Hour, to just stand with me, please stand and be willing to pray it, okay? Be willing to pray it. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Together. Oh, Jesus, me and humble of heart, here. From the desire of being a slave, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being loved, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being a stole, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being honored, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being praised, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being approved, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being humiliated, from the fear of being despised, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of suffering rebukes, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being common, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being ridiculed, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being wrong, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being suspected, deliver me, Jesus. That others may be loved more than I. Jesus, grant me the grace of desire. That others may be esteemed more than I. Jesus, grant me the grace of desire. That in the opinion of the world, others may increase, and I may decrease. Jesus, grant me the grace of desire. That others may be chosen, and I set aside. Jesus, grant me the grace of desire. That others may be praised, and I unnoticed. Jesus, grant me the grace of desire. that others may prefer to me in everything, that Jesus grant me the grace to desire, that others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should. Jesus grant me the grace to desire it. For freedom say, Christ has set us free. Tonight, let us ask the Blessed Mother, Mother who loves us so deeply, to help us to be full of grace by surrendering those places in our soul that Satan has trapped. Invite the Holy Spirit in to all those places, fellas. Ask him to change the way you think that is negative and to rewire your mind, your heart, your passions so that you may live in the fullness of his grace and his freedom.