 Thank you Father Dave After you get so old you don't remember how many conferences you've attended, but we have a student on the bio conference We've had it now for this our 10th year and There's a there's a promotion going on on the on the Facebook saying how many student conferences has the Bishop attended and I was looking at the other day they're up to 34 And it's true. I think I've been at 35 34 35 conferences over my years as a priest and Bishop Not only here, but youth conferences and charismatic conferences and etc So always it's been it's always good to come home to come here and to just give thanks and praise to God for what God has done Blessed to be God and father of Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens as He chose us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world to be holy to be without blemish In love he destined us for adoption in himself to Jesus Christ in a court of the favor of his will For the praise and glory of his grace that he granted us and his beloved Ephesians 1 3 to 6 That's one of my favorite passages in all of the scriptures It is God's plan and Will that we are to be his adopted sons But because of original sin, we don't come into life as adopted sons of the father only as creatures Only through Jesus our Lord and Savior is this relationship restored by virtue of his obedience to the father Even to the death of the cross From all eternity The father chose his own divine son by nature The word to become man and to demonstrate how in his own humanity man could be the son of the father Let me take a little pause here When I read that passage from Ephesians some time ago, I guess about four or five years ago It struck me that it says before the world began God chose us in Christ Jesus But Christ Jesus Was not a reality before the world began So why does Paul say before the world began God chose us in Christ Jesus? It is my speculation. It's not it's it's not a Theological statement, but a speculation of my port that even if for some reason Original sin never happened The son of God would become man to show us to teach us How to be sons of the father How to be real sons of the father? And so even though we experienced Original sin and even though Jesus has come to redeem us and save us and and show us the father Reveal the face of the father to us. I believe even that had not taken place. He would still become man The son of God became man to reconcile us back to to God to heal the father wound caused by sin to restore us in To his grace and our grace inheritance as adopted sons of the father There was a point That Jesus in his humanity became and was so in love with God the father But he desired to do only the father's will nothing else As he came to realize the father's love and the father's call to him to be the anointed prophesy Messiah he desired to publicly commit his whole being and life to the father. He loved passionately So he went to the Jordan to publicly acknowledge his yes to the father that the father's call To plunge himself totally in doing the will of the father Being immersed in the Jordan with his yes to the father at this moment and in this event Jesus was sustained by one single experience in his life after his baptism in the Jordan while in prayer he experienced a theophany the Father with great joy said you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased and The spirit filled Jesus in his humanity with a fresh outpouring of anointing and power The fathers of the church along with st. John Paul the second said that this was the kiss of the father That sustained Jesus throughout his life even on the cross Have you been kissed by the father? Have you been kissed by the father? The answer is yes We may not know it. We may not remember it But just as when we were infants Probably our father kissed us We don't know it. We don't remember it, but we were kissed by the father as Priest deacons and seminarians the father has said to us and says it again tonight in this week You are my beloved sons in whom I am well pleased and the spirit has anointed and powered us and desires to do It again this week Let's just take a moment And let's reflect on that God saying to you personally Just as he said to his son Jesus in a different capacity But the same intentionality You are my son my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased Sit with that at a moment You are my beloved son you You are My beloved son in Whom I'm well pleased as our dain priests. We are all to Christie The priest is by grace a son of God and a spiritual father those God gives him The priest shares as an instrument of God in the spiritual rebirth of his sons and daughters in the waters of baptism The priest shares in the person of Christ the head in the nourishing of his sons and daughters to the Eucharistic banquet The priest shares in the spokesman of God in the discipline of his sons and daughters through the sacrament of reconciliation As deacons and seminarians you share in the ministry of Christ as priests prophet and king because of the your baptism in confirmation Every man is a father naturally or spiritually as a deacon You are married you who are married or both as seminarians You are potential fathers Striving at this point of your discernment to be future spiritual fathers But before being a father Every man must recognize the that he is first a son Not only of his biological father But for foremost his the son of his heavenly father it is this primary relationship between God the father and We or us his adoptive sons that is at the heart of the fatherhood of the human father Biological or spiritual our image of God his father and our image of ourselves as beloved sons May not reflect the reality of God and the reality of our true identity Our image of God his father is sometimes colored And is determined and blurred by our image of our earthly father If our human father was kind loving encouraging caring patient Outreaching person for personally intimate correcting but accepting then we see God the father similarly but if our human father was distant Uncaring disapproving Unemotional never hugged us or said verbally nor physically that he loved us too busy for us never close hard to talk to made us fearful of him punish us unreasonably Then we see the heavenly father with the same understanding The same may be said of your relationship with the bishop and his relationship with you Like the heavenly father the bishop is called to be a father to his priests Deacons and seminarians and you as loving sons to him But Francis said to a group of bishops recently I would ask you in a special way to be close to your priests Supporting them as fathers easing their burdens and leading them with tenderness At another time he said this closeness of the bishop is not only fraternal, but also paternal as they carry out their pastoral ministry Priests often need it Bishops must not be distant from their priests or worse unapproachable Jesus came to reveal the true picture of his father who is our father Jesus was a reflection and an instrument of the father's love I do what the father shows me to see me is to see the father the father and I are one If you know me you would know the father and he promised to send the spirit whom the father poured out upon us out of his great love for us Jesus told us that the spirit would teach us to remind us all that he Jesus taught us The spirit who is loved the bond of father of the father and the son's mutual love will enable us to come to know the father's love revealed in and through Jesus To know this love not only intellectually in our head, but emotionally in our heart and through our personal experience God the father loves his son The son receives the love in thanksgiving and receiving the father's love thus the son acknowledges the father's love and Validates it Knowing that the son receives his love is sufficient for the father who delights in loving his son The father doesn't look for love in return However, the son loves the father and therefore responds to the father in love in turn Jesus fathered the apostles through love His love was manifested in acceptance of each one and Directing each to reach his full potential and forgiveness and healing and Challenging each and providing the best for each and laying down his life for each It is in the context of that love each finds self understanding and self-worth The self-worth is a gift that does not come from the outside, but is already a given within them But that self-worth can only be discovered and acknowledged in a context of love and acceptance how often in dealing with people especially men They don't feel loved you I asked the question. Are you loved? Yeah, sure. No Do you know that your love down deep in your heart? Well, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I know no no Do you really believe? That you are This is silence and the response is no I Really don't believe I love How unfortunate that is And yet that's the reality that we sometime experience in our own lives and we have to encounter in the lives of others Jesus reveals and the Spirit confirms a father who cares for us Jesus does this in his teaching and his actions the image of the good shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and when he finds it He rejoices the parable of the lost coin with the rejoicing upon finding it Jesus reveals the father who's merciful and forgiving as Jesus reached out to the sinners and outcasts. He was saying I am doing my father's will Who sins me to show you his love and his mercy his forgiveness and his Reconciliation when he healed the sick cast out the demons raised the dead to life He was showing the mercy compassion and love of the father The most beautiful depiction of the father's love and mercy Compassion and true desire for us is that told to us in the protocol in the parable of the father and his two sons I Call it the parable of the foolish father The younger one runs away physically from home Symbolizing his total alienation from the father and the elder stays home Symbolizing obligation, but not commitment to the father The father loves both of them and ministers each as they are The younger son couldn't wait for the father to die There's no indication the father had done anything against the son. It was what the father had that motivated the son He was a man of means Once he died his two sons was shared the inheritance the older would get two-thirds in the younger one-third The younger son couldn't wait for this old man as far as I am concerned You are dead, and I want nothing more to do with you. I want my future inheritance now The father loved the son and gave him what was not his yet, but will still belong to the father The father frees him to wish him dead and to be alienated from the father He loves him so much. He frees him to make his choice even at the expense of the father This is what God does for us He gives us the freedom of will to choose to love him in a relationship or to reject him through sin Having seen the result of his decision now destitute He lost more than his material inheritance. He lost his self identity his self-worth his self-acceptance He was a nobody not even good enough to eat the slop of the pigs His return to the father's house was out of hunger and self-preservation. I don't deserve to be your son Let me be at least a hard-hand a slave His shame and guilt remained within him even though he said I've sinned against God and you He called him father not as a son, but possibly as a servant would call The father loves his son He never stopped loving his son. He longs for the day. He will see his son again He looks for him daily his prayers go out to him son return home. I love you God waits for us with a greater loving and passionate love He sends his grace upon us to draw us home But he waits for us to choose to come home and to be united with him in a father son father son relationship of love When he sees his son at a distance the foolish father runs to him praising God crying waving his hand He embraces him tenderly in his arms and kisses him for furfusely on his cheek and head What is Jesus saying? Jesus saying that his father Reacts the same way when one of us returns to him after we ran away because of sin But something is wrong with this picture The father so joyful and the son is cold and unresponsive to the father Remember the painting of the of the prodigal son that that in the father hugging the son What is the son doing? Nothing He's passive the father has his arms around him and the son is just passively there The father so joyful and the son so cold and unresponsive to the father He can't even look at the father eye to eye. He can't embrace the father and kiss him on the cheek He's almost lifeless and the father's embrace There's something he is holding on to Something that prevents him from experiencing the healing love and freeing mercy then conditional acceptance of the father He feels so full of self-condemning guilt and shame. He feels so totally unworthy. Don't father I don't deserve this. I have sinned against God and you I'm a loser You don't know what I've done and how low I have fallen You don't know how abused I have been by others and who used me for their pleasure as I use them I've lost my right to sonship May I be a hard hand or at least can get something to eat and a place to sleep The father wouldn't hear any of this nonsense. I Don't care what others think of you think of you or think of what you've done. You're my son You were dead, but now you live you were lost, but now you were found. Let's celebrate and rejoice Here are the symbols of your sons yet the robes this ring the shoes the status of son Tonight and every day God says to us the same message You are my son God the father wants to embrace each one of us each day with the same abandoned Abandoned love unconditional love unmerciful love Each of us needs to know that we are love for who we are and not for some other motive in spite of our shortcomings and our failures When Michelangelo saw the flawed block of marble. He saw the statue the shepherd boy David within Everyone saw the external flawed object the artist saw the interior treasure within This is how God sees us When he looks at our hearts He sees his image in us He sees the good That he has already implanted in each of our hearts He sees our sonship The father believes in the prodigal son and when the son doesn't believe in himself Even when he purifies us and strips us God has the vision of himself in us and seeks for our sake to bring it about and Not for his sake The father doesn't possess his son, but frees him to respond or not There's always the question. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing what you're doing? the father says simply Because I love you Whether you accept or respond or reject or refuse I Love you That's my rule as a father To love you we can't equate or duplicate God's love for us But we can imitate his love be a reflection of his love to others we can receive his love and We can be love Yes, the priest is a spiritual son of God by grace and a son of the human father by nature His relationship with the natural fathers learn and experience through the tangible and a tactical as well as verbal and nonverbal statements and actions of his human father Unfortunately, but true Everyone else has father wounds no matter what degree of love and affection we receive from the human father For the human father has his own wounds coming from the imperfection of our human nature Which has been further damaged by original and personal sin If the priest and deacon as father and seminarian as potential father Doesn't realize that he is an adoptive son of God the father if he doesn't know how to receive the love of the father the kiss of the father Then he would find it hard to fully and properly father his own children in accord to the pattern of the heavenly father These father wounds in us hold us back from receiving this outpouring gift of love in mercy It is fear guilt unworthiness shame sin past failures things done to us feelings We don't understand anger resentment failed relationships unanswered needs you name it Yes name it But don't own it any longer all these created wall insulating and Isolating us from the father even though we cry for all the father wants to give us Though our heart wants it our self understanding our scars and our hurt memories prevent us from experiencing it Until we let go the junk within us. We can't know the fullness of the father's love in mercy He wants to embrace us with his love He wants to heal us and restore us to our full inheritance as sons Many times because our father wounds we resist any of the times God reaches out to love us We can't accept his love because we wrongly believe that we are not worthy We are so conscious of our sinfulness that we don't have a we have a hard time to be open to the loving mercy and forgiveness of the father The father of the product of son rush to embrace and kiss his son when he returns home But the son initially holds the father's embrace resist the father's embrace and love since the son knows what he has done And thus it's not deserving of such lavish affection But the father's persistent for he sees his son not the runaway He is more happy that the son has chosen to return and is not interested in the sordid details during his alienation from the father The son seeks only to be a hard hand, but the father refuses anything less than full sonship So when God seeks to break through the resisting walls of our darkened tomb Instead of initially welcoming the embracing arms, we try to push him away We try to run we try to deny or question why and how God could or would enter into myself imposed darkness with his dazzling light But in spite of our efforts of resistance God persists in love to speak words of love and words of life and freedom and ewness and wholeness we fight We struggle, but God will not withdraw It's almost like we know if we Resist long enough God will give up and prove what we fear was real That he doesn't love us no matter what he says to the contrary Some of us prefer to settle for the hug rather than the embrace A hug is one sided and embraces recently is received and mutually and freely responded to A hug says something from the one hugging But it's not received fully by the one hugged who is also making a statement but in embrace An embrace is welcome Received responded to and a gift of love is exchange In an embrace you're included And enclosed in the arms of the other and the other in your arms Let me share your a story Many years ago at a stewville south conference. It was on the theme of the conference was father And I was called to to give the the keynote address saturday night As I was praying to god, what does he want me to say? I heard god in my heart says i don't want you to say too much I want you to show my love. I want you to demonstrate my love I said god, what do you mean? He says I want you to publicly embrace A young man and a young woman And tell them how much you love them as a reflection of my love I said lord, you've got to be kidding I said in this mew you For me to do this publicly with all this sex abuse scandal that's out there You've got to be kidding And god says no i'm not kidding I want you to do it I struggled with it I struggled with it And so we I talked to our staff The conference I said, you know, am I am I losing my mind? Am I am I trying to imagine something? They said no do it Say thank you And so I said okay god, I will do it. I if that's what you want me to do I will do it And so I had talked to a young man that I was I was doing spiritual Direction with and a young lady that I was doing spiritual director with and I was fathering them on the journey And I said if I would call you up Would you come up to the stage and allow me to tell you how much I love you and to embrace you in the father's love? They said yeah And so I gave a short introduction as few words no mat no longer than five five ten minutes And then I said I told them the story And then I said I'd like Josh and kelly to come up And they both came up to the stage And I I looked at josh and I had my microphone on and I looked right into his eyes and josh I love you as a spiritual son I love you very much josh And I want you to know how much I love you And I gave him a bear a bear hug And I just held him in my arms And he just just held me in his arms And then I went to kelly and I said the exact same thing and I held her in my arms and she held me in her arms I couldn't see the reaction of the the congregation in the crowd because I was in light and they were in darkness But the staff said bishop It was not a dry eye in The group of young people They all wanted To know that they're loved They all wanted that embrace They wanted that tangible touch That says that they're worth something and that they are loved And I can't tell you after each of the conferences The the student conferences that I've been part of Over the years since then how many young people when I'm standing outside on sunday morning After the mass how many young people just come up right to me just throw their arms and hug me And they just want to be hugged they want to be loved they want to know that someone someone loves them And we represent god We are the the christ They're looking for us To show them that love and I know it's dangerous And I know it would some people say this goes against the charter But my my recommendation to my priest Was this I want you to be a father a spiritual father. I want you to be a holy man I want you to love in a holy way I want you to love your people and I want you to show your love to your people And if you are doing something right and good and holy and you are loving your your your people and your kids And you are you are charged by somebody i'll defend you I'll be there with you As long as you haven't done anything wrong I want you to know that they need your love The father in the product in the parable asked no questions He simply wanted his son to know how happy he was to have him home to see his face again To share with him his life in all things The son must make a choice when he dropped all the ways he saw himself All the ways he hurt his father and himself all the negative things he thought instead of his father Is he willing to be son again? Or are you willing? To be sons again But there's another son in the picture He has been angry over the fact that his father has been looking for this no good kid That anger explodes when he finds out the the younger brother's home That the father has joyfully welcomed him back and restored him fully to sonship without question asked or punishment Exacted and that the father is actually throwing a party for him What a foolish and stupid old man The anger intensifies when he thinks of how faithful he has been to the father and has never received any signs of gratitude Like a party in his honor He has acted out of obligation Hoping for some reward He wanted to do the same with his younger son, but was afraid that his father would disown him He was more the servant than the son He is angry at the brother and angry at the father and may be angry at himself What a fool I have been all these years Working to please my father For what? The father loves both He goes out to his son and shows him how much he loves him and accepts him He asked him to let go his anger jealousy resentment superiority Arrogance and allow the loving father to embrace him as well Jesus doesn't tell us what the younger son's response to the father was Nor that of the older son He only tells us of the loving father Who reveals the love and mercy the acceptance and joy of the heavenly father When one lost son or daughter comes home To his embrace God wants to hold us in that embrace of his loving arms tonight but first We need to let go our past hurts and scars What are those hurts and scars? in your relationship to your father in relationship to Your bishop in relationship to superiors What are those scars? What are those hurts? Why are you hanging on to them? Didn't paul say don't let the son go down on your anger? Don't give the devil a chance So what are those scars? And what are those angers? And what does god want to do for us? I want to talk very quickly about a scar that i've experienced It wasn't directly from my father, but it's a wound It was from my mother That my father was part of the scar Over the years as as a priest as I was growing going into my ministry There was it was always A major stumbling block that I would that I would experience and that was When a dominating woman would somehow another come against me What happened was we were having a preparation for a conference and as we were preparing for this conference This lady was part of the conference team and she was my thorn in my side You ever had one of those people that always was a thorn in your side where she was that thorn in my side? and so After after we had this little confrontation at the during the meeting. She says I want to talk to you Well, I didn't want to talk to her But as a nice guy I said, okay, let's go to my office So in my office and she reamed me down one up one side and down the other side I was the worst person that could ever exist in the world and how could I ever be a priest? Well, she pushed the wrong button When she starts attacking me this way all of a sudden my throat became very tight And and the rage began to Come from the bottom of my toes and I finally said Get out of here. I don't want to talk to you And she says I don't want to talk to you either slam bang out. She went I was embarrassed Because there's a group of people right outside the other side of the door that heard this whole explosion And I knew I had to go from the here to there to get outside and I didn't want to talk to anybody You know what charismatic do when they have situations? Can we pray with you father? I didn't want anybody to touch me pray with me do anything I want out So I said, yeah sure fine pray with me. Oh I left I'm boiling The next day I began my annual retreat And as I began the retreat I said to god god, what is this rage? What is the situation that that I have no control over? And god in his mercy Revealed to me. He says it's always been a woman. Yes, I know I said, what is the root? And it's in my heart. I heard your mother I said You miss that god Mom and I were like that I was the two sons. I was the spoiled one I was the I was the the the good one I was the one that was uh catered to et cetera, et cetera, et cetera I said no that can't be and god said yes it was When you were a child he said You saw your mother you perceived your mother dominating your father And as a child you resented your mother for dominating your father and as a child you resented your father for allowing your mother to dominate This was your perception And because you couldn't do anything as a child you buried it And every time you saw that happening every time you had that experience you just deep Dug a deeper hole and buried it And then it's a priest when a woman began to dominate you you explode And I said what must I do? And god said forgive Forgive And I said mom's dead. It doesn't make a difference. He said You have to forgive her For what you perceive That she did to you and you had to forgive your father For what you've perceived He did to you And so I began to just cry out in Tears and just began to forgive my mom forgive my dad asked my mom's forgiveness asked my dad's forgiveness He says you got to forgive yourself. I forgave myself And I just took all that junk and I put it at the foot of the cross and he says now Let's go over your history and one woman after the other after the other after the other after the other He would show me And I do the same process And finally when I finally got to the thorn in my side You know, I was I was felt such a release as a relief that I was free now I didn't have this this this burden that was holding me back and causing such great pain The week after I came back from retreat I'm brought ready to go to bed and I get a phone call 11 o'clock at night and guess who? The thorn in my side And she just begins again Rean me up one side and down the other because I didn't do x y and z or I did it wrong And I'm sitting in my chair internally laughing And after 20 minutes, she didn't take a break, but after 20 minutes when she took a break. I said are you finished? Yes Good night I was free Whatever that score was God in his mercy and his in his love freed me And so I could see my father and talk to my father I had a great relationship with my father in the last six years of his life. He lived with me And I wasn't sure if I was the pastor. He was a pastor, but he lived with me And we had a great relationship But it was because of a healing That's what god wants to do in each of our lives And maybe god scarred us We think Or the church scarred us we think Or somebody who in the church scarred us we think No matter what it was God says get in touch with it I want to free you Because that score is affecting your relationship with me I want to break in I want to I want to fill you with my life But I can't feel you Because you've got such a small opening for me to enter into Open up And what's restricting that is all this anger and resentment and bitterness And non-forgiveness and unworthiness and all the junk of your past That's restricting you from receiving the fuller openness of my love So tonight This week Hear the the call of god in your hearts Let god reveal to you. What does he want to heal in your heart in your life? So that he can truly be the father Ask forgiveness forgive and ask forgiveness Ask god's forgiveness Give away and place at the foot of the cross all the junk Let it go So that god can be god in our lives He wants to embrace us Open your heart to that embrace And respond to that embrace In a short while We will have the opportunity to receive the sacrament of reconciliation It's this is that moment that god wants to break through No matter what our past was And has been god wants to break through Because he has so much love to give us And so the sacrament of reconciliation Here is the moment in which he wants to pour out his love In you in a fresh new way and tomorrow when we celebrate the Eucharist If we if we have opened our hearts Even a little bit more to his love than he can pour more love into us And so get in touch Get in touch Let this night truly be a night Of new life That you will hear again You are my beloved sons In whom I'm well pleased You are my beloved son In whom I'm well pleased