 By way of introduction, my name is Father Tim Deely. I'm a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, just next door. And I'm the administrator of three parishes there, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bellevue, Sacred Heart in Emsworth, and St. John Neumann in Franklin Park. And I think my former boss was here yesterday, Father Joe Freedy. So it's been my lot in life to follow Father Joe. So he was a quarterback. He may have mentioned that. No, he didn't. OK, it's a very good quarterback. I went to high school and played Division I in college. I'm shocked that he didn't mention that. But I was a high school teacher before I was a priest. So I was a high school teacher for 10 years at an all-boys school in Providence, Rhode Island. And then this past year taught at Central Catholic High School. So it's a great honor for me to be here at the Bosco Conference and with fellow educators in the faith. It's an extremely important vocation, not just a profession. Today, I just have a quick story and then two points. First, the story. So I went to seminary at Catholic University in Washington, DC, lived right across the street from the Basilica of the Shrine. So many of you have probably been there. And Catholic U has its own metro stop. You may have been there for the March for Life. So it's the Brooklyn CUA metro stop. And one afternoon during seminary, that was the way we'd get into town and stuff. So one afternoon, I walked down to the metro stop. And it was maybe 2.30, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And while I was waiting for the train to arrive, school had just gotten out. And so there were school kids on the metro station. And I observed a great scene. There were a group of boys there, maybe 10, 11 years old. And they were playing a game. There were these big concrete pillars on the metro stop. And one by one, the boys would put their back to the pillar and they would trace their height with a piece of chalk or whatever they were using. And so one by one, the boys would go, put their back to the pillar, and measure their height. So it was kind of a funny game because they were playing a game that tried to see who was tallest. So one by one, as each boy went up, he would kind of stretch himself upwards to try to meet the chalk line drawn by the tallest boy. It was funny to me because it was pretty obvious who won. There was one kid that was way taller than the others. But thinking about that game, the boys trying to measure up, lift themselves up, meet the line drawn by the tallest, there's something about that game, that scene that stayed with me. And the more I thought about it, there's something in there I can't quite shake about it. And I think it's the fact that in some ways, that little game quietly captures so much of our own lives, many times. The constant striving to better ourselves, to be better than so and so. The natural and oftentimes problematic and usually fruitless comparing of ourselves to each other, the desire to impress parents or teachers or coworkers, friends, bosses, the bishop. But what really enthralls me and captivates me and honestly kind of frightens me about that game is this question. What if in real life, in the course of human history, among all the human beings who have ever lived, what if there really was a tallest who had walked among us? What if there was a human being who was so perfect, so utterly best, so endearing and good and captivating and humble and inspirational and heroic and wise, that when I stand with my back to the pillar, I look up to a chalk line far above anything I could pretend to reach. All the words of the scriptures and all that we do here at Mass Today, they're a clarion call and a reminder the tallest has been here. There once lived a human being who was God himself. Born as a baby boy, 2,000 years ago, he grew up under his mother, Mary, and his foster father, Joseph. He lived quietly as a poor man and then preached and performed miracles unseen by the world up till then. He, who could have done anything, then freely offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of every human being who ever lived or would lived. He suffered greatly. He was tortured and died painfully. And then on the third day, in the calm of an early Sunday morning, he physically rose from the dead and was even more alive than before he died. The spiritually tallest of human beings, Jesus Christ. The God who created us also became one of us so that he could save us. He's the one who speaks to us today in the scriptures, telling us one of the deepest secrets of the universe that before anything existed, any tree or mountain range or continent or planet or solar system or galaxy out to the billions of light years, there existed a father and a son and the spirit of love between them. Three persons, the one God. That's the first point. The second and shorter point is this. Jesus Christ sets a very high line showing us what a complete human being really looks like. Utterly wise, free, self-giving, hopeful, generous, courageous, humble. All through the gospels, Christ is constantly urging us to be like him, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Does Christ ask the impossible? How are we to be perfect? Flawed and scared, frustrated and angry as we are. The answer is shown to us in the scriptures. We cannot save ourselves only by allowing the Holy Spirit to come to our aid. By accepting the sacrifice of Christ on the cross in our lives will we really be able to grow. Christ to his apostles tells them that no one can come to the Father except through him and no one can come to him except through them. He gives to them the power to baptize, to forgive sins. It's to them that he says at the Last Supper, do this in memory of me. Christ saves us through the preaching of the gospel, through the truth. But the way that concretely comes into my life and yours, the mechanism of God's saving grace in my life and yours is not through anything abstract but very concrete. Christ saves you and me through the sacraments of his church and he uses intermediaries as the way that he's going to work to heal us and to help us grow. The apostles cooperated with Christ's plan for their lives and so they received the Holy Spirit and lived in the complete freedom of the sons and daughters of God. We, and through extension our students and those that we teach, if we're to live authentically, if we're to live genuinely and fully, we must do what the apostles did. We must accept through the sacraments the Lord saving grace and plan in our lives. And then here is a really great thing. That when we do that, we can be like St. Peter and the other apostles, like St. John the Baptist of old, like St. Katery today among her people, pointing out Christ, the way of life, the truth. We can do that to those who might find themselves floundering or thirsting or wandering listlessly and maybe even despairing, those who are looking for the truth for that highest possible chalk line. So today and during this conference, let us, you and I, during the column of the summer months before the school year starts again, let us stand with our backs to the pillars of our lives and draw a chalk line over our own heads and see where we are. And then let us look upwards and see the chalk line drawn for us by Christ himself so that we might be the great men and women that God created us to be, that he redeemed us to be, that he's come to us through the sacraments to make us to be. It's only possible if we accept Christ's help, Christ's help that he so desperately wants to give us so that we might heal and grow to be the free, happy and powerful human beings that we were meant to be in this life and for all eternity.