 Well, thanks, everybody. Can you hear me? All right. As you clapped before I got started, I couldn't help but think of what Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen used to say. And am I the only old person that remembers Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen? He said, he used to say, applause at the beginning of a talk is an act of faith. And then he said, applause in the middle of a talk is an act of hope. Now, you can imagine, as he said, at the end of a talk, if it's outstanding applause, it's a great act of charity. So I thank you for that initial applause. And Ron, thank you so much for the, not only the invitation, but also the wonderful warm welcome. I appreciate that very much. You know, I have to say this. This is my second visit to Franciscan University. This is not my talk, by the way. I just as a pre-talk. I am really impressed. I was here probably 15 years ago to give a mass, have a mass with those who were involved in kind of pre-theology. They were considering the possibility of the priesthood. And I was impressed then, but meeting so many of you who are here. And then listening to the witness of Shannon and Jeff, I was just so impressed by the witness that is given here. Don't you agree? Thank God for the presence of Franciscan University. So I told you that I come from Louisville, Kentucky. And you know, we have a little horse race there every year. Are you familiar with that? I go to the horse race. I go to the Kentucky Derby every year. I'm in my ninth year as archbishop. And I think I've been at eight. And this past year was my most successful. I lost only $13. So about three years ago, and by the way, I go in my collar. About three years ago, I got on the elevator to go up to the seat that I had. I was on the elevator. A man was on there. And a man looked at me. He looked at my collar. And he said, father, are priests allowed to bet? And I don't know why I said this. I said, well, I think we're allowed to bet, but we're not allowed to win. And like this, the man said to me, you know, I believe I may have a vocation. Now, many, many people are going to say to you, when you hear preachers talking, they'll say, now, that's a true story. That actually is a true story. It really is. But I do want to talk to you about vocation, because you're catechists. And you're all in different levels of what it means to be a catechist. Many of you come with great experiences. I know that. I've always liked to teach. When I first was ordained a priest, I was assigned to a high school. It was probably the hardest thing. I don't think I was all that successful, to be honest with you. And I thought, gee, maybe I'm just not caught out for this work. I don't mean a priest. I meant cut out to be a catechist or a teacher. So I know it's not easy to teach. And I thank you, because if the world ever, ever needed catechists who are formed and committed in love and truth, and I hear this at Franciscan University all the time, not just love and not just truth, but both, we need people who are willing to be evangelizers of both. So I thank you for being formed. You're serious about it, or you wouldn't be here. Now, I noticed that Ron, when he introduced me, he started with when I was ordained a priest. Did you know I actually lived before that? And I want to talk to you about that. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why I was 25 when I was ordained a priest. But I want to tell you tonight, I want to talk to you about a very unique part of reaching out in mercy. And that is the capacity for you and me to enter into the presence of another person. Now, obviously, where I'm going with this is studying the gospels. Because if you want to know how to enter into the life of another person, study Jesus. But the truth is that if we don't enter into the life of another person, what we say will not be heard. You agree with that, don't you? I think it was the great sister. And by the way, before I quote sister, let me quote George Burns. Any of you remember George Burns? George Burns was asked, he was asked, how would you characterize a good homily? And he said, well, now, first of all, I'm not Catholic. But he said, since I'm asked, I will let you know. He says, I think a good homily begins with a very sharp beginning. It ends with a very powerful ending, and it has very little room in between. So that's not this talk tonight. Cicero, here's what he said. Cicero was the great orator from the glories of Rome. And he said, a great speech teaches delights and sways. He said, to teach is a necessity. To delight makes all agreeable, but to sway brings victory. This is important for us who are wanting to be catechists. To teach is a necessity, he's not saying not to teach. To delight makes all agreeable. People will not listen to you if you're boring. I hope I don't prove that tonight. But to sway, you know what we would say to bring about conversion? To change hearts, to change hearts brings about victory. I'd like to talk to you about the art of accompaniment. Our Holy Father Pope Francis says that the first act of mercy is to walk with another person. Now, we know we walk with them in love and in truth. We need to lead people somewhere we don't walk in circles. But we begin by walking with another person. I never used the phrase accompaniment in my life, I don't think, nor the art of accompaniment. But guess what? When I was ordained a priest in 1972, the very priests that I looked around and saw and thought, you know, I want to be like that priest. You know what I'm talking about. If you've been desirous to be a catechist, you look around and you say, boy, this is my mentor. Even if I don't ever talk to this person, I'm going to watch what this person does and imitate what they do. Well, that's how I was as a young priest. I thought, I want to be like this priest or that priest. And you know what was good about them? They were no nonsense. They preached the truth. But they always had a capacity to join people, to befriend people. That's why I like the Chrisea where it said, do you remember it says, make a friend? Am I the only one who knows that one? Make a friend, be a friend. Bring a friend to Christ. Make a friend, be a friend. Jesus in all the gospel passages. Do you remember, I think it was at John 1, Andrew was following Jesus. Jesus turns around and he says, what are you looking for? I think Andrew was Irish because he answered the question with another question. And he said, Lord, where do you live? And do you remember what Jesus said? Come and see. So the good catechist always begins with invitation because that's what Jesus did. Now when Jesus said, go, he often added, go and be converted. He actually, remember, he actually said, go and sin no more. So it wasn't as if we don't deal with the truth. It is so important if we are going to have victory, if we're going to sway people. So we can only imitate Jesus within our own abilities to be true to ourself, as I said in the homily, not like Sinatra said. So I have to be in touch with the gifts that I grew up with. I was born in a coal town in the northeast part of Pennsylvania. Now I'll tell you why I'm telling you this story. You're going to say, oh my gosh, it's like going on vacation with them. No, I'm doing this because I want you to be thinking, all right, well, what are the gifts that you have? What is it that you will need to do to join other people? I'm a social worker too. And so I understand that if you're ever going to help someone, if you're going to lead someone to the truth, the first thing you have to do is join them, be one with them. It's the reason I told you the thing about the derby. I knew you'd laugh. It breaks, I think, gives you a chance to get to know me. It's not just me getting to know you. It's you getting to know me. It's not just you getting to know the people that you are going to be teaching or catechizing. It's giving them a chance to get to know you, right? That's what accompaniment is about. So I was born in a little coal town. It was at the time in which coal was pretty much gone from the northeast part of Pennsylvania, at least the little town of Mahonui City. It was in the northeast part of Pennsylvania. OK, I'll admit it. I was the baby in the family. I hope I'm not the only one here. Is there anyone else who's the baby in the family? Oh, thank god. I love it. I love that. I love that. There were three older sisters. I love them. I love my older sisters. And most days, really, they loved me. Now, they were already, by the time I came along, most of my sisters were already married or in high school getting ready to get out of high school. None of my family went to college. So when they got out of high school, they either got a job away from Mahonui City because there were no jobs there. So most of my time growing up occurred with myself and my older brother. My older brother, Georgie, had down syndrome. Do any of you know anybody who had down syndrome? Oh, OK, I see a couple of hands. I'm a big, listen, know yourself and know your family. If somebody, if I meet a family where there's a child or an adult with down syndrome, it's as if I've known them for 50 years. If you have a gift, a particular gift, use it to join other people. This is very important if we are to be instruments of mercy. So I had a brother, my brother, Georgie, had down syndrome. Georgie was five years older than I. And he went to grade school more for, my mom would call it discipline, but it was more for what they call today socialization. And our little Slovak school closed when he was in seventh grade and I was in third grade. I went on to another school he didn't. So that was the extent of his education. He's very, very smart. I remember when I was in fourth grade, I was worried that he wasn't going to school. So I'd come home and teach him the times tables. I even had some of my buddies teaching him. He was very patient with us. But that was a good thing. I didn't know that I was being called to be a priest until I was probably in 10th grade. But all of that was God's grace working. Just think back now to the way God's grace was working in you when you were in third grade or fourth grade. That's very important if you're going to be a good catechist because you're going to then understand how God's grace is working in those people you want to serve. I became a priest as Ron told you in 1972. My dad died in 1977 and my mom died in 1989. And I became legal guardian for my brother Georgie. One of the best things that ever happened to me. You've got to understand that Georgie was the big brother. And if anybody forgot that, he would have a way of reminding me. There was no doubt about it. Who was the big brother? And I must admit that I, and people will say this, that I learned more from my brother George in terms of slowing down, in terms of appreciating people. And you know what else? In terms of meeting people. Georgie would go into a room like this and he would talk to each person. I remember saying to him, George, where did you learn to do that? He said, my mom told me. He says, it's called chit chat. He did. I thought, now, my mom was very, very wise. And you have to understand I'm going to fast forward a little bit when my mom died in 1989 and we cleaned out the house. Georgie was coming to the rectory to live with me. My mom's mirror was a little holy card. And you ever see how holy cards are stuck against the rim of the mirror? And this one must have been pulled out every day because it was well-worn. And you know what it was? Prayer of a mother of a priest for her son. Yeah. Now, I hope you have had a chance to discover someone who has been praying for you. I hope in your life you've had some opportunity. And I hope that if you do it, you discover it in a surprise, that you never knew it. And then you begin to think, ah, I wonder if those things that I thought I was doing such a good job with. You know what I'm talking about? I wonder if that was intercessory prayer. So I'm telling you all these things so that you can kind of get to think, well, now, what are the gifts from my own growing up? And growing up, some of you have problems or things, no family's perfect. Not my family was not perfect. But it's very important to know your family. And I liked what Jeff said earlier about the importance of us taking responsibility. We're, I'm in the midst as president today, of trying to come up with a task force to help our bishops and dioceses deal with the tremendous amount of violence and lack of civility and lack of respect, prejudgements. But that can only be all of this relates to the announcement of the good news of Jesus Christ. So that's a little bit about my family growing up. In 10th grade, I started to go to chapel and I thought God's maybe calling me to something more. We were taking all those tests that I think where people enter into Francis can do so well with. And I thought to myself, well, I don't think I'm called to a career. I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like I'm called to serve. I think that was the influence of my brother, George, because my mom all through the time would say, now don't forget to take Georgie with you. In other words, when I go out to a ball game or when we play ball or something like that. And that became part of the integrity. That was the greatest blessing I got from that. So think about the blessing, Jim. So that's the first thing I wanted to say. I know Curtis Martin spoke here, I think, last year. And he makes a distinction of the two Spanish words, the difference between saber, which means to know, and connoisseur, which means to know. And you'd say, well, wait a minute. They both mean to know. Yeah, well, and there's some, I think I'm just talking. Am I right on that? Okay, but saber, I hate this because there's somebody who's an expert in Spanish here. She's gonna be, I'm not even looking to see if she's smiling or nodding her head while I'm talking. But because mi espanyol es muy pobre, disculpa me. But saber means kind of to know facts. And when I first started as a catechus, blame me for it, concentrated almost completely on knowing the truth of the faith. Was it wrong? No. Was it effective? No. Connoisseur means to come to know a person. Very different. If you're gonna do saber, you gotta first do connoisseur. That's the key. So when I became a pastor in 1988, I began to take the parish pictorial directory with me to my holy hour. Now I'll admit it, I did it precisely because I thought, well, I'm giving the Lord an hour. I don't think he'd mind if I do a little side work for 10 minutes and learn a few of the names of the parishioners. Well, what I didn't realize is that this would become a pattern in my holy hours that I would give at least 10 minutes to a page every day. It used to be a page of the pictorial directory. You know what I'm talking about by a pictorial directory? The pictorial directory in my parish where I was serving. And I was amazed at how much I knew about these people. I was amazed because when you're standing, talking to people as they leave church or when you're going on visitation or when you're visiting people in the hospital or when you're part of a catechetical thing and especially one of the kids has a problem at a school and you have to meet with the parents, you know, all those things. There's a richness to how much we know. It's amazing how much we know. But when you know it in prayer, when you begin to reflect, you're coming to know the people you're serving more deeply. So in 2007, I was announced that I was gonna be going as the Archbishop of Louisville and Archbishop Kelly, whom I'm succeeding. He said to me, I wanna give you some information about the Archdiocese. Is there anything you want? I said, would you send me the priest pictorial directory? And so every day now I've been praying one page of priests. I can't imagine you wouldn't wanna do this if you haven't already done it. Just to get the group that you're serving and begin to pray by face. Not only are you going to get to know their names and faces, that was my shameful reason for interrupting my prayer, but you're gonna find that there's tremendous richness because as you uncover the needs of people, you begin to pray for their richness. That is coming to Conocere so that they can share with them. Now there's another way that I can explain it. I'm gonna use the example of bowling. How many of you are bowlers? How many of you have gone bowling? Well, I went bowling about three years ago. There was one of these things. People love to have auctions for doing this, fill in the blank, with the Archbishop. So it's everything. So, and I don't mind, I like to golf, et cetera, and I'm fine with golfing and all, but there was one that was bowling and I thought, geez, I bowled all through grade school and high school, I'd be able to bowl. Here's the lesson. If you haven't bowled for 35 years, sit out the third game. I couldn't move the next day. Well, so this is all based on Robert Putnam's book on bowling alone. Are you familiar with that book? It's a sociological book. It was pretty influential in the late 90s, but he did a book on bowling alone and basically what he was saying is people aren't joining societies anymore. Back in the 50s and 60s, everybody was part of a bowling league. Now, nobody's bowling. One of our priests that I play golf with, Father Tom Gentile, he said to me that in 1973, when he was ordained a priest, at a particular country club that he belongs to, it's not a very expensive. Truth is known, I think they got the thing free from that mistake, but at any rate, he said there were 23 priests who belong to that country club and now he's the only one who golfs. But that's not the story I wanted to tell you. It's about what I learned about how to be a successful bowler. I increased my average from about 155 to about one, let's see, to about 240. Here's what you do. The alley is about 60 feet long. You walk up the alley, you get to about 15 feet, or if you want, go closer, go to about eight feet. You will be amazed. You will be amazed at the change in your scores. Now, I'm gonna tell you the principle of this is summarized in four words. Error increases with distance. Do you know when that was first told? At a men's conference, a father's conference. And there was a story given about fathers who were asked how much time they spend with their children. Oh, they said we're pitiful, we probably spend only about 15 minutes a day. They said, would you mind if we strap on a machine so that we can measure it? And they said, sure, no, we'll do that. And you know what they ended up with? The average each day, 39 seconds, 39 seconds. And the most valuable thing that you and I can give to another person is the most valuable thing we can give. It's a commodity, because there's only so much of it. So it calls for great priority. But the catechist who does not want to give time to the person with whom they want to have a conversion in Christ is not gonna have victory. So to be closer, and I'm joking about, don't go home and say I went up the alley without proper shoes or something like that. I'm using that as an example, but remember those four words. Error increases with distance. It doesn't mean that we're perfect when we get closer to people, but it means if we're distant from people, a priest or a pastor who's distant from his people, a catechist who really doesn't care about the young people that you're, or whatever age the people are, that you're helping to learn, the more distant you are, the greater chance of error. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, so that's just a little something I wanted to say to you. So the example of a catechetical victory is the road to Emmaus. Jesus, the people, I don't know if he said anything at first, did he? He talked with the people, he listened to them. What things happened? Are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know the things that happen these days, remember? He just let them talk, and then they said he started to explain to them the scriptures. He waited until they were ready to hear, and he started to explain to them the scriptures. And then, of course, there was the stopping and the breaking of the bread. So clearly a sign of the Holy Euchar, what they said. Boy, wouldn't I like to be that catechist when you left the classroom and then they said after you finished your session, you know, whatever, he said, oh, we're not our hearts. That was Jesus. And that's basically, he's the one who's teaching us. I think the most modern one I'll be talking about at the University of Mass for the ACE Progradias. It's the feast of, anybody know? Mary Magdalene, the feast of Mary Magdalene, and now she's the first of the apostles that our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has just raised up the level of that feast day to make it the same as one of the 12 apostles. So remember her example after the resurrection. And Jesus appeared to her. He must have been reading his pictorial director because he said Mary, he said her name, right? That's all he said, he didn't give any instructions. He just the name and then she said Roboni teacher. She recognized his voice. She wanted to clean us for another sermon and he said, do not cling to me. He was going off to Gavoli with his wounds, by the way. And if we wanna see Jesus in others because when she goes to announce Jesus, she announces him risen with his wounds. And so that's gonna be important for us in whatever level of catechesis that we are attentive to the wounds of the people we're serving that sometimes block them from understanding. That's so much going on in our name. So I wanna, you get the thing with accompaniment, it's not that, it's not rocket science. But what it is, is it's saying to you in order for us to teach the truth. And remember Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, former Edith Stein. I don't think I have her quote exactly right, I think maybe I wrote it down here. I did write it down, but on a different paper. She said, do not accept as true anything that is not presented with love. And do not accept anything as loving that is not presented as truth. She did not ask as truth and love as a multiple choice. Now I wanna concentrate and I wish I had made copies of Evangelium Nunciandi, number 80. How many of you are familiar with Paul VI's Apostolic Exhortation? No, it was actually, it was an Apostolic Exhortation or an Encyclical, Apostolic Exhortation. Any of you familiar with the Apostolic Exhortation? Right, Nuncian, Evangelium Nunciandi? I noticed that it was December 8th, 1975 and that was exactly 10 days, excuse me, 10 years after the end of the Second Vatican Council to the point. So it was 10 years after the Second Vatican Council ended, so 40 years ago this last December. So I went back and I read paragraph 80. Paragraph 80 is this page plus another half. These are not small paragraphs. That's why I thought, Doran, I should have made a copy for you, but you don't mind if I read a little bit of it, do you? Because it gives you a sense of, if you wanna understand Pope Francis, one of the things to be clear of is he rightly says that Evangelium Nunciandi, he thinks is a core document. He thinks it's the best Apostolic Exhortation ever written and there have been some good ones, Apostolist Abavobus, I could go in to a lot of them that our Holy Father has written. But let me tell you what he says. First of all, he talks about a lack of fervor. He says one of the problems we have with Catechists is that they have lost their fervor. Do you remember Revelations 2.4? Are you familiar with Revelations 2.4? I'd love to give $50 to the person who knows Revelations 2.4. One time I see a hand up now, one time I was in Meade County, it was the 200th anniversary and I said to somebody, I'd love to give $50 to the person who, I know, I'm gonna get to you. I'm gonna get to you, be patient, be patient. He's got his Bible opened. I mean, I said I'd love to give $50 to the person who knows who the Pope was in 1808 when Bardstown was founded. And a hand went up in the back of church and my heart sank. And I said, yes ma'am, she said your excellency, I think it was pious to seventh. Who in the world would know that it was pious to seventh? So I said to her, well, man, you're correct. And you notice I said I would love to give. So I negotiated, I went away from that church $20 lighter. Okay, who has the answer of, go ahead, shout it out. Say it again. Yeah, it says I hold this against you. I think that's close. That's close. I don't think I'm gonna lose 50 bucks on it because you, it wasn't. We'll talk after the session. You lost your first love. You lost your first love, that's exactly right. I hold this against you. This is the translation I like. I hold this against you. You have less love than you used to. Well, that's what our Holy Father back in 1975 said, one of the biggest difficulties is a loss of fervor. He said, and it is all the more serious because it comes from within. It is manifested in fatigue, disenchantment, compromise, lack of interest, and above all, a lack is a good document, isn't it? And then he says, but there are insidious things going on. This is after the Second Vatican Council that are almost claiming that we should not teach. He said, too frequently, one hears it said in various terms that to impose a truth, be that of the gospel or to impose a way, be that of salvation, cannot but be a violation of religious liberty. Then he goes on to say, this is, you're gonna wanna read chapter 80. This is a good verse 80, number 80. He said, it is certainly an error to impose something on the conscience. But then he says, to propose to their consciences the truth of the gospel and salvation in Jesus Christ with complete clarity and with the total respect for the free options which it presents, far from being an attack on religious liberty, fully respects that liberty. In other words, we should not be bashful in being fervent and taking an interest in the person we're cataclyzing and being convinced to share the truth with that person. Now, here's the part I wanna read to you especially. It's at the end of it. This is a, oh, hey, I found the quote on St. Teresa Benedicta. All right, here's the quote. Let us therefore persevere, excuse me, preserve our fervor of spirit. Let us preserve the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing. Even when it is in tears that we must sow. May it mean for us as it did for John the Baptist, for Peter and Paul, for the other disciples, and for the multitude of splendid evangelizers all through the church's history. An interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench. An inside, may it be the great joy of our consecrated lives. And I don't think he means their consecrated lives of like a consecrated vocation. I think he's talking about each one of us in baptism is consecrated to the truth. And may the world of our time which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope be enabled to receive the good news not from an evangelizer. Now here's the part. This is the part we don't wanna be. Not from an evangelizer who is dejected, discouraged, impatient, or anxious. Who wants to go on vacation with somebody like that? But from a minister of the gospel whose lives grow with fervor who have first received the joy of Christ and who are willing to risk their lives so that the kingdom may be proclaimed and the church established in the midst of the world. Now are you telling me that's not a great paragraph? That's paragraph 80, Evangelium Nunciandi. Did you wanna hear the exact quote of St. Teresa Benedicta? Do not accept anything as truth if it lacks love and do not accept anything as love which lacks truth. Good, good statement. We desperately need this. How many of you have read the book by David Brooks called The Road to Character? It's about a two years old or so, year and a half old. Very, very good book. He's a columnist for the New York Times. He basically is criticizing our culture. He's saying there are many good things about our culture but one of the difficult things is that people today think they know everything. They're know-it-alls. They're too sure of themselves. And he said we have so much self-confidence that it's ruining us. We're not listening to each other. We just wanna tell each other what we think is the right thing, what our truth is. He said instead you don't want so much self-confidence as much as self-esteem. And self-esteem he says means I'm a better person than I used to be. See self-esteem has something that involves renewal. His name is David Brooks. He's on C-SPAN. He's on a couple of those Sunday morning programs when you're in church. So you can tape them and see. I wanna talk about one other hero because I think, how are we doing with my time? Does this mean I have that much left? Okay. No, we're all right. I'm delaying because I don't have to pay that money back there. I mentioned to you in the homily about the book by Survey's Pink Hares, a very good book. It's called The Spirituality of Martyrdom. And his basic point is to say that we've gotten away from the early church's commitment to what a martyr is. He said Stephen was not a martyr because he gave up his life. He was a martyr because he witnessed in his behavior to Jesus and nothing could stop him. It was the witness to the behavior. So it doesn't take courage as much as it takes humility to be a martyr. And my big hero right now because of my brother, Georgie, is Dr. Jerome Lejeune. How many of you know Dr. Jerome Lejeune? Okay, I see a couple of hands. Let me just tell you quickly who he was. He died in 1994. Now when he died in 1994, he was from France. He was a husband and a father, very faithful husband and father. He loved his family. He was a family doctor. He was also a geneticist. And in 1959, he discovered the cause down syndrome. And it was, he called it trisomy 21. If he had called it Lejeune syndrome, you'd all be raising your hands. But he was a humble guy. He went to San Francisco in 1969. And it was, he was given, I forget the group that was honoring him, but he was giving an award. And he spoke very bravely there. And he spoke about the fact that he hopes he will not regret the discovery he made because he fears that people will begin to take the lives of a child discovered to have down syndrome in the womb. That's happening terribly today. You know this, I think. They called it, the people who reported it called it the two earthquakes that occurred in San Francisco that day. Because there was a little tremor, literally an earthquake, but then there was his words. He was blackballed so much that he lost a lot of government contracts in France. He used to do all his research. He would meet with people with down syndrome and their families every morning, and then he would do his research in the afternoon. And he called the people he met to disinherit it. He said they were the ones that nobody cared about. He probably lost the capacity to get a Nobel Peace Prize. But he said over and over again, there's only one thing that matters, none for the least of your brother or sister. Thank God for saying John Paul II because John Paul II recognized him and actually appointed him president of the Pontifical Academy for Life in 1994, just months before he died. He never did, I have a meeting, but he was appointed the president there. He's also, there's a cause for canonization. What's the first level called? Servant of the Lord. I hope you will tell real hero stories to the people whom you, because nobody can touch the hearts of other people as real, I don't mean that everybody sets out to become a hero, but people who are, there's a lot of faithful people around, I'm sure in this room tell their story about things like de la June. We're moving it away from it simply being a debate on life as if people have options. I think we've seen it occur in the United States with the way in which, thank God for the little sisters of the poor because they have become, I told them they're the poster child for religious freedom. When people, I was on one day in the morning on Fox and Friends and in the afternoon, I was on Wolf Blitzer's situation room all because of the little sisters of the poor, because that gets the attention of our culture. We need to talk about real people. So let me give you, fortunately, it looks like, Ron looks like we're not gonna have that question and answer thing. You don't mind if I use up all 60 minutes. So I'm gonna give you then one, two, three, four, five, the five things that would be next steps on what I think you can do and I can do to help sway someone as you move that person to conversion to the truth and love of Jesus Christ. The first one, to pray for the gift of service. Pray to serve other people. It was C.S. Lewis who said that when we are in heaven, as we rejoice now whenever we're successful in life here on earth, when we have a success, when we're in heaven, we'll have that same sense of joy when that success happens in the life of another. It's a beautiful way to look at heaven. Pray that you will have that gift here on earth to be able to serve in such a way that when someone you're serving has had a success, that will fill you with such joy that joy will be transparent. Joy is not something that you can seek out. It shows up. It's discovered in your life. That's the first thing. Secondly, look into your life and your history to find what in your life are interested in, deeply to Jesus Christ. I mentioned to you at the beginning of this, I joked about the Kentucky Derby, but I mentioned my brother, Georgie, and that touched your hearts, many of you, I could see. You need to look and see what are the things that touch your life. Secondly, or thirdly, rather, be humble enough to know that in weakness, you will have success. There's a story told, it's a true story, of a seminarian who, on his first day in his apostolic work in a hospital, was told to go in and visit Mrs. Murphy. And he says, and by the way, she doesn't seem to be in a good mood. So he got all nervous and he went in there and he kicked her bed. And he somehow stumbled through talking about what was the gospel passage for the week. And he went out and he thought, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that. I was, I got flustered, I was a complete failure. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. So he went back, every Thursday they did this, so he went back the next week. And he said, it was a little sheepish, and he went and the nurse at the nurse's station said, oh, aren't you the one who saw Mrs. Murphy last week? He said, yeah, I am. She said, I don't know what you did, but she made a turn for the better. So he kind of filled up with a little pride. And he walked into the room and he saw her and he says, Mrs. Murphy, she smiled at him. And he said, you know, I'll be honest with you, when I visited you last week, I thought I was a complete failure. And she said, you were. But she said, after you left, I thought to myself, I felt so sorry for you, it's a true story. This really is a true story. And she said, then it dawned on me that was the first time in a month that I thought of anybody but myself. In weakness, the fourth thing, there's only five. The fourth thing is in your prayer to exalt in the richness of the students you serve. Take enough of an interest that you begin to not just make up compliments because people can see through that, but genuinely see what the gifts are that are in this person that Christ wants to build on. I think it was why I mentioned to you for a while the pictorial directory. Find your way of getting to know more deeply and almost preparing yourself to think out of yourself. I'll tell you a story about Mother Teresa Calcutta, whom you know, they used to tell people, they'd say, Mother Teresa, you're only this big. Why is it that you can talk to a crowd of 1,000 people? And she said, well, when I was first a sister, I was conscious of my material, what I was gonna say. Then she said, I became conscious, the people that I was speaking to. And the first thing she said was no, I was conscious of how I looked actually, was the first thing she said. I was conscious of how I looked. Was my hair straight and all the rest of this stuff. Then I looked nervous. Then I was conscious of material. Then I was conscious of others. But she said, since I began my holy hour, conscious of God, God's presence in that room. And it frees us to be conscious, because we can just be ourselves and let God, and the final one that I'll mention has to do with the gift of mercy. Mercy does not belong to me or to you. It is lavishly given to us by our merciful Father. Jesus is the one who has constantly reached out through the Gospels and I hope in your life to touch your heart and make you aware of his lavish love and gift to you. It is simply that gift, like St. Mary Magdalene did on the first Easter, that is shared with others. Thank you for being good cats.