 Today the church celebrates the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua, a priest and a doctor of the church. He discerned a call to the priesthood and originally joined the Augustinians, but shortly after ordination he wised up and transferred to the Franciscans and became a missionary. He was particularly effective in converting heretics in Europe and is considered one of the greatest preachers in the history of the church. In one of his sermons reflecting on the role of the Holy Spirit, St. Anthony made this powerful observation. Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment by keeping the commandments. Likewise, we shall request that we may be filled with the fiery tongues for confessing the faith so that our deserved reward may be to stand in the blazing splendor of the saints and to look upon the triune God. St. Anthony's homily is reminded to us that certain teachings of the church can never change regardless of whether or not people accept them or are faithful to them. But we live in a complex secular culture and are inevitably exposed to a variety of ideas that are incompatible with the truths of the faith. Christians are by no means immune to these influences and sometimes adopt elements of secular thought without recognizing their incompatibility with Christian faith. Like someone who's had too much to drink, we become intoxicated by the ways of the culture to the point where the meaning of truth and freedom become confused and disoriented. In our stupor, we suppress or ignore the beauty of the church's teachings in areas of sexuality, gender, and marriage. And in our subjective version of truth, we water down basic beliefs of Catholicism with so much political correctness that they become indistinguishable from what the world thinks. Yet Christ said to his apostles, whoever hears you hears me. So when we choose to be timid or even worse, to be silent when the church speaks clearly and definitively on issues of faith and morals, we are choosing to ignore Christ himself like St. Anthony, a simple and humble friar who preached the good news lovingly, but yet with fearless courage. We are called to live the gospel with both fervor and humility. We cannot rest while the storms of war, poverty, and economic instability shake us violently. And the tempest of disease, corruption, and unspeakable sins against the culture of life rage all around us. How should we respond? Should we be frightened and unsettled? Should we panic as we listen to news anchors and business analysts and self-assured politicians who sound like prophets of doom? Or should we instead be like Jesus and deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Him to glory? Those who live in the presence of God have nothing to fear. We heard yesterday, blessed are you, when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. We are called to preach the gospel in its fullness, to preach the truth in love. It must be the truth, but it's always must be done lovingly. Why? Because many in this culture have no idea how much God loves them. That's the beauty of St. Anthony. He preached powerfully, he preached truthfully, but he preached lovingly. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. When I was in Australia a few years ago, I was preaching at an Archdiocese of Sydney. He had me preach at a youth rally with about 700 or 800 middle schoolers there. And during that talk, I said, you have no idea how much God loves you. I got off the stage, there was a young priest ordained only three years at the bottom of the steps. He said, Deacon, let me drive home the point you just made. When I was first ordained, they stuck me at the high school because they figured young priests, newly ordained, they might get some vocations out of this thing. So in my religion class, as an experiment, I wrote on the board, I believe in God, and on the other side, I don't believe in God. And I asked the students to stand under the statement that best represented what they believed. So he said, about 90% of the students got up and stood under, I believe in God, and the rest stood under, I don't believe in God. So he sat down and he raced it. Then he wrote, God loves me, God doesn't love me. And asked the students to do the same thing, stand under the statement that best represented what they believed. Father told me that none of the students stood under the statement that said, God loves me, not one. He said a handful of students stood under the statement, God doesn't love me, but most just sat there because they weren't sure. How could they not be sure how much God loves them? This is the lesson that St. Anthony teaches all of us who are called to preach and to proclaim the good news, the life changing encounter with Jesus Christ. This means that when we live our faith every day through the witness of our life, we will be persecuted and mocked and ridiculed and scorned just as Jesus was when he made his way to Calvary. Life is too short for us to worry about what other people think. We are called by God to be saints, to live our faith with courage and conviction in this time and in this place and to put all of our trust in God. Like St. Anthony who was a man of great penance and apostolic zeal, Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. When we no longer cover the light of faith under the bushel basket of fear and instead radiate unwavering trust in God the Father, he will pour out on us a spirit of freedom, a spirit of love that casts out all fear, that removes all doubt, that eliminates all obstacles that hinder us from being true followers of Jesus Christ. As the scriptures encourage us, in God alone be at rest my soul, for my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock, my stronghold, my fortress, I stand firm. My brothers in Christ, in the spirit of St. Anthony who loved the Word of God and prayerfully applied the scriptures to the everyday lived experience. Let your light shine brightly in this darkened world so that the faithful may see the good works that you do and give honor and praise and glory to God. Amen.