 Well, on that note, let me ask you this question, will the worst sinner here tonight please stand? Oh my gosh. I thought I was the only one, because I was standing. I have to tell you, this is very funny, I have to tell you, I try this every once in a while when I go around the diocese. And the first time I did it, I was opening the holy doors down in Our Lady of Nock Shrine. That was one of the first churches down in the, in Green County, Columbia County that I opened up. And I said that, I said, will the person, the worst sinner in this church please stand? And a woman stood up and everybody else started standing up. So I finally had to say, cut it out. You know, I didn't want to do it just as a stunt. But you know, the reality is that, and I was kind of joking when I said it, but only half joking, you know, if St. Augustine was here, he'd probably be the first to stand. If St. Francis of Assisi was here, he would probably be the first to stand. If St. Ignatius Loyola was here, he'd probably be the first to stand. And St. Paul and St. Peter right on down the line. And the reality is, if you look at the lives of the saints, all of them thought they were the worst sinners in the world. And maybe they were, maybe they were. And only God knows, only God knows. Some of the lives you may look at, you say, well, was that little scrupulous, maybe? I think it was St. Catherine of Siena often regretted her teenage years, when she was 17 or 18 years of age, when she had this incredible fixation on boys. She liked boys, you know. And I'm sure Teresa of Avila would probably very humbly look back on the time, which she felt she was being a little too sensuous. You know the story about Teresa of Avila, she liked to eat. And one day they delivered her a whole mess of partridges, and she loved them so much. And where was St. Teresa at prayer? You know, it was almost like Julie Andrews and the Sound of Music. She wasn't there where she should have been. And there she was, in the pantry someplace, gorging on partridge. And of course her response was, well, I eat partridge, I eat partridge. You know, she had a way somehow of putting that together. But you look at all of the lives of the saints. And, you know, St. Augustine, I think, comes to mind, too. You know, 30 years of his life. You know, the theme of his life was, you know, looking for love in all the wrong places. You know, sort of like the old Johnny Lee song. And spent much of his life literally looking for love in all the wrong places. Very much a contemporary man, very smart, very handsome, very athletic, very popular and so forth. And yet was looking for something. Didn't know what it was until, of course, you know, his story realized that his heart was restless for God. Late have I loved you, Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you. But all of the saints struggled with this. And here's my point. If you think you are the worst sinner in this room tonight, I've got news for you. God is calling you to be a saint. God is calling you to be a saint. I don't care how dark you feel your path has been. I don't care how much doubt you have about God's love for you. I don't care how addicted you may feel you may be. You know, usually you can get addicted to anything, can't you? Right? It's usually one, some variation of sex, money, or power. Right? And sometimes some of us have all three, you know, maybe even at the same time. It's tough. But the reality is, it's no matter how much we may be mired, you know, in that God has plans for you and for me. And God wants to save us. Who will we pick on tonight? I'd like to talk about St. Peter. Because in many ways, St. Peter's story, I personally can identify with in terms of the story of my own life, or not that I in any way consider myself to be near St. Peter, not like that. But in terms of how much time it took for him to finally experience his conversion. And I'm not spouting this out as any theology but my own. This is just my take on St. Peter. And I say, Peter, I ask your forgiveness. And I ask your intercession, please. But, you know, it's an amazing thing, though, that the Bible is not shy about parading around the faults, the brokenness of our great spiritual fathers and mothers. Right? I mean, you look both at the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. But look right down the line. Thomas. How does everybody know Thomas? Doubting Thomas. Imagine if that's so. Oh, you're doubting Thomas, you know. And, you know, oh Peter, you're the guy that portrayed Christ. You know, it's an amazing thing how the brokenness, the weakness of all of those who became the greatest of saints is right on display. Why is that? Well, it's an interesting thing. Christ's wounds were on display when he rose from the dead without shame. Isn't that interesting? That Christ's brokenness for us was something he was never ashamed of because it became the instrument of our salvation. Because it was through Christ's brokenness that we achieved our wholeness, our salvation. And I would submit to you, my brothers and sisters, that it's through our brokenness and our willingness to let the Lord look at that, that we too will be saved, each and every one of us, no matter how far we may feel we have strayed. And sometimes we do. St. Peter. St. Peter was one of two brothers we know that. I forget if he was the older brother or the younger brother. Andrew was the one that actually led Peter to Jesus. And maybe if Peter was feeling like the older brother, he might have felt a little bit, well, why didn't Jesus come to me first, you know? Because some of that comes out in, I'm an older brother too, by the way, so in case you, you know, and one of the things with older brothers is that you always have to be in charge. And you always have to be the example. You're your parents' experiment, number one, and you also have to be the one that always sort of like, you know, takes charge when it's time to take charge, which is pretty much most of the time because in most families it's chaos. And so I can identify with that aspect of Peter. And so they go along for a while and they start to get to know Jesus, or at least they think they do, and then one day Jesus asks a very, very strange question. He says, who do people say that I am? And of course everybody chimes in a little bit and probably the kind of, with the kind of answers that you would get if you went to Times Square, you know where that is, it's in New York City. And if you go and ask a person in the street, you know, who do you think Jesus Christ is? And probably most people will say things like, oh, I think he was a nice guy. Or maybe oh, I think he was a very smart person. He taught us a philosophy. The philosophy of Jesus had to live, you know? Or some other people may say, well, I think he had some very special powers. You know, he might have, he had these miraculous powers, or he was a very charitable person. He gave himself. People will usually say nice things about Jesus, even in a very secular environment. The problem is that none of these things does Jesus say about himself. You know, he doesn't even want to be called father or rabbi, although he puts up with it. And what he does say about himself is something else. Anyway, that's the kind of answers that the apostles give. Some say you're a liar. Some say you're a prophet. Some say you're a great man. Some say you're an ice guy. Some say you're a mediocre war. But he says, but you, who do you say that I am? And of course, Peter stands right up, blurts it out. You're the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And he takes credit for it too, because Jesus says to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for no mere mortal has revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And for that you are rock. And on this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Wow, what a promotion. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? And Peter didn't even know where he got the insight from, but he was proud of it too. You know, I'm king of the apostles right now. I'm the head of the, I'm going to, and you know, they had some, some, some kind of struggles every once in a while as to who was the greatest. So that kind of knocked that out of the ballpark. Peter was now on top of it all. Peter was the king of the apostles and didn't know he was even going to be first pope yet, but when it came he'd probably be ready for it. So there he was. And no sooner does he get this promotion when he decides it's time to start giving Jesus advice. Like a campaign manager, maybe, right? So Jesus says, you know, but the Son of Man is going to have to suffer and be rejected by the elders and be put to death. And on the third day he would rise. The first of many times Jesus would say that, by the way. And you think the apostles would get it? No way, but, but he told him that. And of course, Peter listens to that says, what nonsense is this? He's talking. So he takes Jesus aside. You know the story, Matthew. And he says, Jesus, God forbid anything like this should ever happen to you. You know, what do you think? You know, he basically tries to change Jesus' plants. He knows better than Jesus, right? He knows who Jesus is better than Jesus knows who Jesus is. You know, oh God, be reasonable. See things my way, right? Some of the prayers that we say at times can be that way, right? If you only saw it my way, Lord, you know you'd do it so much better. But anyway, Peter is humiliated at that point. But what does Jesus do? Does he rub his face in the mud? No. He doesn't publicly expose him at this point, but he says, you know, you really, you're talking like Satan, not like God, you know, and you have to kind of get in line. Well, that was, that was a tough one for Peter. But, you know, story moves on. And we know that probably more than any other of the church fathers, with the exception of St. Paul, I should say, of the apostolic apostles, probably Peter is the one that we know more about personally. We know he had a mother-in-law. We know he was married. We know about his position in his family. So at any rate, time moves on. And we know there are some other encounters in which Peter is central. We know the beautiful one in which Peter's in the boat and a storm comes up in the Sea of Galilee. And all of the apostles are scared. They think they're going to die. They think it's the end. Jesus isn't with them, of course. And all of a sudden, there he is walking on the water. And Peter's the first to see him. This is Job. He's the head of the apostles. And he says, it is the Lord. And he jumps out of the boat and he looks at the Lord. And as long as he has his eyes focused on the Lord and the Lord alone, he says, they think they're going to die. They think they're at their wit's end. And he looks at the Lord and there he is walking on the water as well, too. So you can't say that Peter didn't have a chance in his life to get to know how important Jesus was. But it doesn't last very long because no sooner does he realize he's right. Jesus is here. He starts noticing the spray. He starts noticing the waves. He starts feeling the coldness of the sea. And he begins to sink. Of course, Jesus doesn't leave him alone. He reaches right out and picks him right up again and carries him. Now, I don't know, there's no reflection about how Peter felt about this and how well he learned from this experience. But don't hold your breath. Fast forward a little bit to the last supper, another encounter, John's Gospel. And Jesus is finishing supper and he begins to do something very, very strange. He puts on a towel, gets down on his hands and knees, and starts washing the feet of the apostles. Peter will have none of this. Why? I don't know. But I have a suspicion that Peter's vision about who Jesus was or who Jesus was supposed to do, that this action of Jesus seemed beneath his dignity. And maybe at this point in his life, Peter had said, Jesus is my buddy. Jesus is my friend. And I don't want to see my friend exposed to this. Maybe Peter actually felt protective of Jesus. I don't know. But for whatever reason, Peter didn't like the fact that he was washing feet. And he certainly didn't like the idea that he was going to wash his feet. But one thing we learn about Peter is that his response to Jesus, when Jesus says, well, Peter, if you won't let me wash your feet, then you can have no part of me. Wow. Jesus lowers the boom and says, if you want me, you have to accept me for who I am. And this did not fit in with Peter's notion of who Jesus was as a teacher, as a prophet, as a miracle worker, as a nice guy, but as something else, which it seems Peter doesn't yet understand. But one thing he doesn't want is to lose his friendship with Jesus. And so he says, well, then Lord, if that's what it comes to, then wash everything, then do everything you need to do with me, wash my whole body. But I don't want to lose your friendship. Well, his story is not over. You think Peter's converted yet? You think Peter knows Jesus? He knows things about Jesus. Does he know Jesus yet? Has he been convicted? Has he been converted? Well, a few moments later, Jesus says, amen, I say to you, one of you, it's about to betray me. Of course, is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord? None of the apostles think they could possibly do such an awful thing, betray Jesus? And Peter says, Peter stands up and says, well, I don't care what these other schmucks do, I'm never betray you. I'll never betray you. So Peter's kind of revealing a little, I think, kind of sense of superiority there, excuse me, Peter. But, you know, while I'm king of the apostles after all, why shouldn't I? I can't be like these other guys. I have to be loyal. And so he says to Jesus, if the rest of them betray you, I will never betray you. Jesus says, oh yeah, for the rooster crows twice, three times, you'll deny me three times. And of course, we know what happens. Not long after that, Jesus has led away Caiaphas' house and there's a charcoal fire right there. And at the charcoal fire, Peter's there, warming his hands up. It's a chilly night. And the person comes by and says, you, I recognize you, you are with them. Not me, not me, not, I'm not with that group, rooster crows. Second time a woman comes up and says, I recognize you. In fact, your accent even gives you away. Aren't you one of this man's disciples? I'm not one of his disciples. What are you talking about? Rooster crows. And the third time, you know, the story, you know, you are, you're definitely, I don't even know him. Betrayal's over and what does Peter do? He goes out and he hangs himself. No, that's the other guy. That's Judas that did that. I just want to see if you awake. That's Judas. Was it that much different from what Judas did? Was Peter's betrayal that much different? Judas did hang himself in despair. We don't know what happened to Peter. He says he went off and wept bitterly. He realized apparently that he had betrayed his best friend and apparently the only one that really meant anything to him. What a way to have to say goodbye to a friend who's about to die for you the next day. And of course we know that Peter could not show his face. None of the apostles really could accept Saint John and at the foot of the cross we don't know where the apostles were. They're all dispersed. And well you know what happens. Jesus rises from the dead and the tomb is empty and first reaction of course is doubt. Nobody believes it. Some people think it's grave robbers. Other people think the women are making it up. You don't believe the testimony of women, you know. I often think that it's very interesting that if this really didn't happen this way, why would the sacred authors have named the names of the actual women that discovered the empty tomb? Because when you think about it, and it was according to Roman law and Jewish law, the testimony of women, sorry it's unfair, but it was the reality was not believed. And why would you, if you were making up a story, why would you make it up like this, you know, give actually names and have the women be the first to witness to it unless it really happened, which it did. But time goes on and you know you would think that even though Jesus had been repeating over and over and over again, the Son of Man will die and on the third day he will rise again. You think that they might have known but nobody accepts this. It seems for apostles. Why don't they accept it? Well I would submit to you that one reason may be is because they really didn't know the personal love of Jesus Christ for them. But one person did. And I think that person was Peter. And he may well have been the one that turned it all around. And the mother of God, of course, who knew the truth. But what happens? We have the incident in St. John's Gospel and we have St. Peter with the apostles. What do they do after Jesus dies and rises? Well what a lot of times we do when somebody dies, we get on with life. And all of the evidence is that the apostles thought this was a great run but you know it's on. Let's get on with our life. So what do they do? They go back to where they were before. They go back to fishing. Just as bad fishermen as they were before when Jesus was with them, they got a little help. Now he's gone, too bad so sad, probably despondent, depressed. And all of a sudden what happens? Jesus appears to them on the shore and tells them, you know, you're having a little trouble fishing, go ahead, put out your nets, let's see what happens. And of course they haul in an incredible load of fish. That should have clued them in, but they're not quite sure. And little by little it dawns on them, this is the Lord, because this is the kind of thing that happened when he was with us. And yeah, this is Jesus. And lo and behold, just by chance. Oh, I don't know if there is any such thing as chance, probably the logic of God. But anyway, just by chance, it happens to be, guess what, you know, a charcoal fire right there. And Jesus says to Peter, come here, come over here, put some fish down on this charcoal fire, let's cook breakfast. And he does. And of course, Peter looks at Jesus. Jesus looks at Peter. Peter probably looks away. He can't stand it because he knows Christ knows, he's been lousy, he's betrayed him. And what does Jesus do? What does he say to Peter? He says, okay, get down on your, get down and do it, give me 100 push-ups. You know, what does he do? You dirty rotten traitor, you? No. He says, Peter, Peter, do you love me? Peter says, yes, Lord, I love you. Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. And then he asks him a second time, Simon, Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. You know everything. Feed my lambs. Tend to my sheep. Third time, says Peter, was hurt because Jesus asked the third time, Simon, Peter, do you love me? Feed my lambs. Feed my lambs. It sounds like Jesus is rubbing it in, reminding him of the three betrayals. But what is he really doing? He's reminding Peter of who he really is to him. And my brothers and sisters, I mean, in my view, I think this is the conversion of Peter because for the first time he realizes who Jesus is. That he's not just his pal, not just his friend, not just the nice guy, not just the teacher, not just the prophet, not just the miracle worker, but his personal savior who died for him. And Peter knows that now. And because of that, for the first time, Jesus can finally be his savior. It sometimes takes that long for us to realize that. You know, I'm thinking of how desperate does our situation have to be until we begin to realize that we're going nowhere without a savior? How much we have to fool ourselves to think that ranks or popularity or sex money and power or all the variations thereof are going to do it for us? How much does it take for us to realize that we have no future without a savior, without our Lord Jesus? You know, I mean, what comes to mind is, do you remember The Officer and the Gentleman? That movie is about 20 years ago, I think. You know, I forget what the main character was. It was played by Richard Gere. But there was kind of a rivalry going on between the drill sergeant and this main character. And finally at one point, you know, the drill sergeant, Lou Gossett, really presses him and presses him and presses him and presses him until he can't even take it anymore. He has him right down on the ground and he's just got him completely humiliated. And he says, you know, he says, how much more are you going to, how much more can you take? How much more you can take? He says, I have nothing else but this because he's threatening to throw him out. And he's threatened to throw him out because he's beat him down so much that he can't even do any push-ups anymore. He can't perform anymore. Finally, he says, I have nothing else. I have nothing else but this. I think that's, that was Peter's experience at that point. That Peter came to realize, I have nothing else but Jesus. And it's the experience of, I think, all of the saints who had that conversion experience in their lives. Now, it may not have happened so dramatically in your life or my life. It may not have happened as dramatically if, whether it's happened or not. You know, I don't know, when was the first time when it really began to dawn on you that Jesus loves you enough to die for you if you were the only person in the world? I remember the nun used to tell us that in school. I think I heard that from the time I was in the seventh or sixth, no, probably six or seven years old, you know, first to second grade. Jesus would die for you if you were the only person in the world. I heard it, you know, and I guess somehow it sunk in that this is part of the faith. But you know, it's an interesting thing. They've done surveys. I guess you're familiar with Sherry Waddell's book, Forming Intentional Christians, you know, and she's gone around asking Catholics, how many of you really believe that Jesus is your personal savior, you know, and let alone how many really come to church expected to be changed, you know, and it's shocking. It's like over half of us who claim to be Catholic don't get that. Isn't it amazing that over half of us don't seem to get that? That that's what the faith is about. We're still in, oh, he's a nice guy. Oh, we have this philosophy of Jesus. Oh, we have to try hard. I have to speak for myself. I used to think, for much of my life, in fact, well after my ordination, I used to think that if I was good and I tried real hard, God would be nice to me. And if I fell off the wagon, if I did something wrong, God would be ticked. So what's you're going to do? Stop saving me? I actually thought that. It was about, you know, maybe it's the older brother thing, but I thought it was about how hard I tried, you know, follow the commandments. And I think probably a lot of our brothers and sisters feel that way. Maybe you felt that way too. We have to realize when we're preaching to people, you know, Sunday after Sunday, you know, what do we think our people really are hearing? You know, a lot of people who say this, they say, you know, these Catholics says, being a good Catholic is about following all the rules. And how many people say, well, I don't think I'm a particularly good Catholic because I don't follow all the rules. You know, so therefore, you know, I don't want to be in that church with those hypocrites because I'm not that good, you know? I don't know if you remember. Shortly after he became Pope, after he was elected, a reporter went up to Pope Francis and said to him in a very informal interview, how do you describe yourself? How can you describe yourself, you know, just as Jorge Bergoglio is a man. What can you say about yourself that really tells us something about who you are? Remember what his answer was? So the one thing I know I could absolutely say about myself as a man is that I am a sinner. I felt so good when he said that, you know? And then, you know, he said in so many different ways, you know, the expression that church is not a hotel for saints, but a hospital for sinners. And it's something for us all to remember. I, again, speaking my personal experience, and I can relate to Peter's, the time it took for him to recognize, when I think about my own life, I see how God had planted the seeds for so much awareness of how he is present to me in my brokenness, in my humanity, but I wasn't seeing it when it happened. Now, for example, yes, I heard the nun say, you know, Jesus would have died for you if you were the only person in the world. So somehow that was in there. It was probably in the brain, not in the heart, but in the brain. I remember also having a desire to be an altar boy. I don't know why. I just was attracted, I guess, to being close to the altar. I think a lot of us probably were. Those of us who have pursued a vocation, a priesthood, or a diaconate seminarians here, religious life. Something just draws us there. For me, I would have to say it was probably, has something to do certainly with the mystery of the mass. No question about it. It also has something to do with the persons who were the priests that I knew. Their example. There was something about them, you know, that I just, I was just attracted to. It's one story that comes to mind. I don't know if you read Liam Hemsway. I think that's his name. He's the guy that's in the start, the new Independence Day movie. He said, you know, I really got into that movie when I saw, what's his name, that punch one of the aliens in the face. You know, I thought I want to have that role too. And I remember there was a priest in our parish, Father Moorer. And the story circulated around the seventh and eighth grade that apparently he went to a house. He was called by, I guess, somebody to be there to do a communion call. And as he went up the stairs, there was some angry drunken brother or something like that, the sick person. And he said, oh, that guy comes up the stairs. I'm going to kick that SOV down the stairs. He was a different word. And the story went that Father Moorer went up to him, gave him a big punch right in the nose. And we thought that was just great, you know, because priest was heroic, you know, to be able to do that. Well, it caught our fancy. But I had this idea that priests were pretty heroic people. We knew that they were always there. You know, they'd go to hospitals, they'd go to wakes, they'd be with everybody, you know, they would just present. So I had that idea in my mind that somehow there was something about priests that was service. But did it convict me about the personal love of Jesus for me? Well, not yet. You know, I remember another seed that was planted in my eventual, what I would like to call conversion. I remember another seed that was planted was that altar servers were invited to do the watches. Anybody ever hear of that? You know, what that was, you know, it was what we would do is that periodically, leading up to 40 hours, and leading up to maybe some special celebration, Paris celebration, we would actually, the priest would expose the Blessed Sacrament. And there would be two kneelers out there. And altar servers would actually be asked to do watches for about a half hour each. You'd have to sign up. And for whatever reason, I didn't understand it just yet. But there was something that I found very attractive about actually being able to sit there quietly before the Blessed Sacrament. I guess I must have been a sixth or seventh grade at that point. You know, and again, it was a gift that was given to me by being an altar server. And it was something that I also felt an attraction for. And I remember there were prayer books there and you could read whatever you wanted. And that's something that probably left an impression on me, but I didn't know why. You know, and there was a certain sense of something different there, something almost mystical about really being in the presence of the Lord, you know, and sacramentally. Again, but I wasn't putting that together. But I had to say that there was something going on, but again, filed it a way up here. You know, time went on and I was very gifted throughout much of my life. I had an excellent education, was able to get to North American College in Rome and had the best theologians, the same guys that wrote the documents of Vatican II. And you know how it is in the seminary, you kind of focus a lot on the books, you know, and the theology. And I just absorbed that, and I liked it. Was I getting any closer to the Lord? I was going through the motions. I really believed Jesus was calling me. I really wanted to be a priest. I wanted to be a good priest. I wanted to preach well. I wanted to teach well. I wanted to be a good moral example. And I was working on all of that. And I was, you know, following the rules. But did I recognize that Jesus was my personal Savior? Did I, if anybody asked me that, I don't know. Because what it was, is that I was still experiencing a lot of anxiety and a lot of doubt about myself. And I felt like everybody else, I guess, who wouldn't admit it, I felt I was the worst sinner in the world. You know, that there was so many things wrong with my life, so many things I needed to improve and work on. And I had all these ways of trying to discipline, oh, one year, one year, I made myself the most miserable Lent possible. I thought it would be a great idea to have an awful miserable Lent. I have to tell you it was the best Lent I ever had. Because I felt so holy. The beds that we used to sleep on used to go to like that, you know? So if you were lucky, you had a bed board underneath it. So I was one of the lucky ones that had a bed board. So I got into my head that it would be a good idea to take the bed board out from under the bed and put it on top. You know, like I was sleeping on the floor. And I thought that would make me feel pretty miserable. And it did. And I think I went on some sort of a diet, bread and water or something like that. Well, I needed to lose some weight anyway, but that's another story. And it was really, it was a great Lent. And I went to all the station churches. I did just about everything possible, all of the discipline. And please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that these things are not good things to do, you know, prayer and sat. And I was offering it up for different people. But here's the experience I had. The Lent went just great. I felt better about myself because I felt I had punished myself enough and expiated enough of my sins. And then came Easter Sunday. It's the worst Easter I've ever had in my life. I felt dead because there's nothing more for me to do. Little did I realize it was God's turn to finally start doing something for me. Now, I don't know how well I process. I don't even think I told my spiritual director. But the reality was is that I was pretty much locked into this kind of way of thinking that, you know, being a good Catholic man, being a good boy and trying hard and so forth. And I think if nothing else to this day, it's been helpful to me to understand what I think a lot of our brothers and sisters go through. And the, you know, was it G.K. Chesterton that said, trouble with Christianity is not that it's been tried and found wanting, but that it's never been tried. You know, that somehow or other people don't really understand what Christianity is, that it's about a personal relationship with a loving savior. And that's the reason we often don't get it. And it seems so hard. So anyway, what happened was is I went on, I got ordained and had a wonderful experience as a New York Dane priest, first parish. I had an interesting experience, though. And this was another kind of defining point in my life. This is why I see it the way God was planting seeds, you know, my own faith journey. One was the very first experience I had of preaching. I think I might have said a first Mass in Rome, but maybe somebody else preached. But I had a chance back in the States, first Mass in the parish. And I remember sitting down the night before with the yellow pad. And we had practiced about preparing homilies and all that. You know, we had had our rehearsals. But and I remember sitting down and writing, What am I going to say? What am I going to say? You know, and I wanted to say something that was meaningful. We all do right. You know, something that would help people. I wanted to give a good homily. And I throw that out for all that. We didn't have word processors back then. So I must have wasted a couple of pads, a yellow paper. And finally, I scribbled some things out. And I just wasn't too happy the way it was going. But I got something down, two or three long pages. And I'll never forget the experience. I went up to the pulpit in Miraculous Metal Parish in Ridgewood, where I grew up. And I got up there and I had my yellow paper, you know, took it out, put it down in the pulpit, you know. And I started the homily. And I lost my place. I lost my place. I started reading, You know what? I just kept going. I just kept going. And ever since that day, that's been the way I basically prepare for homilies. I heard it say, one time it was said by a Southern preacher, he said, how do you prepare your homily? He says, well, I reads until I can't read no more. I praise until I can't praise no more. And then I cuts loose. Well, kind of that has been my experience so far. I pray, I read, and then I say, Lord, let you do the rest, you know. And it's been a wonderful experience. But what I found was, and many of you found the same thing too, is sometimes what you say and what people hear are not the same thing. You notice that? Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, you know. Oh, Father, that was the worst homily I ever heard. Oh, Father, that was the best homily. But you know, this is interesting, because you begin to start discovering that if you open yourself up to the Lord, that, you know, you let yourself, that somehow the people will hear one thing, you'll say something else, and the Holy Spirit will hopefully do something in between. And it's a wonderful thing. Some of the early fathers actually thought of preaching as almost being a sacrament, because it really is a sign of God's effective presence. And people we know have been moved by good preaching too. You know, healings have taken place. I can't say that I've had that experience, but it was a wonderful experience. Here's my point. God was giving me all these gifts, all these hints. He was practically punching me in the head, saying, do you realize that I'm gifting you? I love you. That's why I'm doing this. Do you know that? And I was saying my prayers. I was saying my office, but it wasn't clicking. And to tell you the truth, to just fast forward, when it finally began to dawn on me was in the mid-80s, I decided to go to law school. I was interested in constitutional law and immigration law and things like that. And so I was able to go to night school because I was working in the tribunal at the time. So I did that. And, you know, the first year is really, if anybody's been through it, they try to break you down. It's like boot camp, you know? And I was working during the day, and it was really beginning to get to me. You know, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? And I reached one point where I just had reached the point that I couldn't really take it anyone. I was actually seriously thinking of just stopping it, you know? And I remember sitting at the kitchen table with a friend of mine, a priest friend, and just kind of letting it all out, how frustrated I was. Why am I doing this? And he was trying to tell me, well, you know, God has given you gifts. God has, God has, you know, blessed you. He has plans for you. He wants, he was saying all the kind of the right things, but it wasn't making any difference. I wasn't sure that I wanted those gifts. Evali just said to me, don't you know God loves you? Duh. I mean, yeah. But it was the first time I actually heard it and believed it. Now you, I can't explain. It wasn't like I saw or say, Michael the York Angel or something like that, but I heard through the lips of a person who actually convinced me I needed to hear it. Was I as low as Peter? I don't think so, but for the first time it began to sink in. Well, of course God loves me. Do you believe that? Do you believe that God loves you enough to die for you and that he do it again? You know, I want you to believe that because that's what changed my life. And I believe that. And nobody can convince me differently from that. And again, I accept it as a gift, but I think that's a gift that Jesus wants all of us to have. Now I know that there's a danger in that because, okay, so Jesus loves me, then I don't have to do anything. You know, a lot of criticism comes sometimes in people that say, you have all these Christians, you know, these evangelical type Christians, you know, that all talking about the love of Jesus, the personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You know, I remember I had a priest came because I speak about this a lot, my conviction of that about God's personal love for each and every one of us. And I remember one time I had a priest of mine in the diocese, came up to me and he's a fine priest, very worried look on his face. He says, oh, I hear this all the time from my Baptist renegade relatives. He's Polish. And he said, a lot of them went to the Baptist church and they're always talking about the personal relationship. He says, I don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He said, I asked him, well, what makes you think you don't, you know, and I didn't want to start rationalizing and saying, you know, kind of none of us would even be breathing if we didn't have a personal relationship. But I, that wasn't the time to say that. But I asked him to just, you know, explain a little more what his frustration was. He says, well, I see Jesus in the work that I do. I see Jesus, you know, when I, when I work with people, when I visit the hospital, when I tend to the poor and I say, you know, who am I to say that that isn't the personal encounter with Jesus Christ? Since Jesus identified with all, with all those, those people. And I don't know whether or not he, but here's my concern. Unless I know that Jesus has really changed my life radically and that I have been beneficiary of the mercy of God, how can I really show that to others? And I can't say, you know, how effective he or anybody else would be. I know for me, for me, that was extremely important that it wasn't enough just to do good deeds. And it wasn't enough. And I think, I forget exactly who said this, but one of the, one of the spiritual authors said, actually the, the first conversion really is the first journey, the first journey really is that encounter with the personal presence of that loving Jesus. And then everything else kind of flows from that. You know, that's one of the points that Terry Waddell makes in that book, Forming Intentional Christians. It's been critiqued for being perhaps too suspicious of magical sacramentalism. And I, we don't have to go into that right now. But she does certainly have a point. She certainly has a point that what good is our catechesis, you know, if we don't have that foundation of what it's about. And, you know, basically what are we teaching? Just it's like what the, it's like what Peter knew about Jesus before he knew Jesus, you know, and if it's all up here, you know, we can know things about Jesus. An atheist can know things about Jesus, can exegete the scriptures, you know, can tell us what the sense is plainly or in the, and the original meaning is and all of that, but not, not believe a word of what is there, not be it all moved by that, you know. Whereas as a, as a person that believes that this is more than just the word, there's a real person inside there talking to us, moving us, speaking to us. And that's the experience that, that I certainly want to pray for and nourish and invite everyone to have and truly believe. But I think that in order to realize that, we have to really recognize that without Jesus, we are nothing. That there really is no future, that there really is no foundation, you know. And there's a lot of stories about the reason that Peter could walk is because Jesus showed him where the rocks were, you know. But, you know, but the reality is that Jesus is the rock. That's the reason Peter was able to walk, because he looked Jesus in the face, and he was not afraid to let Jesus look at him. We have to let Jesus look at us. What does he see? You know, are we afraid to let Jesus look at us? Are we afraid he's going to see that maybe we've been spending too much time on the internet someplace? Are we afraid he's going to say, maybe, maybe you're getting too involved in that relationship, you know, making that person. Is there anybody else, any other thing that is occupying the throne of my heart? And if there is, I've got it to throne it, because it's an idol. What is it? What is it that I'm worried about right now? What is it that I really fear? You know, it could even be a health issue, you know, an emotional issue. But is it a person? Is it a thing? If it's not Jesus, it's an idol. And the reason he can't be the Lord that he is, is because I'm not letting him be who he is. And that's where my will comes in, my willingness to do that. And that may not come overnight. Or it might. It could happen right now. It could happen right now. If I've been hemming and hawing and saying, you know, maybe tomorrow I'll do it, maybe tomorrow I'll give that habit up, maybe tomorrow I'll let him it go. Now could be the moment to do that. Not that I can do it on my own, but Jesus, you alone can do it. Cast that idol away from me. Let it no longer have power over me. Cast that demon out. It can happen right now. No reason it cannot. Why shouldn't it? Why wait until tomorrow? Tomorrow may never come. There may not be another chance. Now is the moment to accept that. Now is the moment. I have a worry, but related. I was very happy when Pope Francis declared the year of mercy that was, you know, we're going through right now. And, you know, I have to admit, when I first heard him saying, oh, we're going to have a year of mercy, I said, oh, that's great. I'll take some mercy, you know, as much as you can get, you know. And but then as I started to think about it, I said, you know, yeah, God is merciful. Well, God is infinitely merciful, but there is a price that Jesus paid for that mercy. You know, like I mentioned this morning, you know, he, he's giving us mercy, not that we deserve it. He's giving us mercy by taking upon our sins by being crucified for us and dying for us. And it's a very, very costly thing. So, you know, it's understandable why this, this wounds the human heart of Jesus because he remembers that. I'm thinking, you know, in a way, I didn't mention this this morning, but when you forgive somebody, a sin, do you ever really forget it? Do you ever really forget it? Particularly if it was something really, a really deep wound, you know, that some of us are bearing, unfortunately, you know, for reasons that many of us have no control over. But some of us may be bearing very, very deep wounds that have been, it could be a wound that was caused by a father or a mother or a friend or person we thought loved us and did not. And maybe with the help of God's grace, we've been able to forgive that person and let it go, but the wound is still there. It hurts if we think about it. And I'm thinking, you know, thinking of the sensitivity of Jesus, the love of Jesus for each and every one of us, who is always forgiving us our sins. You know, he doesn't forget it, but he immobilizes it, just pushes it away, won't let it have power over us. He won't let our sins overwhelm us. It reminds me almost like of Moses going through the Red Sea, you know, in the Charlton Heston movie years ago, remember, the Israelites, they go through the dry ground and you see the water is going up beside. And I'm thinking, here's what Jesus is doing for us all the time. He's constantly holding back, you know, all of these bad memories, all these bad sins, all of this brokenness that would threaten to overwhelm us if we really thought about it, you know, but he's willing to do it. And he's capable of doing it if we let him do it. So no matter how many times I may have wounded Jesus by my neglect or by my wasting of time or by my hacks of commission, he's there to push it aside. He loves us that much. Now, that's a wonderful thing because that's what's happening in this year of mercy. All of those graces are there and it's for us to just walk that dry path through Jesus, through the treacherous waters. And the thing that bothered me is what's going to happen when they close the doors of mercy? I wonder where the Pope Francis figured that out yet. I think he did, but I don't know. He's been giving hints and said, how am I going to go to the cathedral and close the doors of mercy without telling that people will mercy is over now? You had your chance, you know? And sometimes that does happen. You know, they say, don't wait till tomorrow because tomorrow may never come. But how does that get, you know, get worked out? And I had a thought, and this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to consecrate the diocese to the divine mercy. I've already done... It's very easy. It's God mercy. All I have to do is just lead the people to the Lord. But no, but we had that experience of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And if you haven't done that, I highly recommend it. Whatever form you follow, Father Gatley's form. It's a good thing to do it in a group if you can. But he's come out with another book, too. It's on divine mercy. And if you get a chance to take a look at the book, it leads you through the spirituality of Therese de Lisieux. And I don't know how much you know about that story about Therese, you know, simple peasant girl, and so forth. And some people don't give much credit to that because of that. You know, what a... What an incredible doctor of the church she is. She solved the Jansenistic problem, basically, because she grew up in an environment, as you may know, in which she thought everything she was doing was a sin. You know, she thought that how is she ever going to possibly get to heaven? Because everything's a sin. Now, that may not be the problem of a lot of our contemporaries today. You know, might have the opposite problem. Oh, it doesn't matter what I do. God's always going to forgive me, you know. That really makes God an absentee land board because if God is going to forgive me and get God... No matter what I do, then God really doesn't care what I do. So what use is God? You know, when you think about it, it doesn't really help just leading people down that path. But her, she had the other problem. Everything I do is a sin. Everything is awful. And she said, you know, I can't deal with this. She wanted to be like Teresa of Avalon, you know, who was, this guy's Carmelite, you know, who was founder of her community. And she said, I just, I can't get up to those heights. You know, I can't soar like this eagle. She was like the eagle. And I'm just like this little bird. This little bird. And all I can do is kind of grovel along. He said, but I'm not going to do nothing. I'm just going to climb up the step little by little. And you know what? I know that God has to take me. Because I want to go to heaven. I don't want to go to purgatory. I want to skip purgatory. But I just can't believe that God, she believed that God loved her. She said, I know that it's not enough what I do, but I'm going to give it my best shot. And I'm going to crawl up the stair. And I know God is just going to take me up. And he's going to rescue me. She just had this conviction. And that's of course the way she lived her life. Her short life, she died at the age of 24. And there was a nun there that said, you know, you're too proud. How can you possibly presume on God's mercy that God would save you from purgatory? We all have to go to purgatory. I have to go to purgatory. How can you presume? Well, you know, the nun died. And Therese writes in her journal that she had a little visitation from the nun. One night and then said, you know what? You were right. I'm in purgatory now because I put myself there. You know, you're on the right track. God can do anything, even make it go straight to heaven. Why not us? Why not us? Why do we have to wait for God to punish us? Why do we have to wait for somebody else to punish us? Why do we have to hang on to our obsessions or our fears or our anxieties? You know, why do we have to do that? Why do I have to sleep on a on a board just to make myself miserable when Jesus came to save us from that type of conceit that I can save myself? If I take more courses, if I try to do more social work, if I try to give up all of my possessions, you know where that goes. I give everything that I have, my body to be burned and have not love. I'm useless. I'm just a gum, you know. And Paul recognized that. Paul knew the mercy of Jesus. Paul knew how he had persecuted the church and Jesus interfered, came into his life, knocked him off his high horse and gave him the clear revelation that he was loved and he was chosen. So what I want to do is suggest that going forward in the year of mercy, one of the best ways to do it is to let the end of the year of mercy open up to the door of the works of mercy, which is exactly what the divine mercy leads us to. Where we become the mercy door, each and every one of us, by knowing and owning and thanking God for his mercy in our lives, by accepting the gift of forgiveness, by accepting a conversion of heart, where we're really going to allow the Lord to turn us around and let go of the obsession, let go of the fear, let go of the sin, let go of the past, let go of the idol, turn to the Lord, receive his mercy gently because it's there for the asking, and then let the Lord use our hearts to be the channels of the mercy from his heart and the door never closes. Easier said than done? Well, you know when I was thinking about finding ourselves into the heart of Jesus through the admission and the acknowledgement of our brokenness of our sin, thinking you know in a way the heart seems like almost too small an image because when we think of a heart we think of this little tiny, tiny thing you know maybe in an image of the sacred heart or on the you know the divine mercy. But when you think about it the heart of Jesus is very large. There's a lot of room in that heart for each and every one of us and for all of us sinners. It's a heart that is so big that if we really crawl into that heart we're going to find our heart stretched as well too to all of humanity. So it's not going to hold us into ourselves and all of the good work that needs to be done. He's going to challenge us to do but because we know we're not alone, that he's with us, we have nothing to fear. Just let me close with just one final image and it's you know all the saints say over and over again it's all about trust. My Jesus I trust in you, Lord Jesus I trust in you. I wake up at three o'clock in the morning the worst time to wake up you know because you can't do anything at that hour you can't call anybody. So all the fears come in right you know the bills and all that stuff the taxes and things you said that you shouldn't have said and all that stuff. Lord Jesus I trust in you, Lord Jesus I trust in you. Say it again and again but just one image it comes to mind. You've seen this before it's a picture of a door and Jesus is standing in a garden before that door like a shepherd a couple of versions of it and there's a caption below that says, low I stand at the door and knock. You've seen that image of Jesus and it's from the book of Revelation. Low I stand at the door and knock. Something very strange about that door. No handle, no door knob. It's the door to your heart and my heart and Jesus is knocking gently and he wants to make his home in our heart and all the effort that it takes from you and me is to open up the door and let him in.