 For those who you know, like This night is a night of excitement, but it's also like tomorrow. You know, you're going back to it, right? But we're not going back to it the same and we're not going back to it alone That is the good and beautiful news if you're feeling still worn down like hey I've been wanting to break free and and go deeper with the Lord and I just feel like I've been like maybe running in in mud and and Let it happen tonight Let it happen tonight You know oftentimes, you know, we say let's surrender to the Lord. Let's surrender But what is surrender when you are? Giving in when you surrender you go to the one who wins and They make terms for you of the surrender You don't go to the victor and say I surrender under these terms They dictate the terms by which you surrender and I think oftentimes we come to the Lord with our terms This will be how I will surrender in my time in the way that I feel will serve me best and is most comfortable in this moment for me And as we know the Lord never meets us in our comfort zone We have to take a step So if you're still feeling worn down disheartened You're right where God wants you to be Because every trial that you've gone through over the last couple of years, maybe things that you've been dealing with for decades Has meaning and purpose But the thing about it is we try to figure out what those are for ourselves, right? We cannot create a purpose for the trials. We've gone through on our own. We need to let the Lord speak into us Speak into those pains those aches those wounds Because they exist in you right now because that's exactly where God wants to manifest his glory Why did I have to have sore knees? Why was it so hard for me to pray and I've been struggling with that? Because not only did God want to reveal his glory in you. He's revealed it to everybody in this room that God has power over what hurts Spiritually physically mentally everything God can bring healing to everything. He is that powerful There's nothing beyond his ability and we misinterpret the struggles With with statements that probably haunt us from our childhood This is happening because God is not here or God does not love me or God is punishing me for my lack of faith My lack of love my lack of purity. I deserve this because I'm just I've blown it I deserve all the pain that I'm carrying and I refuse to let it go because it's no longer Something that God can bring purpose to I'm letting it define me I'm letting it speak to my very identity It's often in those times when we are struggling when we can't find the answers That our faith truly comes below alive because we're able to trust God on a level I think understanding doesn't bring healing God brings healing Like when we're struggling like we got help me to understand and guys like I don't need you to understand I just need you to trust Because in that trust comes the healing look at the life of blesses Solana's Casey. I was really blessed I was in Indiana I don't maybe five or six years ago and I was invited out to lead a retreat for about 20 priests from Indiana and it was held in Huntington at the St. Felix Friary and They're like, oh you're you're so happy that we're gonna give you the Bishop's suite Because the Bishop had a special room, you know decked out for him when he went there And it was like a kitchen and a living room with a big screen TV in this big king-size bed And it was very nice leather. It was nicer than my house I mean it was it was like hey, this is like this is like the house suite at the nicest hotel. I've ever stayed at But three doors down the hallway Was the little cell that Solana's Casey spent the last ten years of his life in after he retired from active ministry and there was a tiny little bed and a tiny little chair and over that chair they had draped one of the one of his Castics, you know And I was like I couldn't help they had the room that the door was closed You couldn't go in but they had glass in the door so you could look in and see what his life was like And I thought here I am down here in this room But this is what made a saint the lack of comfort the Detachment from all the worldly goods And Solana's Casey had a rough life It wasn't easy for him. His road to priesthood was not an easy road. He entered the st. Francis the sales Seminary in Milwaukee to study for to be a diocesan priest But after he was struggling with his education his spiritual director recommended that he become a Religious priest so he left this the seminary and started trying to discern where he was supposed to end up And he was looking at the Jesuits. He was looking at the Franciscans and he was looking at the cappichins and One night on the feast of the Immaculate Conception He was praying to the Blessed Mother and the Blessed Mother spoke to him said go to Detroit And that's where the cappichins were headquartered So he left for Detroit and He studied and he studied and he studied but despite all of his studies. He was not able to get good grades His great suffered Considerably like he was not a good student And when he was finally ordained He couldn't pass some of the most basic classes. So they he was he was ordained a simplex priest And he was never allowed to hear confession and he was never allowed to celebrate celebrate mass publicly and when he was sent to yonkers They gave him a job the only job that thought they thought was fitting for him Which was to be the doorman at the at the friary there But Salinas Casey Trusted in that in this plan like If this is the way you want me to live my vocation, I will live it in your love trusting in your goodness and And he became this spiritual guru in his simplicity He was speaking into the brokenness of the poor in the needy and families that were coming to him in crisis He had a ministry of comforting people whose sons and daughters were serving in the military He just had this gift of communicating God's love and care to everyone he came in contact with He was able to do mighty deeds of love And God was able to do it through Salinas because he trusted in that love that was given regardless of what he could achieve We could also look at the life of st. Mark g jing jang I don't know if you're familiar with the site st. Mark g. He died an opium addict He died an opium addict. He did not get cured from his opium addiction in his lifetime His story is amazing. I don't know if you've heard that he was a respected Chinese doctor Raised by a well-respected Catholic family in China in the 19th century Then he became violently ill with a stomach issue They're not really sure what it was but he started to treat himself with opium Which was the common treatment and he quickly became an addict He was he would he was in all the way in this deep in this addiction Now he refused to give up and he tried as hard as he could to fight his addiction Especially by going to confession as often as he could but his repeated confession and His inability to break from his opium addiction let his confessor to say you have no true repentance for this sin I do not want you to receive communion Or come back to this sacrament to your truly sorry and you break this addiction now that seems harsh They didn't understand addiction the way we do today But he was left Separated from the sacramental life of the church for the last 30 years of his life And he could have become bitter He could have become angry, but he showed up anyway. He couldn't receive but he was there He showed up at mass and When he was there he would pray Lord, let me die a martyr because he figured it was only going to be through the martyrs crown That he could redeem his sad life of addiction and in 1900 Rebels in the area of China started to round up all the Christians all the Catholics all the missionaries and to persecute and to kill them He was captured in his village along with dozens of other people Including his own son his six grandchildren and two of his daughter-in-law's Like I said, he never beat his addiction, but in that moment St. Mark G was given the Grace of total perseverance not giving up Trusting in the Lord As they were dragging his him and his family to the to the prison He knew it was coming and one of his grandchildren said grandpa, where are we going and G answered him saying we're going home and the rebels edict was clear renounce your faith or die And not one of them did G begged his captors. He said please let me die last because I want I don't want anyone in my family To be alone when they die The rebels granted him his wish and he stood by all nine of his family members as they were beheaded Singing the litany of the blessed Virgin Mary and comforting them before he himself was beheaded Now I'm sure as they were walking through the streets to the place of execution There were probably people looking thinking oh there goes G the opium addict. He's gonna give in he'll deny his faith You just watch he has no strength of character. He's weak. He's this he's that But in that moment trusting in God's grace His weakness and his weakness he found a strength that allowed him to to embrace the death in imitation of Jesus Christ for the faith and How often do we look at ourselves and we just beat ourselves up and we beat ourselves up We are so hard on ourselves We are so damn hard on ourselves St. Catherine of Siena said It is strange that so much suffering is caused by the misunderstanding of God's true nature God's heart is more gentle than the virgins first kiss upon the Christ and God's forgiveness to all to any thought or act is more certain than our own Being I read that quote for the first time three nights ago, and I just broke down crying God comes to us and wants to kiss us more gently than the Blessed Virgin Mary first kissed Jesus How tender the father's love is for us and like I said, you know, we keep wanting to achieve and And earn the God's love and show God and prove and all the things that we feel in our human nature We need to do but Pope Benedict the 16th said at best. He said it's only in accepting God's love that we come to even know Who we truly are He says man comes in the profoundest sense to himself not through what he does but through what he accepts and And one cannot become a holy man in any other way than by being loved by letting oneself be loved We are going to find the healing the strength the renewal everything that we're desirous of Through our complete surrender without terms to the love of God for what he wants to give us more than anything tonight is a Deeper understanding of his perfect love his most sacred heart for us that burns burns deeply for us with that that divine love and This is so important for us especially as we go home and we are in the battle because this is what this is what another thing That st. Catherine of Siena said she said the devil fears hearts on fire with love of God He doesn't fear the self-righteous Those who who are on their own strength doing their best He fears those whose hearts are on fire with the love of God and I wonder Are we still? still trying to find a way of Receiving that in our lives in the purest way and even if we had are we still striving to go deeper to receive more To beg of God the grace of the expansion of our heart to receive more of that love For God is infinite and we are so finite He is so generous and we are so stingy sometimes with love The reason why God wants to give us his heart is so that we will love with his heart We will love ourselves with his heart and see ourselves are right and to be able to love those we serve For those of you who came to the life in the spirit I shared some of my testimony and how in the confessional Through confessing my sins. I received the mercy and love of God for the first time And one of the things that I needed to be healed of is being able to receive love It wasn't there. I did not see myself as lovable. I did not believe that I was lovable I thought all my love that was given to me was because I earned it but as a person I Looked at myself and I saw all my faults all my imperfections all my sins all my brokenness is thought I am not lovable and in In high school. I was insecure and even though I was very accomplished. I was one of the captains on the football team I was on the National Honor Society Everything that I was doing was a performance based act to try to get people to like me to get to try to get people To love me that I there nothing was coming from a place of I want to give It was all about Trying to find a way of being comfortable and what I looked at the mirror and liking what I saw And it wasn't until The healing love of God entered my heart. I Describe it like this at that moment of my conversion God put a snapshot of his love on my heart a pure clear picture and I can't describe it to anybody Because it's just too glorious and there's been times in my life when when I've been struggling and Struggling to continue to give more of myself to God and receive more of his love And it's always in prayer where God takes me into this path where I'm now Sitting there just staring at that picture and being reminded that I'm loved by God It's it's an indelible mark that's put on my soul We talk about how we're sealed with the Holy Spirit The seal that God put on my soul was an image of his love and he revealed it to me And when I close my eyes and go to prayer I can see it and it still makes me cry That doesn't mean that 24-7. I'm walking on cloud 9 feeling this love and just like oh, man I wake up and the angels are singing and there's like little cherubs fat little cherubs floating around my bedroom Say good morning, John. It's gonna be another great day. You know, he's like but But when I need to and I need to pause and just say okay God remind me of who I am It's like, you know, you pull out that old picture that you keep in your wallet or that picture You keep on your phone and just look at it it reminds you of something good and This reminds me of the best thing We all need to know this I was a youth minister for 15 years before I came back to Francis University I was serving at a parish down in North Carolina. I had this young kid in my youth group named Tony Tony was 13 years old and he first discovered pornography on the internet when he was 11 At first he was like every 11 year old boy curious. What is this? Oh my gosh What is that? Oh my gosh and as he described it though, it became more it wasn't just like Occasionally coming across it by accident because most people come up across it by accident But they get pulled in but within six months of his first discovery that he was going home and looking at it for hours Cutting himself off from friends cutting himself off from his family feeling more and more disgusted with himself and feeling shame and dirty and broken And I was hosting a retreat and on Saturday night at the retreat our pastor came out We were gonna expose the Blessed Sacrament and he and our associate pastor. We're gonna hear confessions and We're getting the room set up. We're getting ready to roll Jesus is gonna be coming in in a few minutes and Tony comes up to me goes. I'm gonna call my mom to come pick me up I want to go home. I Said why? He's like I don't belong here. I'm like why He goes you don't understand If you knew what I was doing You'd know why I don't belong here Remember this kid's 13 years old He didn't know God. He didn't know mercy, but he knew this he was dirty and broken because that's what the voice in his head The enemy was telling him over and over again. You don't belong here And I just stopped I said come Holy Spirit in my heart And I just put my hand on his shoulder said Tony don't leave In a few minutes Jesus is gonna be in this room Whatever you're dealing with Just lay it before him and say Jesus you speak to my heart tonight. What do you have to say about me? Who do you say I am? The same question that we were presented with this morning And so, you know He sat down in the room and and I'm kind of making sure that the Confession stations and everything's running smoothly and kind of MC and directory make directing and I turn around I have a conversation. I'm looking around Jesus comes in the room. We start praying the music's playing everything's going well I want to go check in on Tony and he's gone He wasn't in the room And so I went out on the porch thought I'd find him there He was there I walked around this whole big lodge that we were having this session in couldn't find him anywhere Went to look in the bathrooms. He wasn't there Ran up to his cabin. He wasn't there ran back to the main lodge walked in and there He was on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament with ball in his face off tears just pouring down his face and I went to my sit Tony you scare me. I thought you'd left is not I didn't leave I went to confession because as soon as I sat down. I looked at Jesus and I said Jesus tell me Who I am and Jesus said I love you and I want to set you free Because you're my son and I got up and I ran to the confession and I just confessed all my sin to the priest He forgave me and I am clean and I have hope And he could not stop crying like because God just broke into his life and Sometimes we're like that. We've got these wounds and they they wear us down They and we just become acceptance of this is my new normal Maybe there at one point in my life. I could have been happy go luck You're full of joy, but you know life is a lot more serious for me now And I've got my burdens and I'm just meant to carry these crosses and yes God can free somebody, but he's not gonna free me It's my job to manage my pain and to try to get through this life Even if I have to limp I'm gonna continue to limp with you God, but I'll just accept that This is just gonna be the way it is from here on out When God is like no You broken limping suffering struggling is not the new normal by which we're supposed to live But because God is a God of freedom where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom We are to be we need to step into it We keep going to God and saying like God I will come before you But I can't let go of this right now. I can't completely surrender We come to God with these terms because we fail sometimes in our woundedness to maybe realize that the most important thing that the Lord needs To heal in us is our trust in his goodness. I know for me the Lord has continually gone there in my life and And allowed me to experience trial after trial that continues to make me trust in his goodness Why because we need to be led there. It's sometimes it's Fundamental wound and it talks about this in the catechism article 393 article 397 It says man tempted by the devil let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and abusing his freedom Disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first and says first sin consisted of all Subsequent sin would be disobedient toward disobedience toward God and a lack of trust in his goodness all sin and Disobedience towards God is rooted in a lack of trust in his goodness The first thing to die in the garden was trust in the heart of Adam and Eve And that's why the enemy works so hard to make it the last thing that we want to deal with Because if God can heal our trust in him and restore our complete faith a child like faith in God's goodness To believe like little children we stand before him with our hands and they are saying daddy That he's gonna swoop down and pick us up and and and draw us to his heart and love us for who we are So often in our culture of misplaced trust and broken promises and damaged lives We need to be reminded and we need to like the prodigal son come to our senses and run back to our father and Say to Jesus that you are the unshakable unchangeable unbreakable That Jesus you are worthy of all my trust And if we can't get there to say Holy Spirit Pour you the grace to get there upon me because sometimes that's the first thing that we have to understand Is like I can't even get there without the power of the Holy Spirit So send that Holy Spirit Lord that gives me that step to come to my senses and run to the father I believe the Lord wants to come and heal our wounded trust We have seen so many things fall apart We've seen the nature of our vocation transform before us The things that we thought we could rely on are gone But didn't we just pray and then you know in the in the night prayer. Let's not trust in man What is worthy of our trust where should our trust be it should be in Christ alone and Jesus trusted the father perfectly with all his heart. He made straight for us a path That we would be able to imitate that trust Mary our mother Her complete surrender She had perfect faith and hope and trust in the father and through this great grace She was able to believe and trust without fail And she can help us as her spiritual sons to learn how to walk that path. I Have five children. I Taught them all to walk They all fell down a lot And when they fell I didn't go up to them and kick them and say you stupid babies walking It's not that hard just watch You know You know you as a dad you scooped all you could do it You're like you sound really ridiculously stupid when you talk to your children. Oh, you could do good You could do it, you know You're like and but you get down on their level and you look them in the eye and say let's do it And you let them try again and they fall again You scoop them back up and that's how they learn to walk and that's how we're going to walk and learn to walk This walk of faith and trust this childlike trust is when we start letting God Stop saying look look what I can do for you God and say okay God teach me how to truly walk this path Blessed mother teach me to truly walk the path of faith and trust Trust involves a choice to surrender our feet our fears our wills our very life It's a deliberate intentional From the deepest part of us a surrender But it is also a grace the catechism clearly teaches in article 154 says believing as possible only by grace In the interior helps of the Holy Spirit We're not going to get to that place of faith and trust by trying to conjure up a feeling within us. Okay. God. I trust you tonight No, no, it's when we like okay. God Trust is a grace I choose to receive that grace and I choose to move in that grace To live in that grace to claim that grace to accept that grace fill me with that We don't have to perform And today more than ever we each need radical faith A faith that is a profound personal decision to cling to God alone to God alone to God alone What other things are you in your life? Are you using as crutches right now? When God wants to teach you to walk without your crutches What things do you need to let go of And when we let go of these other things God is then able to teach us to truly walk because as long as we have crutches I mean, there's always that point in somebody's therapy when the doctor says put down the crutches and start walking You don't need them anymore That's going to be the path of healing You're still going to need a boot on your foot for a while You you're going to but eventually you're going to have that and now you're going to be able to do some light exercise But sooner or later You're going to be back on the field playing at full strength We want to just like okay. God. I just want to Go out on the field with my crutches and see what happens, you know, like no let them go let God restore I find myself more and more like praying not for like Like the outlandish courageous like man when you beat on my chest look at me God watch me go. I'm I'm like saying father You see my limits My lack of trust that's in my heart at times, you know the hardness of my heart That wants to control that doesn't want surrender But lord, you see me like you saw Zacchaeus Like you saw Bartimaeus like you saw Peter sinful and broken In the need of your love In need of your healing father touch my heart with your peace With your power with your healing Change my heart like you change Zacchaeus's heart Open my eyes like you open Bartimaeus's eyes Restore Peter The way you restored Peter after he fell three times Or be gentle with me, but but be firm I want to stop diagnosing and prognosing and and and prescribing for me and myself the way I'm going to become the saint I want to be I'm gonna let that ambition go and just say okay. God for me Let me truly be clay now Let me keep my own hands off the clay and let you Touch me for me make me the man I'm supposed to be Not even not even the man even though it might be a really good image Not the man I want to be but the lord the lord the man you need me to be the man you created me to be And I need you to restore Holy spirit my trust in the father to do this I need you where I'm hard to come With the water of the spirit to soften the hardness of that soil Where I'm impure I need you to come with the fire of the spirit to strengthen and purify Jesus only you can save me I find myself praying this way this complete surrender Because after 40 years of walking in the lord, I realize I've done most of it mediocre and some of it I've done just completely wrong Because I had still was for too long held on to my ideals It's like this is who I wanted to be and that became like an idol for me. That's what I served this vision of my life And the lord's like that's not who I want you to be just trust and let go And with that comes the peace And it takes time like I'd like to say oh man, I started praying this a couple years ago and everything's just clicking The the the onion of my heart has lots of layers and gods keep peeling more and more of them back Keep going he keeps going deeper into me transforming it a little bit after a little bit Um, and that's what he wants to do for each one of us You know he uh That's what he wants to do for each one of us Now god will never give you more in this journey than than you can handle He will ask of things of you that will exceed your capacity Which what all I mean by that is he's going to allow you to experience things that are going to make you cry out to the lord And trust him with with the results He's going to ask you to do things that are beyond your capacity, but not beyond your ability Because all we need to do is to realize that in god's perfect will his number one goal In all that has happened to you and all that he's doing in you is that you'd be drawn up into his love And transformed by his embrace and and respond to that movement of grace And go to witness to other people what he's doing in you and through you To this broken and sad world You know, I spent the first part of my uh career in ministry saying to young people the words of st. Paul the timothy Do not let people look down on you but you you're of your because of your youth Don't let people say you're too young And now I've kind of flipped it do not think for one minute you're too old for god to start this process anew in you Never in our lives are we beyond god's plan? You have not lived long enough to outlive god's plan for you You did not come with an expiration date It's all fresh with god because god exists out of time He can even go back in your life and heal things that happen 40 years 30 years 20 years 10 All anything is is under his power because it in his in our mind We're linear creatures. We have a start and a finish. God is there. He's here He's everywhere at the same time in the in everywhere And I don't want to get too geeky. It maybe it's like a multiverse of of craziness But god can go to any part of our lives and bring healing In the past And he definitely is waiting for you tomorrow and the next day in the next day to give you that glorious future You did not miss god's chance to live out his plan to the fullness The next great chapter of your life can begin tonight I love like the lord of the rings Because there's lots of characters that Are woven in and out of the story some are major characters and some are minor characters But even the small characters have great things to to say and great things to do as part of this story and there is a great chapter Where god is going to do something great in you and through you Because he wants you to be able to In imitation of our blessed mother to say People call me blessed because the mighty god has done great things for me People want to be able to say you are a blessed person And we should be able to say yes, I'm blessed As deacon ralph would say I'm blessed by the best Because we are because the mighty one has done great things for us and tonight we're going to let him do some more Amen You know, I've told the story before and I know some of you've heard it And I'm not going to tell all the details But it was five years ago I was at a conference in rochester minnesota When I got a call From who from who at the time was my son andrew's girlfriend They had just been in a car accident And she had been on the side of the road Cradling him in his arms with her hand across the forehead his forehead because a car coming the opposite direction The driver fell asleep crossed the center line and hit them head on and my son was in the back seat Lined down flat on the back seat with a lot of seat belt on she was in the front wearing her seat belt and airbags She had another friend who was in the front seat seat belt airbag They walked away one she had like a her friend had a broken ankle She didn't have a scratch on her but my son took the full force of impact of him going forward Right here. He had 19 fractures And his head was split open And she cradled in his arm holding trying to hold it all in As he was bleeding on the side of the road waiting for the helicopter to arrive that was going to take him to the hospital After he'd gotten taken care of and was on his way. She called me and she was hysterical She had no idea where they were taking them. They said a hospital of his progress. You didn't remember the name And she and and and I said okay Just take a deep breath. It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna call my wife She'll she'll know what how to help and she'll she'll be in contact with you So I called my wife And I said that Andrew's been in a car accident I don't know what hospital it is start calling the hospitals in Pittsburgh as you're driving get there when you find out Anything let me know. I'll be there as quickly as I can I'm scrambling in my hotel room. This was about noon I go back to my hotel room. I'm going through my phone What's the next flight that'll get me out back to to to Pittsburgh And it wasn't until the evening that I could get out of Rochester So I drove from Rochester up to st. Paul to the main airport got on a plane That was going to get me home by nine got to the airport the flight's delayed I did not leave I did not leave minnesota until 10 o'clock that night And all the while, you know, like As I was walking through the airport, I felt like this zombie and I know I was saying excuse me a lot to people You know, I have a tendency to get impatient when I'm in crowds and I want I like to walk fast And I don't like it when people get in my way but that night changed my whole perspective because I was that guy, you know, we don't know what people are going through when we encounter them, right But that night I was so broken and sometimes that person who just seems to be moving in such a way like get it together That they could have been going through what I was going through It's taught me a level of compassion But I but as I was in the airport, I was texting All the different conference hosts that we had because we had six conferences going on And on saturday night at our conferences, they have holy hours. And so I asked them just Play home. I don't know what I'm gonna find when I get there. I don't know if he's dead or alive. You know, he's he's going in for surgery There's all this surrender all this okay god and that night There were like Almost 12,000 high school students across the united states and canada praying for my son before the bless of sacrament I didn't land in pittsburgh till two o'clock in the morning And at that point I couldn't have gotten into the intensive care unit my wife had already come home for the night So I just said i'm you know when I landed I just said i'm coming home. Let's just sleep. We'll get up first thing in the morning We'll go we'll deal with it So we woke up I went to bed fell asleep around 2 30 got up at 5 30 took a quick shower Got in the car with my wife and drove to pittsburgh My son was lying there Tubes coming out of both his arms ventilated Head wrapped because not only did his head split open, but they had to do an emergency craniotomy They took almost the top third of the left hand side of his skull off And there was a tube coming out of his head draining blood his face You ever see the rocky movies After rocky gets his face beaten in by apollo creed or Ivan drago or whoever he's fighting clubber lang that's what he looked like He looked like he did 10 rounds with each one of them And I just fell on my knees put my hands on his chest and said come holy spirit Lord jesus just come with your grace I mean I just completely just I just remember just being drawn to my knees and just crying out to god This is my son In thinking this is must be what the father felt like as he looked down on his son being crucified The the damage that was wrought to him and I was just like oh lord just come with your spirit come with your grace Later that morning the doctors came in to talk to my wife and I and they sat us down and they were very stern and very solemn They said We've seen this kind of injury many many times It may be weeks before he wakes up and when he does he might not remember who you are He might not remember how to speak We're not sure we won't know the extent of his injury Until he wakes up, but I would be Prepared for months if not years of rehabilitative therapy for him And as the doctors saying this there was no panic in my heart But just it was what was impressed upon me is okay god all I ask for in this moment Is the grace to accept whatever I have to do to get my son better I I mean I don't know why this prayer was in my heart because I would have been like, okay god You've got a you you owe me a miracle. He better get out of that bed. You better take care of this I have spent my whole life serving you and sacrificing for you. You better come through with a miracle But in that moment all I could say is god whatever it takes Whatever sacrifice I need to make Whatever time money effort nothing I will I will do it whatever it takes god just give me the grace It's all I ask the next morning They had taken out his breathing tube because uh, they had him on the breathing tube because they had him on so many anti seizure medicines because of brain injury that they didn't want him to be pulling out his IVs, but They determined he was past that point so they took out the breathing tube And so he was able to breathe on his own, but he hadn't said anything yet and woken up yet And my daughter Madeline was with us and we had already prayed a number of rosaries We had a number of priests come by we he had already received, you know The anointing of the sick but and many blessings and we had prayed the rosaries a couple of times by his bed And everyone was taking turns just being there and and holding his hand and telling them that we loved him And my daughter Madeline was there who she's a nurse and so you know the accident was really brutal He had blood on his face. He had blood oozing out of his eye socket because it was so damaged And she just took a wet rag got some warm water on it and just kind of like was cleaning him up Taking the blood that was in his ear that had pooled in his ear and kind of wiping it out Doing whatever she could just to clean him up a little bit and talking to them. Andrew's going to be okay And it was such a beautiful thing to see her love and care But as she's doing this Andrew starts to flinch Like he's like annoyed And and it matters like Andrew just sits still I'll be done in a minute She's like continue I've been off and he just kind of looked up and he opened his one good eye And he goes will you please stop that? Because it is A proven fact that there are two powerful things In the in the universe more powerful than anything else right one the power of prayer second The power of a sibling to annoy another sibling It can raise a sibling from the dead bring them out of a coma Stop touching me. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you But we all just like stood there. We all picked our jaws up off the floor we called for a nurse The nurse came in Asked my son. What's your name? Andrew? Where do you live? Steubenville, Ohio. Why are you here? I don't know. Where am I? Like he couldn't remember the accident But he do you know your siblings names and Madeline Catherine John Paul Trez Like he's like all name and all of us, you know, like and we're like, oh my gosh Oh my gosh Now he doesn't remember the first two weeks after his accident But I do And I watched miracle after miracle after miracle From him getting out of the intensive care into a regular room getting out of that room into the long-term rehab Which he spent all of 10 days in Before they told me there's nothing more we can do for your son. He is fine. Take him home We do ask that you would take him into ongoing rehabilitation on an outpatient basis So I sign him up. I take him to two Sessions with their outpatient rehabilitation Therapists and they're like you're wasting your insurance companies money. We're not helping them. He's fine now I'm not saying that there isn't residual effects from the accident, but I will tell you this A year and a half later he finished up his masters in business from francis university He's currently taking nursing school courses because of the he's going to be a nurse He works at a hospital down in wheeling In the midst of our trials What the holy spirit taught me what in the midst of our trials we need to do the right things and stop doing the wrong things We need to stop asking the wrong questions Does god really love me in all this? Is he present? Is he does even care? Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? What mistake did I make? What did I do to god? To piss him off so much that this is how he treats me Or who's who's to blame for this? Somebody is making my life hell. Who's to blame? We need to ask the the right questions of god Lord, how are you calling me to grow? What are you wanting to teach me in the midst of this? What grace do you want to bless me with in the midst of this chaos in the midst of this struggle? What grace do you want to bless me with? How am I called to face this situation with that grace, oh lord? Because those are the questions that he will answer I will tell you god could have come down and told me exactly why my son had to go through that accident And explain to me in it with little words because I would have needed to do a little little words for me to understand And it would not have comforted me one bit It was the surrender To say god whatever you want Whatever it takes Just give me grace. Just give me grace You will see me through this and people were coming up to me saying then your family's handling this so well How are you doing? How is this happening? And I remember talking to god about this. I said you know god, this is such a grace filled moment. Why are you? Are you blessing me so incredibly much and and the lord said to me, you know john You know all those times you got up in the morning and you prayed your rosary and you and you spent time talking with me And you didn't feel like I was there and you are wondering if I was there. Yep I remember those lord Yeah, and you remember all the times that you got up and you prayed and uh, you know you felt nothing And you but you did it anyway And you didn't want to get out of bed you wanted to sleep But you got out of bed and prayed you remember all those times like yep lord He was in those moments. I was preparing you for this In our intimacy with jesus christ He will release the grace that we need to face all the challenges that are coming because I have a feeling that things are not going to get better In the near future for any of us it's not going to get easier to be a priest It's not easier. It's not going to be easier to be a man of faith A man sold out to for god and his glory in our world. It's not going to get easier But if we remain rooted in christ if we remain surrendered to the power of the holy spirit Not only will god come into our lives and bless us. He will heal us of all things For me I didn't need healing for that. I had so much anger When I got the police report and read the name of the other guy who was driving You know the car the first thing I did is I went to all the social media I could find and try to get a profile of him because I'm going to figure out like how much I could sue him for I was I was just I was so angry like my son Shouldn't have to deal with this And I thought I was very righteous and the lord just spoke to me just said What are you doing? You know when we get resentful and angry like that it's like Drinking poison and expecting our enemies are going to die because of it But we're only killing ourselves and I was like, hey lord. I know I Help me to let go and it didn't happen in a moment It was a process it took a couple of weeks for the lord to really get me to a point where I could even surrender it and even after that still like The residual effects of that kind of anger in my life just to let go of it But there's there's healing on every level for us And actually in the end, you know, like my son and I We started praying for him, you know together We were praying for this kid and for his recovery because he was pretty banged up in the accident too And and after my son had received all this grace. He was like, yeah, we need to pray for him dad Because I've been blessed he needs to be blessed and that was like such a great thing to help me Let go and just like turn All the the feelings I had from from being angry with him to love and let God transform him, you know We don't always get our desired outcomes when we pray But we do get his god in his goodness and tonight Maybe the idea like father day said is like let's come to God without desired outcomes Let's not get in the way Let's not come to God with an agenda Let's ask God to come and do what we need him most to do and maybe that's first go into our place of trust and say I want to restore And give you even a stronger belief in my goodness A stronger trust in who I am a childlike faith again To start anew To be restored And as we go through this night There are going to be specific ways that God's going to want to enter into your life and heal more things But let the spirit reveal let the spirit lead And as the spirit shows you what needs to be healed in our lives, let us not run but let's In humility and trust surrender completely And without terms amen