 I don't know about you, but after listening to the last couple of days and hearing all of this stuff on mercy, and then I'm working on these readings for today, I'm going, really, Lord? You're giving me readings like this after we've been talking about mercy and compassion. And now he comes and he gives us readings like this. I'm like, what do you want me to do with that? So I've been wrestling back and forth where to go and what to do. And I just said, okay, Spirit, you know, do what you do. One of the things that struck me right at the very beginning are the things that, when Jesus said, when he confronted him and said, you know, just because you call me Lord doesn't mean you're coming in. And then they start describing that we did all these powerful things for you. I mean, you ordained us. You called us to office. You gave us these abilities to do these things and we did them in your name. And yet you're saying that we might not get in? I mean, we're doing it for you. Doesn't that give us entrance? And then he says those powerful words. I never knew you. I know the temptation for us a lot of times is to, you know, we get an office. Priest, pastor, deacon, music ministers, altar servers, lectors. And it's so easy to play the role, isn't it? We could play the role the whole time and just play the office, look good at it, and never once really give ourselves to Christ. Never once lend ourselves to Christ. And that's a really tough challenge. And the thing for me that strikes me is that as I do a lot of traveling around them and lots of churches around the country, and you know it's the one thing that just grieves my heart more than anything else, is that when I look at the parish staffs and the people who are in ministry working for everybody else, trying to minister and bring people to the Lord, most of the people who are serving in parishes aren't praying. They're so busy doing the stuff that they don't stop to be present to the Lord. It's almost as if the ministry depends on what we do, not on what God is supposed to do through us, amen. And so we get in there and we get so busy. In fact, a lot of the programs that we're running today, they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. All these religious education programs, we confirm them. We're confirming kids. They're not even sure they believe in God, let alone here we are confirming them and saying, you got everything you need. Now go be Catholic. So here's Jesus giving us this very challenging phrase. And then he goes on, not only does he give us that hard word, but then he adds on to it and then he gives us the description. So here's what it's going to be like if you pay attention to do the words that I'm telling you. You're going to be anchored on my word, on the truth. You know, the temptation for us is that we do all the studying and I know my priest brothers did a lot more studying than us lowly deacons, you know. We just got trained where to go find the information. You were actually given all the information, or at least most of it. But the temptation is that once we've gone through school, that we think we don't need to read anymore. We don't need to be in the Word. We stop our daily readings of the Scriptures and we stop asking God to come and move in our hearts and Lord let your word speak to me, to challenge me, to convict me. Because we get so casual, so relaxed in the environment that we minister in. And then you know, the temptation I know for me at the beginning where the team was praying before we got started for the conference and the Lord gave me a word and the word was that when we get so accustomed to ministering we begin to depend on our strengths. They become our go-to things, right? And we tend to gravitate in our ministry to doing those things which we know we're good at because we don't like looking like idiots, right? I mean, that's what we do. So the other things that we could be doing but we're afraid to go do them, we don't do because it takes us way out of our wheelhouse, so we avoid it. And yet doesn't Jesus tell us, when you are strong, I am weak in you. But when you are weak, I'm strong. And so the conviction for me was when you only go to your strengths, you cut me out. You don't allow me the opportunity to minister powerfully through your weakness because you're too afraid to look weak. And all of us, I know, it's like the king in the first reading. He's 18 years old, he's been put in his office. He's got his kingdom and he's doing whatever he wants because he's now in charge and nobody can tell him to do anything different unless he breaks canon law. And so he's doing whatever he wants and it says that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And of course the Israelites at that point, they were very arrogant, right? Because we heard the readings at the beginning of the week, right? The Assyrians had come earlier, surrounded Jerusalem, but they didn't take the city. So you can imagine the Israelites going, oh, you know what? Our church can't go down. We have the temple. Jerusalem can't fall. We have the temple of God. God will surely let us keep everything we've got. Really? Isn't that what are the arrogance of our country? We don't even obey one of the Ten Commandments anymore as a nation. How much time do we have left? I think all of us has like, you know, we begin to depend on the walls that we set up around ourselves, the walls of Jerusalem. But you know, here's the freaky thing. We think that there are defense, but they actually become what enslave us because when Nebuchadnezzar came and his armies, they surrounded the city and they just, and the Israelites took a defensive posture. Isn't that our churches now? We're supposed to have the power of God. We have the Lord coming, a profound miracle in just a minute, and yet we're defensive because we all have our go-to things. This is what we do. This is how we're going to tell God, I'm going to be your priest. I'm going to serve as your priest this way. I'm going to serve as your deacon this way. I'm going to be this kind of seminarian and then become this kind of priest and I'm going to tell God, this is how I will work for you. But isn't God asking us to say, I don't want just those things? I want everything. What did he do with the Israelites time and time again? Get your army together. Get your army together. Okay, great. Now, cut your army down. Now, cut it down even more. 300 men come against the 5,000 or 10,000 in the enemy. Why? So that the whole world might know that it is not you that did the victory, but me. You see, and I think that's what the Lord is calling us to do. He's calling us to come back and the repentant word is Jesus is saying to us, I did not know you. Why? Because you're so busy working to make a name for you that you're not letting the people see me. And that's the conviction that I've been getting hit with. Do you believe that Jesus is going to show up here in just a few moments? Yes or no? I'm so glad you said yes. Then how does it make you radically different so that the flock who follow us see Jesus? Not just in our reverence, but in our radical faith that puts us out there and says, okay, I don't like going and talking to strangers. It's comfortable being in my church and waiting for people to come to me. Or I'm grossly uncomfortable dealing with same-sex attraction and dealing with those issues. And there's some wounds that are so close to me that I don't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. And so we're ready to just hold on to our bag and say, I'm going to serve this way. But Jesus is calling us out, isn't he? While the churches are being sieged, Jesus is saying, open the gates. Open the gates and not just let him in, but go out. Go out so that my love can impact the people. Because you see, the thing that keeps coming back to my mind is that we have the most amazing gift that the world has ever known. It's here. It all flows from here. Our strength flows from here. But the world is being given all these different delicacies and all these different things and all these attractions and trying to redefine them and all those different things. And we're hunkering behind walls. Because our faith isn't putting us out there and saying, no, we have something far greater. So much so that I'm willing to talk to anybody about it, anywhere at any time. Because I believe that what we have is nothing but the best. It's not something mediocre. It's not something minimalized. It is the best. Does my faith allow me to go out and say, I believe? I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven. I believe that He loves me so much. Where is the mercy? He came for me as He's come for you. And while right now we may not agree on what God is doing or how relevant God is, let me share with you what He's done for me. Do you know Jesus is real? That's the question. As an evangelist, that is the question. Everyone out there wants to know. Everyone with all the confused identities, everyone with the different theologies, the different religions. They want to know, you people, you guys, you say you believe in Jesus. How do you know He's real? Don't tell me about 2,000 years ago. How do you know He's real today? Don't give me the apologetics. I want to know from you, from your life, from your heart, how do you know He's real? What made you become a celibate, my priestly brothers? Deacons, what made you get married to two wives? Wasn't one enough? Don't tell my wife that. But you see what I'm saying? I think our flocks, the people are looking to us. They're looking to us to find out how, how do we know? How do we move to a deeper faith? How do we move to that deeper faith that enables us to put ourselves out there to such a degree that people are going and they're saying, you are weird. But doggone it if you're not authentic. And I think we're so afraid of what the enemy is now crafting around us is a besieging army around our churches that we're thinking, we've got nothing to deal with this, we might as well give up. Well, I think that is a lie from the pit of hell. And that we're being called to rise up at the breaking of the bread and get launched into action. Launched into action in such a way that in the intimate relationships that we're supposed to go to and have with our flock, and it's Father's share to go to those people we don't like or really go to the people we just don't know so that we have poured ourselves out all week long. And then when the time comes for us to come back to the liturgy, to the breaking of the bread, are we coming back to the table? Not only offering ourselves sacrifice, hopefully we've been doing that all week long, but are we coming back to the table with a desperate need to be replenished because we've been pouring ourselves out? Because you did not, I did not know. And David at the beginning talked about this intimacy of what happens here. And I'm blessed. I'm in a cool spot. I get to watch it all happen right here. Are we coming here because we're so spent and we know that what we're about to receive is going to fill our tank for us to drive another 100 miles, to die 100 more deaths, to put ourselves outside those scary walls and be in a place where we're so vulnerable, but never alone. We can do a lot of stuff for God, but we know that the only way we can give the people what they need is because we come to the breaking of the bread, we come to our time of prayer with the Lord, our breaking open His Word, and actually living the Word, not compromising it, but finding the Scriptures. And it evicts me when I'm not living this Word, strengthen me and bolden me to live the truth, that I could be the sign for your people to follow. That's a challenge, brothers. I don't know that, I know for me, I'm speaking personally, that sometimes it's so easy to just come and just go through the mass and, you know, I don't know how my brother priests do it. You say this all the time. It must become so ritual, so, you know, over and over and over again. There's got to be a stripping away to make yourself present in tuned, raw. How do you do that? Because I find myself, you know, tuning in, tuning out. I'm feeling, in recent history, just getting convicted to tune into the words that you're saying. Oh my gosh, that's what that says. Let us not live defensively anymore. Let's leave the gates open, because we don't fear the enemy. Why? Because we...