 I think mature has taken a little too far, Father Dave, but thanks for the confidence. Just recently at a gathering in Europe, Father Cantolamesa, the household preacher to the papal office, stated about the Holy Spirit. He said, without the Holy Spirit, God is far away. Christ stays in the past. The gospel is a dead letter. The church is simply an organization, authority a matter of domination, mission a matter of propaganda, liturgy no more than a vocation, Christian living a slave to morality. But he goes on to say, he says, but with the Holy Spirit, the cosmos is resurrected and groans with the birth pangs of the kingdom. The risen Christ is there. The gospel is the power of life. The church shows forth the life of the Trinity. Authority is a liberating service. Mission is a pentecost. The liturgy is both memorial and anticipation. And human action is deified. When I read this, I get really fired up, right? And I'm like, yes, the power of the Holy Spirit is all those things. And then when I read the scripture, the passage that we've been reflecting on this weekend, when it says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God, Luke 135. That's our theme. That's our scripture. And when I read that passage, when I read this in scripture, I think to myself, I want to be overshadowed by the power of God, don't you? I mean, isn't that something that we all desire, honestly? But if I were to be really honest and transparent, I know that there's been times in my life where maybe I felt overshadowed, the spirit of God moved through me. But most of the times I feel overwhelmed, not overshadowed. I feel overworked, underpaid, overlooked, not overshadowed, overanxious, overextended, overwhelmed. And the list can go on and on and on and on. I think if we were all to be honest, most days of our life, we feel a little less overshadowed and more overwhelmed, overanxious, overextended. We overdo life. We overextend, we overwork. I'm not sure we overpray. I haven't accomplished that one yet. And most people I talk to, they walk into my office from having conversations. It is that sense of filling over something. But I think we all desire to be overshadowed by the power of God. It is our destiny. It's our heart's desire to be overshadowed with the power of God. In scripture, the word overshadowed in Greek, Episcaisia, to describe how God overshadowed and established his presence throughout scripture. And we see God's presence in and throughout scripture, the power of his spirit, not only in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament. I'd like to look at a couple of passages that we can learn from, from sacred scripture and maybe take tonight and begin to apply to our life. What does it look like for you and I to be overshadowed by God? Not just one time, not just two times, but consistently in our life. Not that being overwhelmed or overwork or overanxious won't just disappear, but that our lives can be under the shadow of God, that he could overshadow us and we could live in that reality. You guys want that? Or is it just me? Because I do The first passage comes from Exodus in the Old Testament. It says this, so Moses is gathering, you know, the whole story, you guys know the story, the Israelites have come out of Egypt, you know, God saved them, you know, let them go out of the hands of Pharaoh, you know, they escaped, you know, they were ushered through the Red Sea, you know, and there they are heading to the Promised Land, they're wandering through the desert, God continues over and over and over and over again to feed them, to nurture them, to show up, and then they're like, okay, good God, you're there, and then they forget God, and then they journey, they go in circles. If you've ever seen the map of the route that the Israelites take, you're like, what were they doing? They do what most of us do, we wonder, we go in circles, you know, and so here it is at the end of Exodus, you know, they received the 10 commandments, so they have the tablets, and God tells Moses to build a tabernacle, to contain the tablets, right, the covenant, the Ark of the Covenant, so he gives them, you know, this whole master plan on how to build this thing, and if you read Exodus, you read the whole chapter, God's very specific, he wants, he's like, I want it this size and this width and this length with this type of gold, and I want it to look like this, all right, get it right, you know, so Moses does that, and he builds it, right, and then it says, then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. How awesome is that? It's the first thing we see is that God desires to be with us, God shows his presence, God's not hidden, we are not deist, we don't believe that God created and sort of showed up and then disappeared from the earth, and stepped back and said, good luck living your life, I'll kind of watch from afar, that's not who we are as Christians, we believe that God is present, God is active, God is real, and that when God created, He created to be in relationship with us, to be engaged with us, every moment of our life. We see that at the very beginning of Scripture, when He creates Adam, this is He breathed in them, Ruah, Spirit, He breathed His Spirit into Adam, and Adam came to life, His very presence of God entered into the soul, there it was, and God desired to be in relationship, to be present, and He desires to be present with you and I every day. How often are we aware of God's presence at every moment of our day, right? We often forget that God's there, you know, we might walk into a church or adoration or go to Mass or receive the sacraments or, and we're like, okay, okay, God's here, but God is with us at every moment of every day. Next, as Scripture says, it goes on to say this, it said, whenever the cloud was taken up over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would go forward, but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not go forward. Sounds easy enough. When God moved, they moved. When God didn't move, they didn't move. Now, here's the second thing we learn about the power of God, is that when God moves, we should move, and when God doesn't move, we shouldn't move. Hello? Hello? I mean, how often in our life are we moving way ahead of God, or God's actually way ahead of us, and we're way behind, not even paying attention to what the Lord is doing, where the Spirit of God is moving. When God moves, we move. When God doesn't move, we don't move. This is so difficult for us, because if the lack of trust is the deepest hurt of the heart of Christ, then I believe that at the root of lack of trust is self-reliance, and I believe that self-reliance is killing Christianity in our culture, because people wake up every day, not their first thought is, I need God today. They simply rely on their self until all else fails, and then they cry out to God. That's what happens. We live in a world and a culture where God is set aside until we absolutely need them. We wake up most days. We can make a decision with an app. We have money at our fingertips. We can get food and water and people and friendships, even if we need to buy them. They're right there. It's interesting to me that less than 20% of Christians actually practice their faith, but yet statistically it says that over 90% of people when they're on their death bed cry out to God, I need you. I remember I was speaking at this really large conference, and before I start bragging, it was like 30, 40, 50,000 people, but I was speaking at the youth track. I was entertaining the kids of the adults why they went to the cool speakers and heard bishops and cardinals and things like that. I'm there, and I'm walking, and I'm trying to find my way, and it says, speaker hospitality on the door. I walk in, and I'm like, this is the nicest speaker hospitality room I've ever seen in my life. It's like blue M&Ms and strawberries and brisket. I was like, man, this is amazing. Leather couches, and I was like, so I go to, and right when I go in, this lady dressed really nice, she goes, excuse me, sir, this room's not for you. This is for the adult speakers. The youth speaker lounges, I don't know, under a stage with a case of water somewhere. I was like, I am so sorry. I'm used to a case of water under the stage. I get it, and I'm about to walk out of the room, right, and in walks this cardinal, and I use a cardinal because of the way he was dressed, and he looked at the woman. He must have heard the end of the conversation, and he goes, he can stay. I was like, ha, ha, ha, you know? And so, cardinal, I got a big plate of food, as Aniel wouldn't eat for the rest of the day, and so cardinal says, sit down with me, right? I've never sat down with a cardinal, you know? And so, I sit down, and I introduce myself, and he says, I'm cardinal Oscar Rodriguez from Honduras, and I said, wow, cardinal, this is crazy. I said, I'm going to be in your country in like seven or eight months. I'm coming to visit, do some mission work down there, and he looks at me, he says, when you come to my country, you call me up, we'll hang out. Yeah, right, you know? So, I was like, okay, sure, you know, whatever. So, seven or eight months later, I'm in Honduras. We're doing mission work, and we're there, and the leader who lives in Honduras and kind of coordinates all the work there, I told him, I said, hey, do you mind if we call the cardinal? He told me that I should call him, and we should set up a meeting, and he goes, I've tried to get a meeting with the cardinal for two years, and I've never met with him. And I said, well, will you just try? Tell him I'm in town. If you've ever been to Honduras, you would know that I do not blend in. And so, he calls, and he comes back to me, he says, the cardinal said to come today. So, we go, right? Right? So, we go, and we're sitting in the living room of Cardinal, and he slightly remembered me. And so, we're sitting down. And so, everybody gets one question. We're driving there, and the guy says, you get one question for the cardinal, think about what it's going to be. So, I'm thinking of like, what's the one question that I want to ask? And so, we're sitting in his living room. Everybody's kind of going around, asking their one question, and it comes to me. And I said, Cardinal Oscar, here's my one question. I said, what could we do to help serve the poor of your country? And he looked at me, he goes, it's not the poor that need God in my country. He said, it's the wealthy. You pray for them, because they think they don't need God. You see, self-reliance is at the root of lack of trust in the Father. But the Holy Spirit conquers that. When God moves, we move. When God doesn't move, we don't move. That's difficult. But when we live that way, we experience the freedom of God. And the next scripture that we see is the one that we're talking about this weekend. It says in the Gospel of Luke, and the angel of the Lord said to Mary, do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and his name shall be Jesus. This is the beginning of the scripture that we're talking about this weekend. This is beautiful passage. And God chose Mary specifically. Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant. The one that would carry the Son of God in her womb. I mean, this is not just something kind of interesting and cool that happened. This is part of God's plan. This is significant in salvation's story that God chose Mary and graced her. She is the Ark of the New Covenant. I have a friend that, his whole conversion, he was a Protestant preacher, and his whole conversion happened around Mary being the Ark of the New Covenant, because he knew his scripture front and back. He was like, what was in the Ark of the Covenant? He said, well, you know, the rod of staff, you know, and the word, the tablets, the commandments, and the bread, the manna from heaven. Those were in the covenant. He said, well, what's in the New Covenant? Who is Jesus? Jesus is the word. Jesus is the new priest, the authority, the staff, and Jesus is the bread of life. He knew his scripture. He said, well, who contained the rod, the word? And he said, Mary. He went from being a Protestant preacher to a Catholic deacon in less than a year, simply because he came to understand Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant. You see, and Mary is alive. Mary didn't just play a role then. Mary is alive now. She's active in our world, in our lives now. I remember praying with this young man who was just rattled in addiction and he wanted so badly to be free. And I remember praying with him, and every time we would pray, we would kind of get to a certain point, and then it would just go down the tubes, and I was so frustrated. Like, Lord, I know you want this young man to be set free from his sexual addiction, from the abuse, and all the things that he's experienced in his life. And so we're praying one time, and I get this sense, and it was really before that I had any real devotion to the Blessed Mother. And I began to feel the presence of Mary, but I didn't know what that meant or what that looked like. And so we're praying. And I said, do you sense anything? And he had his eyes closed, and he's praying, and he says, I'm picturing myself as a small child of when I was looking at pornography. I said, do you sense Jesus being there? He says, no, I can't see Jesus. And then we keep praying. He goes, I see someone in the corner of the room. I said, okay. I was like, who is it? He's like, I don't know. It's a woman. I said, well, what does she look like? What is she doing? You know, I'm like, what's going on? You know, and he's like, she's coming closer to me. I was like, well, who is it? He says, oh my gosh, it's Mary. I was like, well, what is she doing? He says, she's coming closer. I said, okay, what next? Like, I almost wanted to be in his shoes. Like, what's happening? Take me inside your mind. You know, we're praying. He says, she's picking me up. And he's like praying in like the fetal position. He says, she's carrying me. I was like, where is she taking you? And he says to the place that I'm most afraid to go, the place that I'm so fearful of, the place that I feel like I don't deserve that I could ever go. And I said, where's that? He goes, at the feet of Jesus. And he said that Mary took him, grabbed him and held him and walked him over to the feet of Jesus. And at that moment, he was set free, set free. She's alive. She's active. She plays a role in our life. It's not just a devotion. It's a relationship, one that can help sustain us. Next, we see in that scripture, as it continues to go on, it says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, right? And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born son of God will overshadow you. God really, in this sense of overshadowing, God wants to encounter us and everyone. God wants to encounter us, to have a personal encounter with us and everyone. God desires to meet us and to be in relationship to encounter us. In my work, I get some of the strangest calls. I end up in some of the strangest places in my life and I'll get calls to meet with people. And the people that I usually meet with are people who won't meet with priests. People who meet with priests are like, I haven't been a confession in a year or six months or even 10 years and I need to go. People who I usually meet with are people who have never been a confession. People who would never walk through the doors of a church and I get strange calls. I've sat in living rooms and in locker rooms of professional athletes. I'm like, how did I end up here? Like, what in the world? I was meeting with one guy. It was his last chance to save his marriage. His wife gave him ultimatum. He was having an affair on her and she says, I'll give you one last chance, but you got to call this guy. I don't even know where I got my number and so he comes into my office. He had never gone to church in his life. He's living with another woman trying to save his marriage for two years. For two years, I met with this man. Two years. It took two years and he saved his marriage. God saved his marriage. But he called me a few years later. I hadn't seen him and I answered the phone and I first thought, oh gosh, he's not doing well. And I answered the phone and he goes, first thing, I know I haven't talked to you in a long time, but I'm doing fine. He goes, but I have a friend who's living in the town that you live in. Could you go meet with him? I said, well, sure, when? He goes, today. I said, ah, man, I got a whole lot, you know, on my to-do list today and a lot of things. And he goes, he's not. I said, okay, give me his number. So I call this guy and I said, hey, would you like to meet over the phone? He goes, no, be better in person. I have no idea who this guy is. No idea where I'm going. He gives me his address to his office and I'm thinking to myself, where in the world am I going, right? So I'm driving there and I just pray, Lord, you take care of this. May the authority of Christ go before me and may the spirit lead. I don't know what's going to happen. And Lord, protect me if anything's dangerous. This guy's carrying a weapon or whatever. But if this is my last day on planet earth, may I go serving you? That was my prayer. Okay. And so I go and I drive up to this huge office building. I have no idea who this guy is. And so I walk in and I said, I'm here to meet with so-and-so. Somebody met me at the receptionist and she goes, he's expecting you. Follow me. I go, walk down this hall and we walk into his office and it says, you know, his name and says CEO. And I'm like, oh, this is the big dog. The head hot show. I'm like, oh, I don't know if I'm up for this. We're walking in this amazing office and he goes, hey, just follow me. So I follow him and we go into like this apartment attached to his office, right? Where he he can stay. And it's nicer than my house. You know, they got like safari animals like all around the, you know, he's traveled the world, you know, and I'm looking around and I'm thinking, wow, this is amazing, you know. And so we sit down and and I asked a very deep, deep theological question. Tell me what's going on. I asked that question and he just started crying. Here's a guy who's running a multi million billion dollar oil company. He's doing fine. And he's falling apart. This guy's crying. He can't even catch his breath and he catches his breath. And the first words out of his mouth, he looks at me says, I just want to be happy. And then he starts crying again. And over a course of two or three hours, he would stop crying and he rattled off a little information about his life, all the mistakes he's made, all the things he's done wrong. You know, his family that's broken, he's lost relationship with his wife and his kids. And the whole story guy has never been to church, wasn't going to church, obviously, wasn't interested in church. And so he's rallying off his life. And every now and then he would say, but I just want to be happy. And I'm thinking to myself, the Lord Jesus wants to encounter this broken man right now. And I don't know any other way to be happy, other than to know Jesus. So I looked at him after three hours and I was praying in the back of my mind, you know, and I looked at him and I said, can I just be honest with you? And he said, sure. And by this time, I knew everything about his life. And I said, from the world's standards, you have everything that would define happiness. He goes, Paul, you have no idea. He goes, I bought eight cars in the last two weeks. And I said, can I have one of them? He goes, I'll buy one, I drive it for a few days, makes me happy. And then and then I park it and I go buy another one, drive it for a few days. And I said, but I got to be honest with you. I said, only know one way to ever find happiness. And I said, there's a God who loves you, who created you. And I said, in all your brokenness and pain that you're experiencing right now, I said, he sent his son, Jesus, who took all your pain and suffering to the cross and died for you. And I began to share with him about Jesus. And he just listened. And I said, you mind if we pray, you know, and we're in this place like I don't even know where I'm at. And so I pray for him. And when I was done praying, I said, would you be open to praying and you just pray whatever comes to your heart of what you want God to do in your life. This guy had snot from his head to his toes. I'm not lying. I've never seen anything like it from a grown man. He, he, let me just tell you how crazy the situation was. The woman that he was having an affair with is who he's in a business relationship with was in the room with us. This man got down on his knees, the CEO of this office, this company, he got down on his knees. And for 10 minutes, he cried on the floor and begged God to save him. He cried out to Jesus with a cry and a groan that I have never heard in my life. And he cried and he cried and he screamed and he begged Jesus to save him. The power of God was so strong in this sinful broken man's office that you could cut it with a knife. The overshadowing power of God wants to encounter every person on the planet. And we are his vessels for that. In Luke 9 34, it says this, Peter said to Jesus, set the transfiguration, you guys know. Master, it is well that we are here. Let us make three booths, right? One for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. As he said this, a cloud came and overshadowed them. And it goes on to say this, you flip to the next slide. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. Oh, there we go. Wait, no, next one. And they were afraid as they entered the cloud. Now, can you imagine being there with Jesus? The spirit of God shows up. Moses and Elijah are there. Jesus is changing colors. I would be afraid, too. So one thing that I think that we have lost in our hearts and in our culture is this idea of the fear of God. We think of fear of God in a sense of being afraid of God. But when the scriptures talk about the fear of God, what it really translates to is an honest of God. See, fear sets in. But see, when fear sets in, it's not a fear of like, I'm so afraid of this relationship with God. When the spirit of God hits, the fear of God is an honest of God. It's being in awe and wonder of who God is and what God can do. I mean, when's the last time you're just in awe of God, awe of his wonder and his glory? I mean, yeah, sometimes at mass, you know, we might have a moment or just brief snippets, but the glory of God being in awe like this in our hearts of just who God is. I remember when my wife and I were dating, you know, we had some like casual dates, you know, it's like jeans and, you know, a t-shirt and baseball cap and, you know, we're just kind of hanging out with your friends. And she says, hey, Ken, would you come to this formal dance with us? And we weren't like really officially dating. But I was like, sure, I'll go with you. And so, you know, I dress really nice and it's a formal dance and I show up where she lives and I'm sitting downstairs and I'm nervous as heck, because I'm starting to like this chick, right? And I don't have feelings for her, but I don't really want to show it. And so I'm nervous. And so she's running late, which 20 years later she still is. And so she all of a sudden walks down this spiral staircase where she lives, dressed formally in a way I've never seen her. And like my first reaction was like I gulped. I was like, oh, I am unworthy. I'm in awe of her beauty, of who she is. Like I was just awestruck by her. Your marriages fall apart all the time. One, because you're not always going to be in awe. I mean, you wake up in the morning, your hair is all like this, your breath smells like God knows what. And you're not like, oh, this is awesome, right? This is amazing. But marriages fall apart 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years later after marriage, because people lose an honest, an honest of their spouse, an honest of who God made them to be. And if you don't continue to capture that honest in the relationship, you're not going to have it all the time. But if you don't continue to capture it and fall in love over and over again, then love disappears. And I hear it all the time when I'm talking to people, people in marriages who are struggling, I will hear this line and I can't believe I hear it, but I hear it all the time. And they'll say this, we don't love each other anymore. They fell out of awe. And we fall out of awe of God. We get distant and away from how amazing and glorious he is. This is proof that that God is alive is when we are in awe of God. Scripture there also goes on to say, in the next part of that scripture, it says, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my son, listen to him. The God speaks, the spirit of God, God speaks. God didn't just speak then, God continues to speak now. This is proof that God's alive, that God speaks, God's real, that even in the midst of suffering and pain, that God's alive and God speaks. I had a friend who was on an airplane, and he's a believer in God. He's a follower of Jesus. And he's sitting there and he's not necessarily like really praying and he's just thinking, I want to get on the plane, I want to go to sleep, right? And I just want to fly home. And so he sits down and he's about to go to sleep. He looks over at the guy next to him and he sees a word written on his forehead. And he's like, that's weird. Closes his eyes. He's like, I'm just seeing stuff. He looks over and he sees a word written on the guy's forehead. And the word says adultery. And he's like, God, don't do this. So he's like, Lord, I'm going to close my eyes. And when I come back, if that word's still there, I'll do something about it. So he opens up his eyes again. He looks over and adultery written. He's like, God, what do I do? So taps a guy on the shoulder. He says, I don't know how to tell you this. But there's a word on your forehead. And it says adultery on it. The guy looked at him, he goes, how did you know? He goes, what do you mean? The guy says, I'm flying home from seeing my mistress to go back to my family. How did you know? And he says, God, right there, he led that man to Jesus. And actually, he was flying from his family to go see his mistress. This is what was happening. When he landed, he got a return flight home, flew back. The power of God, God speaks. And God wants to continue to speak to people today. This is why atheists are having a field day with Christians today. You're God's dead. He's not alive. He doesn't speak. Why does he allow suffering and pain in the world? How can you prove that God is real and God is alive? There is no God. Look at the world. Look what's happening. And what's happening is that Christians are like staying silent because they're afraid. Like, I don't theologically know how to defend the faith against an atheist who's so smart and studied. You know how you defend the faith against an atheist or a non-believer? You pray that the Holy Spirit would speak to you and prove that God is a real and alive and that the Spirit of God is moving in the midst of this world. It could save hearts and save lives. As a matter of fact, pray for that person, that atheist, that God would give you a word for them and speak into their life, and boom, watch things happen. Watch it. Watch the transformation happen. We can't sit back as Christians and think, ah, God's not active and real and alive and speaking. I mean, the Spirit of God is moving and all through Scripture, God proves this over and over and over. Lastly, in the book of Acts, we know this Scripture. It says, More than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and pallets. That as Peter came by, at least his shadow, might fall on them. The Holy Spirit wants to overshadow us and move in our lives, plain and simple. He wants to overshadow us and move in our life every day. He wants to take over our life. If we could trust and surrender, not rely so much on our self, but really begin to hand over the reins to the Lord in a real way and an expectant way that God wants to move in our lives. The Holy Spirit isn't just for us to contain for ourselves. Yes, God wants to give us the Holy Spirit to transform us and to heal us and to help us in our own brokenness and our woundedness wants to give us the Holy Spirit so that we can move forward in our life, get out of the old way and move into the new way. No longer, you know, I'm a new creation in Christ. The old has passed away. Behold, new things have come, right? God wants that for us, but the Holy Spirit isn't just for us to contain for ourselves, but the Holy Spirit is meant to empower us for the world. The Holy Spirit is meant to empower us for the world that you and I are empowered by the Spirit to share Christ with the world. Who is God calling you to share Christ with in your life, in your family, in your community, at your work? And I'm even talking about maybe even thinking about extended past your prayer group or your your little women's group or men's group like, yes, God empower us as a group and send us out by the power of your Spirit to save those who don't know you. That's what I'm talking about. Because eventually the disciples had to leave the upper room. Eventually the Holy Spirit empowered them and says, you got to get out of here. Like, you guys got to spend a whole lot of time with Jesus and you got to know a whole lot of things about Jesus. Now Jesus is telling you to go out there. This is the power of God was so strong, right? That the shadow of Peter, people were healed. Now that, you know, I can't say that would never happen in my life, but I'm pretty sure it probably would never happen in my life. My shadows slim, but God, through his Spirit, wants to use me and you in whatever way and in whatever place he can, not to contain him, not to limit him, but to say, Lord, how are you empowering me for the world around me? Because the only way that the world will know that God is real, God is alive, and God is active is if they see God moving they see it through you and I. What's going to be your response? For me, it's difficult. It's not easy, but I know that being a disciple, that either you are a disciple or you aren't. You're walking with Christ or you're not. I'm not saying that you don't fail and fall. Thank God for the sacraments, for reconciliation, for community, but what are you going to do? Let's not limit the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit empower us, not just for ourselves, but for the world.