 Alright, so many years ago, I went parachuting. Alright, now parachuting now, what you do is they strap you on to your jump master. So you don't really have to do anything except just trust that the jump master is going to make sure he pulls the shoot. Alright, but when I went years ago, they didn't have that in place. What they did was they hooked on your parachute to something called a static line. So it was connected to the plane. And when you jumped out of the plane, it would automatically pull your shoot. But in order to do this, you needed to get a license. Okay, so actually I have my parachuting license. How cool is that? But anyway, we had to go through hours and hours of training on what to do if something went wrong. If your parachute is twisted, all these different things. And after this whole day of training, the one thing I took away from it was I didn't want to pull my emergency shoot, okay? Because what they said is anyone that has ever parachuted here that had to pull their emergency shoot always broke something. So my mom and dad were not happy I was doing this, so I'm like, I cannot break something. No matter what, I cannot break something, you know? So that was determined not to do that. So we would go up in groups, it was about 15 of us. We would go up in groups of like four people at a time. And I was like the last, I was in the last group to go. And I got up, you know, I was all the way up in the plane and everything. And the jump master gave me three commands. Feed out. I put my feet out. He said, climb out. So now I'm like climbing on the side of the plane. It's pretty wild, right? And then he said jump. But what I did is instead of like letting go with both hands, I let go with one hand, then let go with the other. So I actually jumped at an angle. And when my parachute opened up, it got twisted because I wasn't falling the right way. So when I looked up, I saw that my parachute was not open. Now the people below were like screaming in horror as they watched me just like fall, you know? But at the moment, I couldn't think about all that. All I was thinking is I better do what my jump master taught me to do. And I started doing all these different things like I had to kick in a circle, to get untwisted and pull down my toggles until finally my parachute opened. And when I landed, the first thing my jump master said to me is, I thought you were a goner. I was like, oh man, I guess that was pretty bad, you know? Like I had no idea like how horrific it was, you know? What I learned from that is hesitation and letting go almost cost me my life. My brief hesitation almost cost me my life. And when the jump master says jump, you better jump, okay? When the jump master says jump, we don't hold on to what's comfortable. We don't hold on to what we feel, you know, what we feel as our safety zone. God, when he calls us to jump, we better jump, brothers, right? Fathers, we better jump. And when it comes to evangelization especially, we need to have courage to be obedient, right? Our love has to be boundless. Our obedience has to be boundless. Our trust in the Lord has to be boundless. And that's what happened to Ananias, alright? Ananias was the disciple of Jesus, right? And he was a regular guy just like you and me, you know, just being faithful. He encountered Christ who was just trying to do his best. And then something happened. God spoke to him. And he has a vision. And in the vision, God said, Ananias, get up and go to the street called the street and ask at the house of Judas for a man named Saul. He is there praying. And in the vision, he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him that he may regain his sight. Now even though the Lord calls him to get up now, like God was really quick, like get up and go now. Ananias hesitates, okay? The deal is this, okay? Saul kills Christians, alright? The people in Damascus were waiting for Saul to come in and arrest them. So when he finds out that Saul is blinded, this is a cause for celebration, right? You know, ding dong, the witch is dead. You know, rub your eyes, get out of bed. This wasn't a time to start healing Saul, alright? So like, this was good. Like, great, Saul's taken care of. But God has different plans. So Ananias wants to make sure God really understands what's going on, okay? So he decides to tell him. And he's like, you know, a Lord, you know, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I have heard many stories about this man, what evil things he has done to your holy ones in Jerusalem. Basically Saul's saying like, you might want to hold off on the whole, you know, healing of the blind man thing right now. You know, like this guy is a bad dude, you know? But the Lord says to him, go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mind to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites. And I will show him what he must suffer from my name. Jesus was asking Ananias to jump. Looking at Ananias to do this is like asking one of us to go talk to the leader of ISIS. It was crazy, okay? And yet Ananias finds it in his heart to say, okay, God, I'll go, I'll be obedient. I'm going to trust in you, all right? So Ananias went and entered the house, laying his hands on him. He said, Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus, who appeared to you that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately things like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he regained his sight and he got up and was baptized. And that day a Christian was born. And you know, because of Ananias' faithfulness, you know, St. Paul was one of the greatest evangelists that ever lived. But not only Saul's life was changed that day, but Ananias' life was changed that day. Because when we say yes to God and God works miracles through us, when people are healed, when people have conversions through us, our lives are changed, right? The more we say yes to God, the easier it is to say yes. The more we say no to God, the easier it is to say no. And when he said yes to God that day and these miracles happen, he changed. He was filled with awe, filled with humility, filled with amazement at what God had done. So we need to be attentive to what the Lord is saying in us, right? We need to be attentive to how God is moving us to evangelize, to reach out to his people. And brothers, we are in a battle like never before, amen? I mean, we are in a battle between good and evil, between the faithless and the faithful, between truth and lies. We're in a battle regarding the definition of marriage, regarding the definition of gender. We're in a battle like we've never seen. And God is blowing the trumpet and calling us to fight, to save souls. It says in Joel 2-1, Blow a trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord is coming. Surely it is near. When I was preparing this talk, the one thing the Lord did tell me as I was doing this is like, God was like, tell my priests, tell my deacons how important they are to me, how they have been called, how they've been given everything that they need to do my work, to fight for souls, to save souls. And I really had to say, you know, that the Lord has such a special place that is hard for you. And you're not going out there ill-equipped. God has blessed you through your ordination, the gifts and the grace that you need to save souls. I don't ever want you to feel that you're going alone, that God is with you, truly God is with you. He will give you the words to say. But, brothers, we cannot be satisfied any longer with just standing out ground. I feel like even Christians are hardly standing their ground in this world. It's so hard even to proclaim the gospel or else you're going to get persecuted to death. You know what I mean? But God is saying, I don't want you to stand your ground. I don't want you to take ground. My husband told me an interesting story. He was friends with someone who did professional sword fighting. And he said, you know, they would make these makeshift swords, you know, and do this fighting. And my husband learned pretty quickly that if you just try to stand your ground, you cannot. You will wind up being pushed back. The way to win a sword fight is to keep going forward and keep just swinging, you know, as best as you can to win the fight. And that's what God is calling us to do. God is like, I want you to go out there and win souls. You know, we can no longer just wait for people to come into our churches. They're not coming. There are people out there that are just hungry and the church, they're really waiting for someone to invite them. They're waiting for someone to say, you're welcome to come back. We love you. I see you. I want to know you. So this is the time to start taking ground. So I'm going to give you kind of six things to help us when we go back to the battlefield. You know, six things that we could take with that we could bring back to our parishes. The first one is evangelize with power. And Acts 1-8 says, you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to you and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. God promises us power for the work of evangelization. See, God knows we need his help, right? It's such a bad thing out there that God's like, I love you so much. I'm not going to just send you out to the wolves. I'm going to give you power. Then when you go out and you're trying to talk to someone about Jesus that you have the gifts of the Spirit working for you. You know, that gifts of the Spirit, like the gift of knowledge and healing and deliverance or whatever it is. See, God wants to free his people. A lot of people can't hear the gospel message because they're not free. They're dealing with shame. They're dealing with pain. They're dealing with all this stuff. And so when God sends us out, he's like, he gives us the Holy Spirit to help free his people so they can receive his love. And we saw that with Ananias, you know? Ananias, before he baptizes Paul, right? He heals him. And then after he's healed, he gets up. You know, Paul gets up and is baptized. And we see the word of knowledge working with Jesus when he meets the Samaritan woman. And the Samaritan woman says, oh, I'm not married. And he goes, you're right. You have five husbands. And none of them are your husband. And this gift of knowledge frees this woman. And she sees that he's a prophet. And the conversation changes. Her heart is open. I remember when my husband and I did a parish mission in Syracuse, New York. You know, there were about 150 adults and probably about 50 kids at this thing. And we noticed every night there was this girl in the front row. And she was in a wheelchair. She was about 19 years old. She had her legs in these casts. And different days, like how grandparents would bring her or her mother would bring her. And she was just in the first row. I would see her. I was kind of wondering what happened. Well, the night that we offered reconciliation, her mother came and took me aside and said, my daughter really wants to talk to you. But before you talk to her, I want to kind of give you some background. She goes, my daughter about four months ago went on this bridge that was like, I mean, you know, it was like, I forgot how many feet it was. And she jumped off of it to kill herself. And she, the way she landed is she landed feet first and she broke like every bone in her body up to her neck. But her face was okay because she landed feet first. But she nearly died several times. She's, you know, it's really been very difficult for our family because of all these medical bills. We were losing our house. It's like, it's just, it's just a really, really tough time. And my daughter is just really struggling. And the one thing I want to tell you is that the doctors think she'll never walk again. And so the young girl comes to me and she's just crying and she's like, you know, what I've done to my family is so horrible. I just feel so guilty. And I'm like, well, have you been to confession yet for this? She goes, no. I go up, listen, God loves you. You know, tonight just go to confession. Just get rid of this. The Lord, he just wants you to begin again. There's nothing, you know, you could do this greater than God's mercy. So she went to confession and she came out just so joyful. I said, listen, tonight, you know, we had reconciliation. Tomorrow we're going to pray for the Holy Spirit. I said, just wait till you see what's going to happen tomorrow. Right. So she's like, she's excited. You could tell she's just, this healing has begun in our heart. So the next day she comes and she's in the front row and part of the mission is we pray for this experience of the Holy Spirit. So anyway, so she gets, someone rolls her over to us and we start praying with her, you know. And you know, I don't know if you've ever had this experience where you're praying with someone, but there was just kind of like, we could see that there was something on her mind. Like she couldn't like receive, like there was something. So we stopped the prayer and my husband looked at her and said, what's going on with you? She's like, it started crying. I just want to walk again. I just want to walk again. I was like, okay, well, we'll pray for that. So we started praying that the Lord would heal her. And as we were praying, my husband looked at me, he goes, I really believe God has healed her. And I'm like, I, you know, I sense it too. You know, but we had to do these huge cast on her legs. Like I didn't know how we were going to like take them off. You know, like, but, but at the end of the prayer, you know, I said, you know, Brianna, like God has healed you. And she goes, you know what? I know it. I feel it too. I know God has healed me. I know I'm going to walk. So she had her doctor's appointment two days later. And do you know when I opened up my Facebook page, I saw her and she was walking. God could do all things. I know. Amen. That's awesome. God gives us power. You know, that was an amazing, amazing work of God. You know, now I'm going to share with you a less, you know, dramatic story because God works in very beautiful and ordinary ways, but still just as powerful. I was speaking at the Steubenville Youth Conference out in Minnesota. And on my flight home, I wound up sitting next to like a biophysicist. Okay. Like this guy was so smart. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about, you know. But anyway, so he puts, and I'm like, God, why'd you put this guy next to me? You know, I'm just, I can't even understand this man. But I felt like in my heart, I was supposed to witness to him. You know, you kind of do like, oh, what do you, you know, what are you in Minnesota for? You know, so he was telling me he was, he was making this new technology called proton beam therapy, which is like a way of treating cancer without being exposed to so much radiation. All right. So he was talking all about this proton, you know, beam stuff. And I'm like sitting there listening and he goes, well, what are you here for? I'm like, oh, you know, I just spoke to, like, you know, thousands of young people about Jesus Christ and about how God loves them. And I said, I was probably like, why don't I sit next to this nutcase, right? But anyway, so, and I said, do you believe in God? He's like, oh no, I'm a scientist. You know, we don't really believe in God, you know, I know too much. He was very arrogant, you know. But it was interesting, but as he was talking, he kept on turning his wedding ring. Inside, I was like, Lord, what is going on here? Tell me what this means. And I heard God say to me, ask him if his wife is a Christian. I was like, okay, why not, you know. So I'm like, you know, sir, is your wife a Christian? He's like, actually, as a matter of fact, she is. She goes, in fact, it really pains her heart that I don't go to church with her. She really believes in God. She's a very, very strong Christian and she's trying to raise our kids Christian and it hurts her that I don't believe. Now, I knew how to opening now. Now, the whole conversation changed. This arrogant man was like, you could tell. He could tell he loved his wife. You could tell this was a struggle. Now, this is where I feel bad. See, God should never evangelize Brooklyn people, because then we just get straight up in people's faces. So I'm like, you know what your problem is? I said, I was like, that's really a nice way to begin. You know what your problem is? You think you're too smart for God. I said, as I told. I said, you know what, tonight you go home. I said, you ask God. Just humble yourself. Just say, God, if you're real, show me that you're real. I go, I promise you God will show you. Just ask him. Be sincere and I promise you God will show you. This guy was probably like, oh my gosh, what a flight, you know? And I bet his wife is praying, oh God, help my husband. He's like, I'll send the little Italian girl to him. Don't worry about it. God gives us extraordinary gifts. Just that little word of knowledge help that whole conversation to open up. The next thing we need to do is understand the culture. You know, we have to know who we're evangelizing, right? We can't just go out there. We've got to understand where people are at. I was reading an interesting article called The Return of Shame by Andy Crouch. And if you, you know, this was really worth a good read. I mean, I was really amazed by this. And he identifies that there's a change that has occurred in our culture, all right? And you probably have seen it and not been able to actually figure out what's going on. But you can see it on social media a lot if you're on there. And he explains that our society has shifted from a guilt culture to a shame culture. Put a thing up there. So the thing with a guilt culture is how you judge if you are good or bad, or how you judge if an action is good or bad is based on your internal conviction. You know, most of us grew up in a guilt culture. But even like, you know, when we did something right or wrong, we judged it based on how we were formed. We were formed in our faith. We were taught it was right and wrong. And in a guilt culture, if you feel guilty about something you did, what you did is you changed the behavior, right? And in order to feel better and you go to confession, you change your life. By contrast, in the shame culture, how you judge if you're good or bad, or what you do is good or bad, is based on public opinion. It's based on how people view who you are or what you did. And you see this in social media. There's a whole generation that bases their value on how many likes they get on Facebook. How many people are following them on Twitter. It's all about being popular. It's all about being noticed. It's all about being accepted. Okay? So what's right or wrong is not based on any kind of objective norm or objective truth. It's just based on the latest trend. And that's why you can have a situation where a male may identify as a female and society think that's okay. But objectively, it's very similar to that woman who was white and thought she identified with being black, but she wasn't accepted because the society didn't think that was acceptable. So objectively you can have something very similar, but it doesn't make a difference because not based on any kind of objective norm, it's just based on what people think. So understanding the shame culture, like the mortal sin of the shame culture is to reject a group. Alright? So the situation is when you feel bad about yourself or about action in this shame culture, what you do is you don't change the behavior, you change public opinion. It's about changing how people see you. And we see this in certain groups, right? They will stop at nothing to change the culture. They want to change how people view certain things. They'll build laws in to kind of solidify that they're going to be accepted. So when you have a culture like this, okay, if you are even perceived as disagreeing with something, just you're going to open yourself to all sorts of persecution, right? You're going to be called a bigot, you're going to be called a hater, you're going to be called things I can't say. And not only that, people are going to they get other people, they encourage other people to do the same. Have you guys seen this? Raise your hand, right? On are the days where, and I noticed this, we used to be like everyone had a right to their own opinion. And if you're Catholic, you could kind of get your opinion in there. Now it's not like that. You don't have a right to your own opinion. Your opinion must be what everybody thinks is right. And if you have a different opinion, prepare for persecution, all right? So Crouch says that the shame culture is prone to oversensitivity, overreaction and is based on shifting judgment of public opinion. Now why is this so important? Because this is our battlefield. You see, I've been ministering, and for a long time until I read this really, and I even realize even recently I've done this, I've been ministering to a guilt culture. And when I do ministry with young people, sometimes I've done like retreats of different things and sometimes they, like, I show the passion of Jesus. Now, like 15 years ago, when I showed the passion of Jesus or anything like that, kids were crying like, oh, I need to go to confession, you know? Now, I showed it, like last year, you know what kids are doing? Laughing. Laughing. And inside me, I was getting so angry. If I want, I know it's, like, not right to want to punch someone out, but I really did. I wanted to punch these kids out. But what the reason was is that when I was presenting this, I was talking about personal, you know, like, God came and He saved us, and, you know, He redeemed us from sin. These kids don't even know their sin. What sin? I'm okay. What I'm doing is all right. So, to understand that the Savior died for our sin, doesn't connect. Now, if someone's formed or they go to Catholic school, it might be different. You know, I was dealing with real pigging kids, you know what I'm saying? But the thing is this, like, but with the culture, what the culture needs to hear is Jesus ate and spent time with outcasts. He came to save the outcast. We need to maybe, when we evangelize, understand that we need to evangelize to a shame culture. Okay. The next thing we need to do is be visible. Now, I have a son, and when he was three years old, I was working at the Franciscan Friary in Staten Island. I used to do their retreats for them. A couple years ago, I was doing a retreat for them. And I brought my son to meet with the priest, Father Philip. So, now, the Franciscan Friary on Staten Island is huge. It's huge. It has, like, all these cool stairwells and, like, these fun little rooms. And so, Father Philip took him on a tour. And he was just, like, this was so much fun, you know, so he was really taking it all in and everything. And then, at some point, we get to this little, you know, little chapel for the priests. You know, not the big church, but the little chapel. It was just a very humble little chapel for the Franciscan Friars where they kind of, where they had their rooms. So, Father comes in and the light, you know, near the tabernacle was on. And Father Philip goes, Danny, Jesus is in the tabernacle. When this light's on, it means Jesus is in the tabernacle. And Danny was, like, really thoughtful about it. He's like, you mean to tell me Jesus is in the box? So, Father's like, yes. Jesus is in the box. He goes, Father, Jesus wants to get let out of the box. He's like, you know where the key is? Jesus does not want to be in that box. He wants to get out right now. And Father's, like, chuckling, you know. And he was really getting very upset about that. Jesus was locked in this little box. And when I thought about it, I was like, you know what? Jesus wants to get out of the box, right? His love cannot be, wants to reach his people. God's heart is hurting. And you know what? He wants us to let him out. He's like, will you take me out of the box? Will you take me to the people of God? Pope Benedict said, there is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with him. These words are all the more significant if we think of the mystery of the Eucharist. The love that we celebrate in the sacrament is not something we could keep to ourselves. It is by its very nature it demands to be shared with all. What the world needs is God's love. It needs to encounter Christ and to believe in him. The Eucharist is thus the source and summit, not only of our church's life, but also of her mission. That's beautiful. You know, Jesus wants to reach the homeless. He wants to reach that parishioner that's like doubting his faith. He wants to reach those people that don't go to church anymore and are wondering in their hearts, am I going to go to heaven when I die? He wants to reach the single mother. Are we willing to do it? So I remember you know, I had a friend since I was little. When I was four years old, I moved to Staten Island. My friend Lucy, I've been friends with her ever since. When we were young we both went to church and everything, but as she got older she stopped going to church and she wound up, she was going to be marrying this Harvard law he was a lawyer he went to Harvard he was a very smart guy he was Jewish and I had to go to her bachelorette party now just to know this bachelorette party was a very nice, classy bachelorette party it was going to be in Manhattan and I knew there was going to be a lot of Jewish people and lawyers at this thing so I was trying to prepare myself for this so I get in my car and I'm driving into Manhattan and you know, listen I love God and knowing many of you and I love to evangelize I was like, God listen I love you, you know I evangelize everywhere if you could just help me to be normal just for one night I would so appreciate it you know these people are just coming from such a different place I was like a diocesan director of youth ministry for new work I just got to fit in just please help me a little bit and then when I heard the Lord say to me he said pray the rosary he said but Caroline, say I wanted you to share your faith with them I'm like, I'll forget it I know what you're doing I know I'm in for it I might as well pray that rosary so I prayed the rosary all the way as I drove into Manhattan so when I get there I'm the last one to get there so I wind up sitting between two lawyers on my left and a Jewish woman on my right that works for a law firm too in human resources so I figure out what I'm doing there so the girl on my right starts to talk to me and she's like so what do you do for a living I work with youth I'm like a youth minister I try to make it simple oh you're a youth minister so you're a minister well I'm not exactly a minister I minister to youth so you're like a social worker well I'm not actually a social worker I actually talked to them about God I see I told you God anyway so she's like are you a virgin oh wow we are just going to get personal here I couldn't even believe this I just wanted to die so I'm like yes I made mistakes but bottom line I'm a virgin oh wow I saw a documentary on this that's what she was telling me so everything I was saying she was being very mocking I'm not really quite describing it so finally she goes what made you follow Jesus Christ what happened to you that you would do this and normally the evangelist would just go into my witness but I really felt it was so funny that the gospel was like throwing pearls to swine because that's what came in my head I'm like she is just not going to receive this she's just not in a place or whatever so I do something which I never do is I change the subject there's two girls on my right these two lawyers said no we really want to know I didn't even know they were listening to me they're like we want to really know how did you find God so I'm like oh okay a new audience so I started sharing my witness that I shared with you earlier you know about how God came in he used a lot of humor just trying to soften it up and when I was done this girl next to me goes you know what I went to one of the best law schools I make over $100,000 I'm only 28 years old I am dating a guy that I know I'm going to marry someday I come from a great family but every morning I wake up I say what is my life worth she goes can what happen to you happen to me then the girl next to her goes I can't believe you're saying this I'm dating this I'm dating this guy and his mother is a born again Christian and I've been in my heart I've been wondering about God and I've been thinking about how to reconnect with him so I'm like so when the girls I'm like can this happen to me I'm like yes it can happen to you I'm like thinking is this like candid camera like cameras are going to come out like is this really happening right now like this girl's like I have a hole in my heart I can't see so I'm like yes so now what happens is okay my friend was not happy I'll go through that later and they start asking me questions about the fate about contraception, about premarital sex and I'm like I didn't know what to do so I try to take this like pro woman like oh yeah I wouldn't have premarital sex so I'll ring on my finger I'm worth more than that you know and yeah all these questions you know so anyway it's the end of dinner and my friend she gets me just like Caroline what I'll pray with you right now literally it's New York City cars are coming all over the place I'll pray with you right now if you want to know God I'll pray with you right now that Jesus shows you and she's like whoa I'm not ready for that I'm like okay okay that's cool I said tonight you know I said the same thing that I said to that God tonight you go and you say God show me that you're real and God's going to show you okay fast forward it's the day before the wedding whatever it is they have the day before the wedding and this girl that I was talking to comes over to me and she's like hey how you doing I'm like good she's like I just want you to know I prayed and God didn't answer I'm like okay thank you for being so you know very clear I said okay I said let's do this I go let me let me pray with you and she's like I don't know I don't know I go no seriously I go you prayed let me pray with you let me be a very simple prayer you don't even have to do anything I'm just going to lead a very simple prayer be very you know she's like okay okay so we walked off and I just prayed for him like Lord just help her you know she's really seeking you she wants to know that you're real and just you know just reveal your love to her and it was really a beautiful prayer like I could feel like the Lord really touched her heart so it was good you could tell she really meant a lot to her so anyway we have the wedding and at the end I did youth ministry at the time so I was like a walking retreat on wheels okay in the trunk of my car I had all kinds of things I literally could have like open my trunk and just start doing a retreat so at the end of the wedding something goes in my head like oh you know what she's a you know she's Catholic so it would probably be good for her to go to confession so let me just grab an examination of conscience from my my trunk so I grabbed the examination of conscience and I see this tape called Confession by Father Larry Richard's now I hadn't heard the tape which like please note to yourself before you give something listen to it okay so I was just like oh this is cool you know I had this free tape and I got things I was just kind of I go over to her I know this is like a weird thing to do I said no this is weird you know I'm weird but whatever here you know I really think you should go to confession here's the tape you know whatever so I go back in my car and I had an extra tape because I had a few of them so you know let me listen to the tape I gave to her right so I stick it in and I'm driving and I'm like now sweating he's like sitting is like defecating on Jesus I'm like oh my goodness and this girl needs to know love I'm like I was like I was just I was like oh lord please help but not to ever listen to this you know so anyway I get home the next day I get a call from her and this is how she is with the phone is I listen to the tape and I'm like I'm so sorry she goes no no no no no she goes I'm gonna I it was really good I'm gonna go to confession but give me a month she was a good lawyer she was preparing her case seriously she took I know it sounds crazy I go there's no way she's gonna come back in a month she did she went home she looked at exactly she took her a month to prepare and she brought that other girl with her that was at the bachelet party okay so I had two Catholics with me I set it up at the fryer with my good you know priest friends so I knew that it'd be okay and they came in and they they were already confession it was so bizarre so anyway they both go and the priest I guess told them to do the um was it oh my god I'm hardly sorry so so they sit down next to me here's these lawyers that making like hundreds of thousands of dollars one on my right one on my left and I'm like leading them in prayer oh my god oh my god I'm hardly sorry and they're praying this prayer I'm like this is crazy well here's the cool thing both of these lawyers quit their jobs without having another one lined up because they felt in their hearts that they were selling out they you know one of them started going back to church like god moved and that day I said on this happened I said how dare I ever say to god help me to be normal how dare I ever say to god don't use me tonight we always have to be open right we never know who is sitting next to us deacons when you work when you're out there you have a great opportunity to evangelize don't waste the opportunity okay so I get fired I love this topic okay now priests you have a great opportunity because you could wear a collar if I literally if I could wear like a whole habit I would do it I'd be like I love Jesus yes am I intimidating you that's okay let's talk you know I would just love it okay I seriously I think I'm friends with this woman the sister's sister Lucy I like hung out with her for the day she's like evangelizing everyone she's in habit people are talking I was like I saw this so cool you know but this visible sign brings hope you know it really does and like having a presiding in your town is like well-watching you know like oh there's a priest wow it's unusual you don't see this you know you put a priest in the gym it's like whoa and there's something that happens kids think they're seeing Jesus so children are like wow it's Jesus Catholics that have left a church their conscience starts to be cracked people that are suffering see the priest and it gives them hope the priest brings like even your presence brings something and even if it's something a little negative like it makes them go inward and think about wow I haven't been going to church in a while that's okay that's okay but it's important to be visible go to your local coffee shop go go you know go to the gym go to the go to your barber when it's like when everyone's going to be there when you think of the most people are going to be there they're just asking questions start getting conversation you know be a living witness you know the other thing is be available make sure your parish secretary see the parish secretary is like the keeper of the guard sometimes you can't even get past the parish secretary make sure your parish secretary knows if anyone calls for confession make sure you get me if anyone wants to come and talk to a deacon a priest make sure they can get someone right away people sometimes you know like we heard that witness yesterday about this you know I forgot his name I'm so sorry but how he said like he was driving he was like I maybe I'll go to confession at this church and he said but you know I realized I probably wouldn't have gone during the hours but if he went into that rectory and he said can I see a priest and someone said oh no no father's busy is in a meeting that might have been a lost opportunity we have to be available you know another way is to eat dinner with people see Jesus was smart he invited himself over people's houses he ate dinner everywhere the guy ate a lot but you know take time to go to your parish's houses but most importantly get to know these people that are in that place where they're coming for the sacraments they're not going to church invite them to the rectory get to know them have dinners with them get conversations started invest in them invest in relationships because that's what it's going to take we got to invest in our people we got to start conversing with our people and getting to know them ask them say you know I want to ask your advice why don't you think people go to church get them to share with you and listen to what they have to say and literally go into the streets I don't know if you ever saw this kind of movement this ask a priest movement it's so cool where like a bunch of it's just great a bunch of priests just go to an area and they set up these like tables and I mean they've gone near malls you know all these different places and just kind of wait there for people to come to them you know it's like it's pretty cool but they're out and they're being a witness and I knew a pastor I saw it on Facebook he got flyers and he put them all over his town saying if you want to sit and talk to me go to confession just you know whatever want to chat ask me a question I'm going to be in the rectory all day this day I go wow you know this priest is really trying to get out there he's trying to open the door he's getting you know getting people to come back so the way I see it basically in our parishes we have four groups alright the court is the committee Catholics these are the Catholics that like know the teachings of the church they're very well formed they're just all get out you know Catholic alright the second group is the church goers who are faithful they have goodness in their hearts they may not be catechized all that well they may not come to like you know parish events but they're coming to church okay the third group is the sacramental families that don't attend church or they go very very rarely you know this is really this is where we gotta really you know work hard at and then the database families we don't even know where these people are we may see them at a funeral and then like they're gone you know so um but so these are the four groups that I feel like we are dealing with every day you know and when we do like parish missions my husband and I the two groups that we feel most called to engage are these sacramental families and these database families like we want to make sure that we get in touch with these people that they are invited that they know we're here you know we this is really where my heart is at like I am never like an evangelist I'm never looking at who's there I'm always looking at who's not there so so that's where we have to we have to engage and these people are not gonna if you put something in the bulletin they're not gonna see because they don't go to church these people have to be engaged not through email not through mail we need to call them we need to call them we need to to meet them one-on-one we need to like engage in conversations with them we gotta go the extra mile brothers because if we don't engage these people we're gonna lose the next generation we've lost way too many generations but what I can tell you is this because I I go out there and because I have kids I meet a lot a lot of Catholics that don't go to church anymore they're not as you know a lot a lot of Catholics they're not like anti-Catholic a lot of them just need to be again re-engaged they just need an invitation they're like right there they want their kids to know God they just don't know how to do it you know so if we engage them and really get to know them they will come back but the other thing is we need to do is we need to strengthen the people that are already in the church so when we reach these outside people right the people are hardly coming that when we invite them in we have a strong parish community that's welcoming that knows their faith that's alive in the faith so when these people come in to test the waters they feel loved and they see a witness of the Catholic life the next point is let love motivate you Saint Benedict said it is the love of Christ that fills our hearts and impels us to evangelize today as in the past he sends us through the highways and the world to proclaim his gospel to all the peoples of the earth through his love Jesus Christ attracts himself the people of every generation faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy what a beautiful thing right so I'm a mom and you know mothers can be fierce right we fiercely love our children you know I just I fiercely love my kids and one of the things that really like is in my heart is like I know that my vocation is to try to get my kids to heaven and the question that always is in my heart and mind is what wouldn't I be willing to do to get them to heaven if God calls me to move would I be willing to move if God called me to sacrifice something like money or whatever would I be willing to do it and by prayer I mean I really mean this priest and deacons my prayer is that I would always be willing to do it but I ask you the same question your parishioners are your spiritual children are you willing to do anything to save their soul are you willing you know when I work for the arch diocese in Newark okay the weird thing about working there as a diocese and director of youth ministry is my boss was the Catholic chaplain for the New York giant football players okay if you were the executive director of youth ministry you became the automatic chaplain for the New York giants so it was very interesting so one day my priest my boss comes in and says hey one of these guys one of the football players wants to do an internship in our office who wants to be the supervisor so I raise my hands that I do not want to do it okay my friend David O'Brien goes yeah I want to do it I want to do it and father goes I'm going to choose Caroline I'm like oh father come on like why are you choosing me I am so intimidated by this I don't want to work with one of the New York giant football players you know but he told me to do it I had to do it right so this football player comes in for his first day for his internship and he's telling me how hard football is like we got to climb this really run up these hills and like you know the NFL the reason why they give you so much money is because you lose years of your life by you know just by being beaten up all the time he's like and told me about how the practices are really hard you know so it was good so we had a first like good you know kind of talk the next day comes in and I'm like you know I had this situation I was doing this chastity training alright so we were having about DREs, principals, pastors come in to learn how to present chastity to teenagers so you know I didn't really need his help but I figured I really wanted him to go to the event so I'm like listen what I need you to do is you need to learn how to run an event so why don't you come to this event and I'll kind of show you how you do this you know basically but I didn't need him there I just wanted him to hear about chastity you know I just figured it would be interesting alright so he goes and he's hearing all these talks about chastity theology, the body, all these different things and he leads a you know he's been there he was there for four or five hours and he leaves so Monday morning comes his office is across from mine he's like Caroline could you come in my office like I sure sure so I sit down and he's really nervous he's like jittery and moving around I'm like what's going on he's like oh man he's like do you remember that thing on Saturday I go to Chastity talk he's like yeah yeah yeah he's like do you really believe that I'm like yeah I really believe that he's like oh wow that's really cool for you that yeah that's really yeah right okay so he's like can I ask you a personal question I said sure he goes are you a virgin again let's do the thing I'm a virgin so a priest literally she's just like I'm a virgin and get people to talk to you they're very interested in this okay or I just live Chastity even if you weren't ready but I was so I'm like gosh I'm like so I'm like well yes yes I'm a virgin and he's like wow really wow that's really great for you that's really that's really amazing so I'm like so I just like this just like I well up with this like I don't know what it was and I just look at him and I go you think football's hard you think it's tough to be a full player you try living your Catholic faith that's tough so I said to him it was like when I said what am I doing you know like I still have like you know two months or three months to work with this guy you know he respected me it's I think he was so grateful that I was just honest and I just was like you know just open with him he loved me we hung out and we actually wound up like praying with him and his hip hop hip hop artist girlfriend at a retreat for them to experience the Holy Spirit so what this is interesting to make a long story short this happened the next year I had another conversation with another New York Giants a similar situation and finally so I get my you know this priest friend you know I made my boss and I said father about drugs about drinking you know like do you talk to them and he goes oh Caroline they're not ready for that I said no father you're not ready for it they're ready because they're talking about it you know a lot of times we make excuses they're not ready for it they're not ready for it we're afraid you know really the real problem is we don't want to look bad right overcome it overcome our fear the reason why people aren't being evangelized the reason why people aren't getting healed the reason why people are not hearing the gospel because we just don't love enough right we're more we care more about ourselves we have self love but God is saying I want you to love my people that even if you're going to look like an idiot that you will do anything for love so we have to pray for an increase of love that when we see God's people we say it is worth it because at some point in our lives someone looked at us and said we were worth it someone laid down their life and laid down their reputation to say I'm going to give this person a chance I'm going to share with them the gospel I get excited okay I just love this the timer is going the next point is do whatever it takes Luke 1910 says for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost you know my husband and I have a ministry called 2tim4.com like the scripture and the scripture is so awesome it's so good for this for where we are right now in our society it says proclaim the word be persistent whether it's convenient or inconvenient convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching for the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but following their own desires and curiosity they will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths but you be self-possessed in all circumstances put up with hardship perform the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry you know one of the things like we have really devoted our ministry to is trying to really seek the lost trying to seek out these parishioners that don't go to church but that are still connected they come to the sacraments we haven't lost them yet there's something good in them that still thinks like their kids should be baptized their kids should have communion their kids should have confirmation there's something in them that people come in to go to the sacrament and reach those people and say there's more there's more so I'm going to share with you some of our secrets what works in our ministry a few minutes, a few seconds and steal it steal these things so they work so before we took our ministry on the road and went around the country I was the director of evangelization at a parish now this parish was dead I mean really dead it was like a lot of people and when I became the director of evangelization I inherited a group of like 12 to 15 people who were on the evangelization committee so the first thing I think I trained them I trained them to do relational ministry and I told them I really want to do a life in the spirit seminar that was like a six to seven week thing this parish was not charismatic this parish was I mean it didn't even there was no life to it at all and they're like it can't be done because it was like only two months before it can't be, we can't do this in two months I'm like yes we can I'm Italian, I'm from Brooklyn we can do anything with Jesus Christ so we got together and and I was really thinking in my mind you know how do I reach these people I thought of every excuse any family would have a great, so parents are going to say we don't have a babysitter we'll offer to children's ministry I was like what other things a lot of men don't come to church so you know what I'm going to do I'm going to have men's and women's small groups but I'm going to make it optional if they want to have a couple small group maybe men would be more likely to go if they're with their wives so I did that we did like a kickoff we had bounce houses and all these different things for the kids so that people wouldn't be intimidated by going to a religious thing that we see was welcoming and that kids were going to have fun and we pulled out all the stops and in our marketing I had a huge banner in front of the church and in front of the place where kids pick up their children from CCD I trained my evangelization team to go to every single parish event parish picnic pancake breakfast anything where there's going to be a lot of people and engage them and talk to them about the mission I mean we were just out there I called every RCIA person and personally invited to the mission I had my team call all the CCD parents or most of them that we kind of knew invited them I mean we were just like because I knew these people weren't going to church if I put it in the bulletin it means nothing if I put it in the flyer it was going to go in the garbage that they needed to hear from a person and what happened as a result is we had 150 people show up we had the Knights of the Columbus I forgot we had the Grand Pumbaa of that you know the Grand Knight so all the other knights came with them you know we had couples like all these couples came I had never even seen these people before they said the flyer they said oh we thought this would be good for our marriage and so we had a lot of men come to this thing and it was so beautiful to see children that were like literally two years old up to like 92 encounter the lord that's what we got to be about think in your head what are the excuses and you can't meet every excuse but think make your event something that's so family friendly so easy to go to that it will help people to say yes right and then market the heck out of it I think the really the things in our churches that we're just not doing good is marketing it's so but we just are not good marketers and we weren't trained to be marketers right but honestly like you want to hit people like three or four times they see it and they see it and they see it three different four different ways hey this might be good I think I want to go to this you know and it's so worth it the last thing I just want to share is is give God permission I had the opportunity to go on retreat with Cardinal Conner he was just such a holy holy Cardinal a great man a man who really loved God and really spoke truth with love he was just tremendous and when I was on this retreat it was a discernment retreat he shared how when he became a bishop you know after he was anointed by the pope he was supposed to go back and he was very like you know where he was supposed to go in the line he was supposed to go somewhere in the corner of his eye he saw this little sister she was up against the wall in a crowd and he recognized it was Mother Teresa he had never met her before but just something in him was like I have this opportunity I must go to her so he breaks out of the line and goes right to her and when he came to her Mother Teresa all she said she looked at him and said give God permission and he said that changed my whole priesthood it's like from then on I just everything what I did I was like I gave God permission and fathers and deacons give God permission to use you give God permission to say God I give you permission if you tell me to jump I'll jump and the Lord will do amazing things