 Oh, it's so good to see your faces. I'm coming from Canada today, so it's extra good to see your. Hey, Canadians, nice. I love it. Can I just tell you how different it is to speak to an American crowd compared to a Canadian crowd? Canadians can vouch for this, but they're here, so they're showing off a little bit. But normally, when you're speaking to a Canadian crowd, they're looking at you like this the whole time. And you don't know what's going on, but you just give it your best. You could be preaching fire, and they're like this still. We're very reserved people in general. And then they could come up to you and say that changed my life. You just don't know where you stand. But when you speak with Americans, they for sure let you know. There's like, amen's and shouts and whatever. So even the Canadians, we're just getting right into it. So it's so good to be with you. It's so good to see your faces, so good to be here in person. Amen, friends. So I went to school here and met my husband here. We lived in the States. Shout out for people who meet their husbands at Steubenville. So we eventually ended up, we had a couple kids. We moved back home with my parents. And for those of you parents who have kids who just came home, just be patient with us. It happens sometimes. It takes us a while to get our wings and fly. So anyway, we were at home and we had a little girl. Her name is Maria. And she was in her little crib. And my husband was going to school. He was doing his masters in psychology. So he came in really late one night. And it was dark outside. And when he came in, the big light was on. So he was like trying to adjust to the light. Then he heard Maria crying. So he ran upstairs to her room, such a good dad. And opened the door. It's dark in there. And he comes in and over to her crib. And he looks over and sees me there by the crib. So he's like, oh, you know, he's looking down at his little girl. He's like having this nice little moment. And then he looks towards the door, like as I was walking away and the door opens and sees the silhouette. And he goes, hmm, that doesn't look like Heather. And he realized that he was just rubbing his mother-in-law's back. So thankfully he lived to tell. My dad did not kill him that day. So I was actually in my room at the time in bed. And he walks in and he was white as a ghost. He was just like, I just had a special moment with your mom. And I'm not quite sure what to do about that. And anyway, my mom the next morning was like, Jake was so nice last night. You know, she just thought it was the sweetest thing. Anyway, totally embarrassing. But that happens when we come into the light and the dark and our eyes are switching, we get disoriented, right? And I think that it's a funny story, but it's similar to what I think we've all been experiencing, especially in the last several years. We have this experience of going back and forth between the light and the dark. And the dark seems to be intensifying. Is it just me or are you with me on that, right? Amen. Yes, it seems to be intensifying. And as we're going into the world, we find our little sparks of light. We go to mass. We might go to a conference. We have a beautiful prayer time with the Lord. And it's this light. And then all of a sudden we enter into the darkness and we become disoriented really quickly. I know I do. I kind of lose my way a little bit. I'm like, wait, what? This is actually really dark. And I can't see here. I can't see what's going on. And we experience being disoriented. And that's just the truth about what is going on in our world right now. And there's a lot of darkness. We're being hit with darkness 24-7. If you look on the news, it's just bad news, right? It's called the news, but it's really bad news. It's bad news 24-7. And I honestly believe this is taking a massive toll on us as a people because we weren't made for this. We weren't made to hear bad news 24-7 from all around the world as it's happening from multiple sources all throughout our day. But this is the world that we live in now. Thank you, smartphones. This is the world we live in. And although there's some benefits to knowing what is going on across the globe and how we need to pray for the world, I think it's taking a serious toll on our hearts. And we get disoriented and we're so filled with the negative news that we start to wonder sometimes, is there any good news? Is there any good news? Like, is there anything else going on in the world other than the darkness? I just looked on my news app this morning when I woke up and CNN's headline says, Five things to know for June. I was like, ooh, what are they? I want to know. I don't know what's happening for June. It said, gun violence, Ukraine, Tulsa shooting, January 6th and COVID. I was like, that's all we need to know for June? Oh my gosh. Like, I thought June was going to look a little brighter. You know? I was like, that's not all we need to know for June. That is definitely not what we need to know for June, right? We need some good news. That's what we need. And in fact, we need the good news. And this seems like so elementary, this talk that I'm giving tonight, it's called, It's Still Good News, because it is. And I thought really, like, we're going to go back here again. And I just felt the Lord saying, yes, Heather, we're going to go back here again and again and again. And I want you to hear the good news again and again and again and again. And I want you to preach the good news again and again and again because it's so important that the good news is deep, deep, deep in our bones so that when we hear the bad news and we hear the darkness, we have somewhere to go. And we have something that's anchoring us. So the darkness is big. And on top of the darkness, we have a failure that is across the board in leadership and medicine and politicians and even tragically within the church. We have a failure in leadership, which has caused a deep distrust in us. So even when we encounter the news or even when we encounter things in the world, we're wondering what is the truth and where do I go? What is the truth and where do I go? And what I want us tonight to get in touch with is, is these places within our hearts that we don't often look at, which is the doubts that sort of roll around. The effect that the darkness has on us, the places where we start to question, is God really good? Is he really coming through? Is he really going to come for us? What does the gospel mean right now? So we need to go back into the gospel and I love the scripture that was chosen for this weekend and it's in Luke and that's Jesus saying that but that's the second time that this scripture has been spoken. I just want to go back to the beginning here where it was spoken in Isaiah because this has some of the parts of the good news in it so let's just hear it again and I pray God that you would come and just open up our hearts and our ears to hear your news again, to hear this good news that it would come into our hearts in a new way. So Isaiah 61 it says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of the Lord's favor and a day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn, to provide those who mourn in Zion to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord to display his glory and they shall build up ancient ruins and shall raise former devastations, they shall repair the ruined cities and devastations from many generations. For as the earth brings forth its shoots and the garden causes what is sown in it to spring up so the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all nations. Amen. This is the good news. We are hearing across the globe tragedy after tragedy and we are wondering what is going to happen, who is going to stand up and do something and friends, I'm sorry to say, but it's not anyone else other than you and me. The good news that Jesus is proclaiming to us and has been proclaimed to you throughout your life has to take such deep root within you that you are going to bring that to this broken world, to the world that you are hearing about that is constantly filled with sadness and darkness because Jesus is saying in Luke when he says it again I'm the one, I'm the one that is filled with the spirit that has come to bring the good news that is going to set people free and that is going to comfort all who mourn. He truly is the one and that good news when it is deep in our hearts it doesn't matter what's going on. It doesn't matter what tragedy is happening. It doesn't matter if we lose our job. It doesn't matter if sickness comes because the love of God is anchoring our souls so deeply that we are not shaken. We were just singing about this just a few moments ago, right? God wants to anchor us in His love. I love this scripture from Romans chapter 8 and Paul says, for I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing will be able to separate us from Christ Jesus our Lord. Now that's great and we want to hear that and go amen and I'm saying it too with you but when I seriously look at my life I have to be honest there are things that are separating me from the love of Christ because I'm letting them. There's things that I'm allowing in my life that separate me from the love of God. Jesus is not moving. The Holy Spirit is not moving the Father is not moving but I am allowing things to come between me and His love because I'm weak and I'm broken and I'm little and this is the place that we need to start you're like really it's Friday, Heather we just got here I'm so sorry but yes this is where we need to begin this is the honest place that we need to go it's the precursor to Pentecost okay? It's this encounter with the real person of Jesus an encounter with the good news an encounter with the gospel that doesn't just set a heart on fire but burns away everything that isn't holy there's this quote from Mother Teresa and I'm looking at all of you as you were coming in and I thought these are seasoned people they've been around these are faithful people and the way you were just like crying out to God I'm like these people love you Jesus and yet I think it would be a miss for me to assume that everything is perfect in your life and in your faith life it would be a miss for anybody to assume that of me there are all things out of sorts Mother Teresa wrote this letter to her own sisters these are religious sisters these are vows who profess their love for Jesus and she says to them I worry that some of you still not have really met Jesus one to one you and him alone and Jesus wants me to tell you again how much the love he has for each one of you beyond all that you can imagine we may spend time in chapel but have you seen with the eyes of your soul how he looks at you with love do you really know the living Jesus not from books but from being with him in your heart have you heard the loving words he speaks to you I read this and I was like ooh these are places within us we don't really like to look at I'd rather look at the places like I go to church I'm in ministry full time I love people I have some pretty decent kids I like to look at all that stuff that's the stuff I want to be like Lord look at it thank you I don't want to look at the places and face the parts of me that don't love Jesus the way that he deserves to be loved I have to look at those places and friends I'm inviting you to go there with me tonight this is one of the most important and real things that we need to continually do in our faith walk with Christ is to take a full account of what is going on in our hearts and souls because the goal is union the goal isn't repentance although it's a part of it it's the way to get to union a deeper union with Christ and that's why you're here I'm here as a speaker but telling you honestly I would pay to come to this conference because I want to experience more what it has in store for me too that's why you're here union is the goal and on the way to union we have to look at the things that are separating us from Christ so let's go back to the very very beginning if we look through the scriptures has anybody been doing Bible in a year with Father Mike Schmidt's round two because I ditched on round one round two anybody yes I got like maybe like seven days into round one I fell off the wagon round two I'm like yes I'm in it you know anybody who made it through Leviticus there are treasures for you in heaven I'm just telling you oh lord I'm sorry but that's it's a rough it's a rough book but if we look at the scriptures and we zoom out a little bit what we're going to see is over and over again we see at the very beginning that God has called us into union to be loved and we are made in his image to love and be loved to be in this deep union where there's nothing separating us where it's just pure bliss and we're walking in the garden and we're having a chat and our hearts are full just overflowing with the love of God this is where it all started but Adam and Eve sinned as we know and we sin and it's the same story that is being repeated in our life over and over again just like Adam and Eve doubted God and doubted his goodness we do too and we try to go our own way because we're like maybe God won't come through maybe he's not who he says he is maybe he's not going to show up so I'm going to make sure that I show up for everybody and play little savior junior for a little while because God might not come through but I'm going to be there Jesus I got your back don't you worry about a thing and like we think we're helping we're just getting in the way because we're not supposed to be the savior but somehow in our hearts we have these doubts that are very deep that come up constantly when someone gets sick or something goes wrong when we hear the 24-7 bad news our hearts are like Lord like are you even there like what is going on and are you coming are you going to come are you going to help are you going to break through are you going to heal are you going to restore and you might find yourself in places in your life that you didn't think you'd be and maybe you're like a faithful Catholic but your marriage is falling apart or maybe you've prayed for your kids their whole life but they are really far from the Lord right now and maybe there's sickness and sin and other things that have come into your heart that you're like so ashamed of that nobody even knows about and you're sitting in this room with a deep desire to just let it out and let it loose before God and friends this is the time now is the time now is the time to open wide the door to Christ as my good friend JP2 always says to open wide the door to Christ and to not be afraid when we look at the scriptures what we see is a whole bunch of people who messed it up all over and over and over again just like you and me let's be honest we're not better than them when I look at the scriptures and I look at the people who failed the people who just turned their way I'm like that's me I've done it a thousand times right you with me on that or am I by myself up here actually I am by myself but you know what I'm saying that's me that's you and me it's all throughout the scriptures here we have these people that keep popping up all throughout the scriptures that decided that they were going to be obedient at some point they might have repented along the way and they're going to be obedient and they make decisions to submit their lives under the authority of God under the authority of the spirit of the sovereign Lord they submit to him and they say yes Lord I'm going all the way with you and it's hard and it's painful but they go and they went with only a promise Jesus hadn't even come yet and they're going with this promise that is with them they're just believing in the promise so hard and Jesus and God is looking for people like this he's scanning I love this quote from Dallas Willard where he's talking about how God is scouring the earth he says the primary work of God is finding men to whom he can entrust his power and the story of most men is being entrusted with power and it bringing harm to themselves and those in their care often when people get power they cause harm to others but God is scouring the earth to entrust people his power who will be faithful, who will be humble who will be repentant who will fall on their knees before him and say Jesus I desperately need you and I want to go all the way for you Lord I want to go all the way and use me in my brokenness and use me in my littleness and we see these people all throughout the scriptures that are so inspiring and you know personally I love Peter I love St. Peter he's my confirmation saint he's a dear one to me and I relate to him in so many ways and Peter he just he has such a heart for God he's so passionate and attached and yet he gets it wrong so many times he was a close friend of Jesus but one of the things I love about Peter is that he allowed himself to be caught in the gaze of Christ at some point he just locked eyes with Jesus and he went all in and it makes me wonder what was Jesus really like because often as we go through our faith life it can become a lot of things and sometimes those things aren't exactly about Jesus but an encounter with the person of Jesus is everything this is going to be the anchor through all of the darkness when we are caught in the gaze of the savior that we cannot get away from and we don't want to get away from this is when things change and it's caused me to wonder what kind of guy that Jesus what would he have been like when he walked up on the shore and he just said to people in the middle of their work day come and follow me and they just went could you imagine can you imagine being at your work let's say you're like a barista at Starbucks I don't know maybe you work at Home Depot guys I'm not sure wherever you can relate and you're just standing there and this man walks in and he takes one look at you and he says come and follow me and I'd probably be like no and then I'd probably be like tell my co-worker there's some psycho over here that's like trying to get me to follow him right because I wouldn't trust anybody who said that to me but this is real what happened in the scriptures is real right it's totally real so these moments really happen so what kind of man would Jesus have to be that he could walk up to you and say come follow me and you would look in his eyes how riveting were those eyes how riveting was his face that you would trust him immediately and just say okay and just throw your stuff behind and walk right out the door with him but this is the kind of man he is it's not just the kind of man he was it's the kind of man he is because he's alive and well right it's the kind of man he is and he stands here not just 20 years ago when you had your conversion or 10 years ago or you know 35 years ago or whenever it was this is Jesus who comes to us now today because he's a real person with a body and I hope one day we're going to hug that body and squeeze that face and give him a big kiss one day but he is standing here I mean mysteriously he is here with us and he is standing before us and he is saying and he's looking at us in our eyes and he's saying will you come and follow me will you lay down everything and come and follow me again Peter said yes he had the courage to say yes then and then you know what he also fell away and he said no and he denied Jesus and he screwed it up and he got so afraid that he ran away and this is what we have to look like what are the things in my life that are taking the place of saying yes to Jesus I'm all in again because I might have said it 20 years ago but like am I saying it right now I'm all in I'm leaving it all behind this is the question that we're faced with tonight and it is the precursor to Pentecost it is the precursor to being receptive to the Holy Spirit is to shed something to set aside something to open to make space for the Holy Spirit to come and if you look at what happened in the upper room they were afraid when they were standing in there right that's what the scriptures tell us they were afraid they were locked in this room they were afraid and the fire comes in and what does it do it burns away their fear it burns away all their trepidation it burns away the doubt everything that was going on in their hearts before and then the fire comes and it's the fire of faith and it's the fire of passion for the gospel so that when they go out of that room they are preaching the good news and they are not afraid anymore and they go to all the nations all the way all the way and this is what Pentecost is supposed to be it's not supposed to be just like oh my gosh, God is so good and I'm experiencing these powerful emotions and that's really good, it's great because God made our emotions and it's beautiful and I love that when that kind of consolation comes I love it praise God for those moments but it's got to be more than that slowly so that we can be receptive to the next layer of fire that comes and I love this scripture it's from the book of Luke and Jesus says I came to set fire to the world and I wish it was already burning I wish it was already burning we have this little priest, he's from India he's really cute, Father George I don't think that's his real name seemingly he's from India anyway he went back to India on a mission he's just this little guy, he's like so humble and like not presumptuous at all and he went back to India and when he came back I said how was your trip and he says well, you know people have they have lots of idols there and I said yeah, don't we all have lots of idols he goes no, literally they have a lot of idols like wooden idols, like they have idols everywhere and I said so what happened when you were there and he said well I just preached the good news I preached the good news, I told them that Jesus has to be the one the one and only, the one God that we have to put him first and he's worth it because he just preached the good news to them and you know what they did they brought all the idols all of them person, family after family and they brought all the idols and they piled them up in a big pile and they burned them yeah powerful that's powerful and there's been times where life looks so bad out there that I've heard people say and I've thought it myself like Lord just burn it down, let's just start over you know it is easier to look out there and it's easier to look at those other people that brought their idols and they burned them, we're like yes but like when it comes to me am I willing to let this burn down in here I'm like Lord burn it down over there burn it down for him seriously but am I willing to say God burn it down in me burn it down all the things that are keeping me from you and friends this is not easy this is the narrow way this is where it's not comfortable it doesn't feel good this is where it hurts and even for me this last week there's been things stirring in me there's this thing it's like rattling around in my mind it's irritating me because it's something that I've like been so attached to for so long and it comes from a place of pain in my own story and I could justify it for a lot of things because it comes from a place of pain in my own story you know what I'm saying in my mind it just keeps going and it's got its hooks in me and it's irritating me because I'm like this is not who I am and God this is not who I believe that you are because you can in my own way I'm so attached to this thing because you know what I'm telling you what I'm telling myself I can't I can't let this go I can't do this it's too hard and you know what that says about my faith in God that he can't do it and just last week it just hit me like a ton of bricks when I was in my prayer and I felt the Lord say Heather do you believe that I can do this do you believe that I can set you free from this this is the kind of God that I am this is who I am I'm the one that brings I set the blind free I'm the one who sets the prisoner free I'm the one that heals the broken hearted I'm the one that brings joy instead of mourning this is who I am Heather and will you let me be this for you and I was scared I'm scared right now I can't believe I'm telling you this I'm scared right now because there's a part of me that just wants to go oh man this is going to be too hard is going to hurt but this is also the good news there are so many times that we walk around in circles with a cross this is a cross for me and I've been walking around in circles and you know what Jesus isn't walking around in circles so I'm not following him with this because if I were to follow him then I would take that cross and I would follow him right up the hill and then I'd die there with him and then I would rise because that's what he did and friends this is the good news that I want you to hear that when we invite God to come into these places where we have idols where we have separated ourselves from his love where we've let doubt creep in where we've let the darkness become too much that we've let the light be squelched out of our story that we don't come into a room and impart a message of hope but we just like breathe the darkness because we've completely lost our hope Jesus is coming to us tonight and he's saying will you let me burn it down in you will you let me burn away without the fear the complacency the addictions the things that you cling to the things that you can't let go of to make space for me because I have a fresh outpouring of my spirit that I want to bestow upon you but you need to be willing to make room will you do it and this is what I want and I want to be so honest about it because this is why I'm sharing this personal part of my story with you I want to go when fire comes it consumes it burns it away and this is where I want to start tonight and again, I mean I know it's Friday but I believe God is coming with fire and I want the fire to burn away what's not holy first so that another fire can come because the world needs the fire it needs your fire it needs you to be set on fire so that you can be a light in the darkness so that the darkness has nowhere to go but to hide and to disappear this is what God wants for us so we're faced with a very real question tonight that I want to invite you to ponder and this isn't a question to just ponder in a moment but it's something that I think we need to bring before the Lord this weekend are you willing to let the Lord come and burn it down and what are the things that you need to put on the altar what are the things that you need to put on the altar for him to burn down this is the feast day of St. Charles along he was a martyr and they burned him to death they burned his whole body St. Charles amazing that it's his feast day today because he's such a model he was willing to give everything everything so let's just pray let's just close our eyes for a moment Lord Jesus we want to come before you tonight just with honesty that there are parts of our hearts that love you Jesus we love you so much you're so good and you're so kind and there's also parts of our hearts that are far from you Lord where there are idols and attachments that we have so God I just asked that your Holy Spirit would come just begin to reveal to us in our hearts what's there God what you want to burn away and in particular the things that we have lost hope that you can rise and change and set free come Holy Spirit