 All right, brothers. So I was doing a men's conference in Columbus one time, and it's just, what I was wrestling with or what we were wrestling with with the group is things that were kind of uncomfortable claiming or naming, and the question I asked was a group, I don't know, maybe 120 guys. I asked them to, and I've asked this question many times, please stand if you're holy. And the object of that is nobody ever stands up because nobody really wants to claim that. I was like, well, that's, but this particular conference, this gentleman stood up, kind of an elderly gentleman, and it really, I didn't know what to do after that, right? Because my whole point is that nobody ever stands up, and it's like, thanks a lot, so we're just kind of onto the next point, right? So then after the talk, he comes up to me, and he says, hey, Father Dave, what did you ask? And I said, well, I asked if you're holy to stand up, and he goes, oh, I thought that you asked if I was elderly to stand up. So if I want a standing ovation today, if you're up there, never mind, but here's the thing, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, right? Is this something even kind of that same sense of who's gonna just now, right? Yeah, Spirit of the Lord is upon me, but it is, it is. And we need to become comfortable with that. And we need to, brothers, step into that anointing and step into that grace and step into that blessing, that the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Now my suspicion is that we're not necessarily comfortable just standing up in front of a congregation and saying the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, but it is. We're either graced or we're not, right? We're either good or we're not. The Spirit of Jesus is either faithful or is not. The Spirit of Jesus is either a sanctifying spirit or he's not. We've either been anointed or we've not been. And brothers, I think we will hear in the scriptures and where our own experience tells us that in fact, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, amen? And that's obviously the text we're gonna get to in Luke 4, but just to do a little bit of a background. We've got the angel, the angel goes to Zachariah and he says that the angel gave you all the Son, the angel appears to the Zachariah and he says, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. That we see in the very beginning of the scriptures that the Holy Spirit is moving and operating in this. We begin to understand more how the Spirit is, as I mentioned last night, just this sense after, yesterday after listening to John's talk of how the Spirit is always working in the background and God is always present in the background, putting the pieces together. So we hear in the very beginning of the scriptures, Zachariah, the Spirit of the Lord speaking to Zachariah, says he was moved in the Spirit to go to the temple and he hears of his son, John, the Holy Spirit will be with him. Then we have Elizabeth's greeting to Mary. Mary's greeting to Elizabeth, the infant leapt in Elizabeth's womb, filled with the Holy Spirit, as the scripture says. And she cries out, most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. That the Spirit comes upon her and she begins to prophesy. How blessed are you? How blessed is the child in your womb? The Holy Spirit comes upon Elizabeth and she has moved to rejoice. She is filled with joy. And then also in Luke, we have this Holy Spirit comes upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow. And therefore the child will be born on you, will be called the Son of God. The Spirit overshadows Mary. And we see the beginning of the operations with Zachariah and with Elizabeth and with Mary and with Anna that the Spirit is doing something. We hear in the third chapter of Luke, verse 15 to 17, that I will baptize you in water, but there is one who is coming after that he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit. We begin as Father said yesterday, the Luke four is in many ways, the mission statement of Jesus, but we see the pieces coming together. John the Baptist says, okay, I'm gonna baptize you in water and this is gonna be great, but one who's coming after and there's something different that he's gonna offer you and he's gonna baptize you in the Holy Spirit. And as many of you know, because we've talked about this, is that this idea of baptism in the Holy Spirit we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, acts of the apostles. It's one of the few things that we find in all of the gospels as well as the acts of the apostles. That there's something more than just this baptism in water that Jesus is coming to baptize us in the Holy Spirit. A term that before I was about 20 years old, I don't think I'd ever heard the term before. And now for the last 37 years, I've been praying and thinking about it constantly. You know, if you went to the Born in the Spirit, Life in the Spirit with John, you're gonna talk more about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the release of the Holy Spirit. And there's different discussions about whether or not that happens once or whether or not it can happen multiple times. It's language as far as I'm concerned because what I really truly believe is that God wants to continually pour out his Holy Spirit, that I think in most of our lives, there was an occasion, an event that we had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that was quite transformative, but that's not the last one. I was just walking with a younger Dominican sister recently and she was saying to me how she wants more of God. She wants more of God. I love the theologian that speaks of God as the more. The more, that there is always more. And my concern, brothers, is that oftentimes we live in a grace that's years old or decades old. We had this encounter with the Lord that was 20 years old and we're just kind of living on that. And I suggest that the Lord has something more for us, that this baptism of the Holy Spirit, this release of the Holy Spirit, this anointing of the Holy Spirit, this continual indwelling of the Holy Spirit is something, it's not a static thing. It's something that's new and it's fresh and God wants to continue to do something in us. Amen. Are we experiencing that? Do we long for that? Do we desire that? Do we ask for that? When will baptize you in water? But I've come to baptize you in the Holy Spirit, right? To be overwhelmed, to be overshadowed. We had in a situation last week where we were talking about demonic possession and I just found myself reflecting on that word possession. I mean, in some circles, it's a really scary word, the idea of being possessed, totally giving oneself to the other. I want to be possessed by the Holy Spirit, right? I want to be possessed, I want my will and my spirit to be taken over. I think that's what this baptism of the Holy Spirit is being empowered to being overshadowed, right? That's my desire is to be consumed. I love that the definition that Pope Francis gives to baptism of the Holy Spirit. He says it's an encounter with the love of God that changes us. I think that changes part is important. I mean, obviously, we just simply pay attention to the scriptures. The apostles and many others had the advantages of having all of these encounters with Jesus and saw Jesus do remarkable things, but it wasn't until Pentecost that they were actually changed and given the grace and the power to live the things that they had heard until it became a reality tour and until it became more than just a great story or something really cool to see. It wasn't until Pentecost that they were actually transformed and changed. So it's not enough that we come and we just have a nice here, nice talk or have a nice encounter or even just come to understand more that God loves us, but the fullness of that is it begins to bring change in our life. Just for self-reflection. When's the last time you encountered the Lord that you can say it changed me? Not it was just a need, but there was something about this encounter that I've been changed, that there's something different about me that I'm more loving, I'm more kind, I'm more generous, I'm more whatever it is, right? You see, I think that's what the spirit of Jesus wants to do with us, amen? We hear obviously, and I just read it in the enunciation, this says he will be the Son of God. I think one of the things that the spirit wants to do to us is and we see this in Jesus, right? That the spirit comes upon Mary and she hears that he will be the Son of God, that there's a relationship between sonship and the spirit. That the spirit reveals to Zachariah, reveals to Mary that you will bear a child and the child will be the Son of God. We hear it in the baptism of the Lord, right? The Lord comes out of the Jordan, heaven's open up, a goose comes down and it says, behold my beloved son, right? There's something about sonship and baptism in the Holy Spirit. So when Jesus in the third chapter of Luke comes and he receives the baptism of John, people hear that he is the Son. And there was probably something in Jesus just to be able to hear that as well, that you are my son. What the spirit helps us understand brothers and what the spirit worked in Jesus and wants to be able to work in us is this relationship we have with the Father. And I know for many people that that's a great struggle and it's a great difficulty. The conference in Minnesota and I was talking about how God wants to be our Father. And this young kid comes up to me and goes, Father Dave, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm sure. He goes, let me tell you about my dad. He and I have never done anything together. He said one time he and I were gonna go out hunting. He said, we put our guns in the car and I was excited just to be able to spend some time with my dad shooting some ducks. He said it began to rain. My dad said, I don't wanna do this when it's raining. We'll do it another time. He said, Father, I'm still waiting just to have some time with my dad. The spirit comes upon Jesus and reveals the Father and the Son. When I did the wild goose, I interviewed Bob and one of the things that Bob talked about and I think so beautifully was that it's fundamentally, it's a Christian revelation that God is Father. I had the opportunity to be in the Holy Land one time and I was talking to a gentleman who was a Muslim and we had a really wonderful, beautiful conversation and I ended up meeting him a couple of days later and just carried on this very faith oriented, just very enlightening conversation. Yet near the end of it, I spoke just kind of out of, I wasn't even thinking about it as God is Father. He said, wait. He said, not that. He said, God has many things, but he's not Father. Even though Jesus, Jordan opens up in everything, the heavens open up, you are my son. God is his Father. I love in Romans, it says that we have not received a spirit of slavery, right? But a spirit of adoption and I love that image, a spirit of adoption that God looks at us and he chooses us, he chooses me out of the many, he chooses you out of the many. And then this says the spirit comes to us and we cry out, Abba, Father. It's not what we just think about. The spirit comes about us and we think, hmm, what now? Curious, I like that. Messiah, I like that. The spirit comes upon us and we cry out. We don't think about it. We don't plan it. We cry out, not just Father, Abba. We cry out Abba. It's significant that Jesus and the Jordan is revealed as the son in a relationship with the Father. And it's the spirit that does this. The spirit wants to be able to show us the Father. Even in John's Gospel, Jesus says, and this is, I'm not gonna theologize because I can't theologize on this, but Jesus says, I can only do what I see the Father doing. Like I've taken great consolation in that. Father Mike Scanlon used to speak a great deal about that. He says that we could sit down and we can pray for somebody to be healed, which is good and right and just, right, we should do that. But he said when he sees the Father doing something, the likelihood of that individual being healed is overwhelming. But it's the spirit that allows us to see what the Father, I mean, the Son, the Son, the Son of God, the Anointed One, the Holy One, had to be able to see what the Father was doing. He said, I can only do what I see the Father doing. The spirit, brothers, wants to come upon us and allow us, and in the same way that it was Jesus, allow us to see the Father. The next project I'm working on is actually going to be on this very thing. What is it that we have a Father? How is it that the spirit wants to reveal a Father to us? There's a line that it says the relationship with God begins with the relationship with our earthly Father. And for so many people, what we need and what we desire is that the spirit of Jesus move into that relationship. I don't know what your relationship is with your dad, but oftentimes we take the garbage and the brokenness of our relationship with our fathers and we place that on the heavenly Father, and it's just not fair to him. The spirit of Jesus comes upon us and reveals to us his Father. Not the Father we had, not the Father even we wish we had, the Father that we have, but only the spirit of Jesus can do that. The other thing maybe that's worthy of our reflection is that over the years I've heard a million times stories about how bad their Father, the individual's Father was. He wasn't present to me, he wasn't tender, he wasn't kind of, okay, we've all heard the stories. I could probably count on one hand the number of people who have come to me and said, you know, I've been a crappy son. I just wasn't a very good son. I was selfish, I was arrogant, I wasn't obedient. The spirit comes upon Jesus, his beloved son. What is it for us to be a faithful son? To be a faithful son, to be an obedient son, to be a generous son, to give of ourself, to be a son who's willing to sacrifice, right? The spirit comes upon Jesus in that Jordan reveals the Father and said, this is my beloved son. Same things happen to us. What happens at baptism? Yes, of course, we talk about the removal of original sin, of course, but we are baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We are baptized into a relationship with the Father. And our sonship is anointed, right? The oil, I don't get to do lots of baptisms, but when I do, I just pour the oil. What we want is much oil. I mean, just to rub that, when we heard yesterday, John Bergstrom was talking about the rubbing, right? That the anointing is the rubbing of this oil. It's happening to you. It's happened to some of us a couple of times, right? Baptism and confirmation, ordination. And we claim in this anointing, sonship. And all that goes along with that, right? Not just son of any son, but son of a king. So that I'm a prince, I'm a prophet, I'm a king. I'm baptized, I've been anointed. The spirit comes upon Jesus, right? And anoints him in the Jordan. We pay attention though in the next text. It's interesting that Jesus comes out of this anointing, out of this baptism in the scripture. And Luke particularly, it says he drives him into the Holy Spirit, drives Jesus to the desert. The desert, obviously, is the place of destruction. Prepare attention to the scripture. So oftentimes where everything went wrong was in the desert. So the desert was spiritually not a safe place, but physically and practically it's not a safe place. And it's, we all know the story, right? The spirit drives. It wasn't Jesus just like, well, I've got a couple of days, what should I do? Actually, I've got 40 days, let's just go to the desert. He doesn't go to the desert because he has nothing else to do. He goes to the desert because the scripture says he drives, the Holy Spirit drives him to the desert. I like to pray over that and think about that. Jesus at one time said, you know, I'd rather not do this. But the spirit drives him to do that. That's one of the, yeah, one of the things I love about Jesus, right? Sounds so ridiculous. But that we get glimpses of Jesus wrestling with it. It's one of the things that I take great comfort in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus wrestles with this. If it could be any other way, Father, the spirit drives him to the desert. I don't particularly want it. The spirit drives him to the desert and Jesus is always obedient to the spirit. For a number of years, Francis Martin was my spiritual director and he said, Dave, never deny the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Spirit drives him to the desert because it's there that he's gonna do battle. It's there that he's going to fix the wrongs. It's there where all the mistakes of his forefathers were made are gonna be rectified. And the spirit doesn't drive him there and say, good luck, but anoints him and stays with him. It's a part of our story. I mean, time and time again, we would like to bypass the desert. We'd just rather not go to that place. But the reality is, is I think that there are things that can be done in our life and our heart that can only be done in the desert. It can only, it's in the desert, right? It's in the desert where the people come to understand that God has freed them. They didn't want to go to the desert, but they go to the desert and Moses says that you are free, that God frees them, right? Takes them to the desert. What's that in your own life? What's that desert that we resist, that thing that we don't want to deal with, that thing that we don't want to look at, a place that we don't want to go, that if we're honest, we hear Jesus and we hear his spirit driving us there. We all have him. In the fall of 2020, when COVID was raging and just crazy, if you recall, we at the university, we chose not only did we open up classes and we invited people back, when so many, most of the schools across the country were taking that semester and going online, we at Franciscan were saying, come back. Not only that, we also said if you're new, come back and you don't have to worry about paying it, we'll pay for it for you. And the number of people that are saying, you guys are ridiculous, what are you doing? I mean, the number of emails and editorials and things that were written that the Franciscan university was being irresponsible. We're putting kids at risk. What are we doing? This is on you, Father Dave, right? When your kids get sick and dies, this is on you. It was just crazy. And it was just this crushing and just this weight that was coming on. And at the same time, my brother was diagnosed with cancer and I'm just trying to wrestle with this and wanting to be home and actually going to be home but not able to see him because of COVID and they wouldn't even let me in to see my own brother in the hospital as he's dying, right? And getting letters is saying, what are you doing? You let your kids come to campus. Do you even care? And it just seemed like everything was just crash, crushing it. It was a desert the Lord invited me to walk through and it was a spirit that drove me because if there was any other way I would have gotten out of it. So in Christ's, in our chapel in Holy Spirit Friary in one morning it was just really, it was just really weighty and tough. And I was just, I like to say I was pouring out my heart to the Lord. What I was doing was whining, right? It's like, seriously Lord, what is your problem? And the Lord broke into that. And he speaks to me and he speaks to my heart and he says, Dave, you won't be crushed. Now, when I look about it now that wasn't exactly the most comforting word, right? But it was totally what I needed to hear because I wasn't sure. I wasn't positive. You won't be crushed. And the Lord is faithful because he doesn't take us to that place and leave us there alone. But he takes us there to reveal things to us, to show things to us, to transform things in us. You see, had I not been through that and walked through that then I'm not sure that I could do the next thing that the Lord is going to ask me to do but I did and we did. There was something on a human level and I haven't prayed a ton about this but Jesus just making it out of the desert. A sense of confidence. You know, if I went toe to toe with the evil one on multiple occasions and I walked out of that, I came out of that standing. There's a confidence about that. I can do this. I won't be crushed. So the Spirit leads Jesus to the desert and then we find in the scriptures that we've talked about. Luke chapter four. He came to Nazareth where he had grown up and he went according to his custom into the synagogue in the Sabbath day. I'm not sure if you've been to Nazareth but if you go to Nazareth, they rarely stop at the synagogue here but when I go there, we always stop there. You'll walk by it and they won't point it out but there's something about just sitting here and reflecting on this scripture. He stood up and he read, he was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he unrolled the scroll and he found the passage where it was written. I really like this that scripture says that they handed in the scroll and he found. So this image I have is Jesus kind of looking. It's like, where is it? Where's the scroll? He's unrolled. It's not like Bible roulette, right? So there's a new game going on. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. It's a Bible roulette game and here's how it works. I encourage you to do it, all right? You open up the Bible, you get a group of 10 people. Open up the Bible and then you have to do exactly what it says on that page, all right? So everybody has to do exactly what it said on this page. I did this this morning. It was the story of the families who were selling their children in a slavery. So you have to do exactly what it says. And then the winner is the last one to go to jail, okay? So that's how this game goes. So Jesus has opened it up. It's like, not that, not that, not that. This is it, Isaiah 61. I thought, I mean, you could almost, this drum roll that was happening when John Bergsman was talking about this yesterday, that all of this, and that's why to focus on how the Holy Spirit is working, working, working in the first three chapters. And it comes to this place in the synagogue. And it's the first thing Jesus says. There had to have been all this amazing talk. It's like, because Jesus was known, it's his hometown, he's back. They've heard things about him. He'd been gone for 40 days. I wonder if people were actually wondering, did he make it, right? He's gone to the desert for 40 days and he finally comes out. This is the first time he's coming to the people. He takes the scripture, not that, not that. Ah, this, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scrolls. He hands back to the attendant, sits down, as we heard yesterday. Oh, he's got something to say. This should be good. Today the scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing. Dang, I would have loved to be there. The spirit of the Lord is upon me. I want to suggest that that is both an explanation and a proclamation. I mean, that's a bold statement. In how he connects that, right? As we heard yesterday, John was saying that that all of these elements, the healing of the blind and the cripple and the lame, these are messianic statements. These are messianic signs and the spirit of the Lord is upon me and it just piqued their ears and their attention. It's like, could it be? I mean, isn't this what we've been praying for? The spirit of the Lord is upon me for a purpose. But when he says that, what I found myself reflecting on is the spirit that it's an explanation of what's taken place, right? That Jesus has just come out of the desert. So when he says the spirit of the Lord, it's not just about what he's going to do. It's not just about his person. It's not just about his mission, but it's about what he has done. How is it that I made it in the desert for 40 days without food, without being crushed because the spirit of the Lord is upon me? I mean, that's why I was able to do it. And how is it moving forward that I'm going to be able to do what the Lord desires me to do? That the spirit of the Lord is upon me. So it's not just what has happened, the explanatory on what it was and why he was able to do, but it's this presence of the spirit of Jesus, but it's also the presence of Jesus, the spirit about what he's going to do. In the Old Testament, as John Bergsmann mentioned yesterday, that the sense of anointing was a sense of rubbing, but there's a kind of a transformation that changes from the old to the New Testament that the anointing isn't just an external rubbing, but it's an internal transformation. The anointing in the Old Testament is the oil flows over the person. The anointing in the New Testament is an indwelling, is an indwelling of God. First Corinthians 3.16 says, do you not know that you are the temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you? Are we aware of this? Are we aware that the spirit of Jesus is dwelling and is present in me? I mean, brothers, that this ought to provide us confidence that I can be confident that what the Lord is asking me to do and what he's inviting me to do and what he's called to me, if the spirit of Jesus dwells in me, that there's something different about that. That it's not just this, and this is a part of it, and there's this tension that exists, but it's not just this spirit that goes to, I realize that there is a particular anointing and a particular grace for particular things, right? So I've been involved in ministry that at that moment, the Lord gives me something, a special anointing, a special grace that I need for that moment, and I understand that. Bishop Sam Jacobs would say that those are particular charisms to carry out a particular need at that time. But the spirit of Jesus is always dwelling in me. That's one of the things, again, I love Pope Francis that he's talking about the Holy Spirit that he says the greatest gift, and you're gonna talk, we're gonna talk this afternoon about charisms, and they're important, they're really important, but Pope Francis would say the first and the greatest gift is the spirit himself, right? It's not just this list of things that we can have, well, I can have this gift or I could have that gift, or I, the spirit of God gives his very self to us, that the very living God dwells in me, and I suggest the more we come to understand that it changes us, it changes our ministry, it changes the way we relate to people, it changes the power, it changes the way we hear confessions, it changes the way we preach, it changes the way we pray. So the prayer isn't just going out there to encounter this God that may or may not be there, it's encountering God who dwells in me. Literally dwells, it changes the way I pray that it's not just me going to try to find him, but it's me encountering him and experiencing God who dwells in me. My suspicion is if we understood more fully, more completely, that God dwells in us, we would treat people differently. If I understood how God dwells in you, how you are the living temple of God, I would probably treat you differently, maybe be more patient or more kind, more thoughtful or more generous. Why don't we believe that God dwells in us? Because we look in a mirror and all the crap that we've done goes through our mind and that speaks louder than the spirit of Jesus, that God dwells in me, that I am a temple of God. The spirit of Jesus dwells in us. That's why I asked Bob to sing that song, come rest on us. Change me. Are you aware of that? How comfortable are you standing in front of a group of people and say the spirit of the Lord is upon me? To do the same things, right? That this anointing that Jesus speaks about wasn't merely for him, but it's also for me that the spirit of the Lord is upon me and he's called me to give sight to the blind, to heal the captive and to free those who are in captivity and to heal the crippled, that that's my mission, that's our mission, brothers, that's the message, that's the good news, right? But he wants to first do it in me, that I'm the one who's blind. If I hear that text and say, Jesus, that's great, you did that for those people, then I'm walking into this blind myself, that we are those who are in captivity. Second Corinthians 3, 17, where the spirit of God is there is freedom. This is what I need, Lord, that I am so oftentimes captured, that I'm the one who needs to be healed, that this mission, this anointing, this work that Jesus had, that he wants us to be able to participate in that, but he also wants to be us to be the one who receives that, that that same spirit heals me, frees me, restores me. Amen? When the spirit of God comes upon Jesus, Jesus proclaims what his mission is. And this is for us as well, that the spirit of Jesus comes upon us and we understand more clearly what it is that God has for me to do. And we step into that mission, we step into that anointing, we step into what it is that God has for us. I'm driving through Steubenville, Ohio in February of 2019. If you've ever been here in Steubenville, Ohio in February, I'm sorry, it's not as beautiful as it is in June, right? I was driving through the town and I was just looking around and I said to myself, you know, there's something really charming about Steubenville. As soon as I said that, I said, oh my goodness, what's going on, Lord? You duped me. About six weeks later, I get a call from my provincial and ask if I would be open to being nominated to be president of the university to step into the mission that the Lord has for me. The spirit of the Lord is upon you. It's not just a general mission. He's got something for you and only you that only you can accomplish. Your desert, your Jordan River experience, your anointing, the indwelling. It's all so that you can carry out the mission that Jesus has given you. And he reminds us that he won't leave us orphan. John 14.26 says, if you love me and keep my commandments and I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to be with you. It was a gospel that was given to us in the last couple of weeks and I just spent more time with the word advocate. I looked it up. There's like seven or eight different terms or different words that you could use for that. Helper, empirically, companion, counselor, friend, comfort or buddy, right? One of the images that we've often heard is in a courtroom, the advocate is the one who's like the expert witness. It's not just any witness. The advocate is the expert witness. Technically, the word means the one who comes, right? The one who comes. So it's the expert. If you've seen my cousin Vinny, the advocate is the woman who comes in and says, oh, it can't be that car. And she goes through this whole thing about the drivetrain and all that. And she saves the day, right? Vinny gets off the murder charges, right? The advocate is the one who saves the day. They use the word advocate that if a military, if a battalion was in trouble and they were being surrounded and they were being defeated, the advocate is the one who comes in and rescues them, saves the day. The Lord says that he will give you, and it's good. He says that will give you another advocate. In 1526, it says, when the advocate comes, that I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of the truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. Let's find myself praying and reflecting on this, that Jesus, that we can't even see Jesus. We can't even encounter Jesus without the Spirit. The advocate will testify to me. I loved what I think it was Bishop said the other day that we speak in so often many places we start with works of mercy, which are important. But I remember one of our friars, Father Dan would always say, that the first greatest work of mercy is evangelization. But that if we don't even see Jesus, if we don't even know Jesus, then why are we doing what we do? And why do we expect people to act differently or behave differently or live differently if they don't even know Jesus? It's not just a matter of us telling them. It's a matter of them being able to encounter and seeing Him. And the scripture says that the Spirit testifies to Jesus. The Spirit reminds us, the scripture reminds us that I can do nothing apart from the power of Jesus in His Holy Spirit. And I found myself for the last many months reflecting and praying on itself evident and obvious, but the Holy Spirit wants to make me holy, be a holy spirit, the sanctifying spirit. I mean, it's kind of sobering that I reflect that I can't do anything apart from the Spirit of Jesus. And yet the anointed Son of God stands in front of a little teeny, rinky, dink temple in Nazareth that says the Spirit of God is upon me. And that same spirit that anointed Him, that same spirit that was upon Him is upon me. Is upon you, it dwells in me. And I think that matters. I think that that matters, that should matter in the way we preside at liturgy, in the way we pray the liturgy, in the way we hear confessions, in the way we do spiritual direction, in the way we do whatever ministry you're involved in. I think it matters in the way I pray. I think the fact that the Spirit of Jesus is upon me when I come before Him in my morning prayer or I do my night prayer before I go to bed, that matters. It matters in the fact that I struggle. And the reality is, and it's one of the beautiful things that the Spirit of Jesus, the scripture says, the Spirit of Jesus is going to convict us of our sin, right? In order to ultimately convert us, not to condemn us. The fact that God dwells in us doesn't mean that I'm never gonna fail or that I'm never gonna sin. But what it does mean is that I'll go to confession and I won't dwell in it. The Spirit of Jesus is that which continues to move you and move me. We see this movement in the beginning of Luke that ultimately brings Him to the temple, to the synagogue in Nazareth. Brothers, do me a favor, stand up. Take a breath. I just invite you very simply to open your hands in front of you and repeat after me. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Jesus come through Holy Spirit. Say that again, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Don't want you to raise your hand. I don't want you to identify yourself. But for those of you who aren't sure, in the name of Jesus and His priest, I come against that lie. For those of you who don't believe it really matters, in the name of Jesus and His priest, I come against that lie. For those of you who aren't positive, it's gonna make a difference. As a priest of Jesus, I come against that lie. Just in your own heart and as the Spirit is leading you, just ask the Spirit of Jesus to come rest on you, to be present to you. To step into that anointing brothers that you are given at baptism. The power of hell, the power of death was broken. Step into that grace every time you've gone to confession. God the Father of mercies through the death and resurrection of His Son has reconciled us. I love the new translation. It says, poured the Holy Spirit poured forth in us. Do you not know that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Where the Spirit of God is, there is freedom. The Spirit will remind you of all that I've done. The Spirit will convict you. The Spirit will lead you to all truth. The Spirit is not rationed. The Spirit doesn't show preference. The Spirit of the Lord is upon you. The Spirit of the Lord is upon you. Come rest on us. Many of you have been through the desert. Take courage in that. Jesus come. What does the Lord want to say to you? Just being present and still to Him. What is it that you've heard? In Timothy we hear that the Spirit is stirred, just stir in a flame. The Spirit that was given to us when hands were laid upon us. Jesus I pray that you would stir that. That initial zeal, the excitement, the wonderment. Jesus come with the more, restore, renew, transform, make whole. Jesus breathe life into the brother here who's struggling most, who's resting with the greatest doubt. With the brother here who feels as if he's going to be crushed. Come rest on us. And just for a minute just wait on that. Come rest on us. Overshadow us. Mother Mary you who are the spouse of the Holy Spirit that you had interceded for us as we pray together. Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou among women. And blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death, amen. Jesus as your priest I claim what you are doing in the hearts of my brothers for the grace that you've given to them. For the seeds that have been planted that bear the fruit you desire. The Lord be with you. May almighty God bless your brothers, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.