 Anybody awake? It's the last day. Aren't you just rejuvenated to get back to work? Okay. As soon as we're done, I get to go home, mow my lawn if it's not raining, and then come back for the team meeting for the weekend conference. Just excited about that, just pumped. Ready to go. First, I want to say thank you to Father Dan again. As a witness on the side, watching him present to everyone last night, it was clear the response to the men we had towards him. Why was that? It was vulnerable. Yeah. He was a great example of what the teaching we've heard all week long, wasn't it? It was beautiful. And you know, as ministers, we're always trying to go and influence our people and try to move our people somewhere, and it's the movement of the heart that makes it so challenging, isn't it? And yet, he gave us a great example of how to do that. This talk is Rise Up Fathers. And I think a lot of the things for me and Wyatt, maybe I'm selected for this particular talk, is one because I am a father. I married my high school sweetheart, Susan. We dated about five and a half years, and then we got married after college. And then had not one, not two, not three, but five girls, I know, right? Just a lot of drama, a lot of drama in my house. And the funny thing is I'm the youngest of four boys. So I had no clue what to do with girls. So when Mary was up here and she said, you know, that's why we don't want you to fix things. I laughed really loudly out there because I fell in that trap numerous times, you know? Dad, I just want you to listen to me, you know? And so it was a meaningful time for me to hear that. Just so you understand the context, for me, I wish I could tell you I'm a great example. I don't know if I am. I know that I've had plenty of struggles working my way through. I'm the youngest of four boys as I shared to a Hispanic family. My father is Cuban, born in Havana, and I was born in Columbia. So we were very much a part of this machísimo family. And the expression of love was always a hug and a, you know, the double pat on the back. That's the I love you. And I remember being a kid, I was maybe about 12 years old and I was watching one of those Saturday matinee movies and I'm sitting there in front of the television set and I'm just engrossed in what's going on and all of a sudden this scene comes out where there's this 40 year old man and he's in a hospital room and his dad is on the bed and his dad is dying. And all of a sudden the scene goes and you see, you know, that typical sign, that sound, eh, where he just bottoms out and he just passes away. And the scene then turns into this man standing up and almost diving on his dad's chest, crying bitterly, saying, dad, I never got to tell you that I love you. And just the waves, he was just crying, I never got to hear you say I love you. It was just this amazingly moving moment and I was, as that young guy, totally captivated because I'm like, oh my God, this is me. I'm never, never at that time in my life had I heard my dad say I love you. That's just not what men did, right? And you know, for us, as it's been shared, you know, Bob shared yesterday, he says, you know, and it's been along the way. We don't have the manual, right, on fatherhood. We don't know how to be the perfect father, whether we're priests or whether we're earthly fathers or spiritual fathers, there's no perfect way to do that. And so because we don't have one, what we end up doing is growing up and living basically the models we experienced. Wouldn't you say that's true? The kind of father my dad is, is what I tend to gravitate towards. But that's not the father I wanted to be. And that's certainly not the father I wanted. I always thought as a young guy that because I was the fourth of four boys and there was two years between the first three brothers, then the four-year gap, and then me, that my dad had given himself to my brothers and spent time with them, gone to their soccer games, done all those different things. But by the time I grew up and was consciously aware of my dad's presence, life was basically, he'd go to work, he'd come home, and he'd have a sit down in front of the TV and my mom would serve him dinner in front of the dinner, you know, with a little as little dinner trays that many of you have. And so he'd sit there and he'd just, he would eat. And there was no conversation with him. And he never came to games, so I always felt like, well, I don't know, geez, does he want me? Is this something real for me? Is, you know, am I the accident? Cause it seems like he was with them, but. So of course you can imagine the wounds. We've been talking about this, father wounds all along. But when I saw that movie, I realized for me, I do not want this to be my experience. So I made a commitment to myself and a goal. I said, I am gonna get my dad to say the words, I love you, to me. And so you know the ritual. We're sitting down at TV at nighttime and we're all watching television and then it's time for me to go to bed and I'm like, I'm nervous, it's the first time I'm thinking this is it, it's gonna happen. I'm just so stoked. It's gonna happen. Well, I think I'm going to bed. Good night, dad. Nothing. I wasn't gonna be dissuaded by one no answer. Next night, nothing. Third night, nothing. Week later, nothing. A month later, nothing. Six months later, nothing. One year later and I was tenacious. Nothing. Year and a half, nothing. Two years, nothing. Two and a half, true story, two and a half years. I now just got into the routine. Well, going to bed. Good night, dad. And all of a sudden I'm rounding the corner and because you have the living room going into the doorway where the front door is and then the hallway down to the bedrooms and I round that corner and all of a sudden I hear, same here, I just stopped. Did I just hear that? But he didn't say the words, not good enough. So I kept going. For the next six months I kept going and my dad more frequently began to say, same here, same here, same here and then about the three year mark I'm rounding that corner, you know? Getting used to getting here and that same here. This time I'm totally out of sight rounding the corner, I just rounded it and I go and I said, good night, dad, I love you and I round the corner and I hear, I love you too, son. And then I'm just like, oh, I just started crying. Just the tears started to flow and flow. Went to bed, booger snots all over the pillow. It was just a really nasty scene and then began the continued growth process. For him, I kept saying, dad, I love you. I love you too. Now we're at a point where now I'm traveling because he lives with me. He's just, before this retreat started, he turned 95. He's still very active. In fact, it's hilarious to watch him fall because he doesn't fall, he rolls. Like he stumbles and he rolls right out of it. He never gets hurt, it's just really hilarious. I shouldn't talk about that. We started this relationship, my dad and I and I guess what I hope to do today is to really just talk about giving us hope because you and I both know you've already started. It's already begun. You got here, the prayers were even focused in on our travel home. You're already looking there and you're already looking at what's ahead of you and the tidal wave of people who don't wanna change. Right? And the despair we could feel going back to our parish is thinking, gosh, how is this really going to work, right? I hope to give you hope to believe that God really can do amazing things through your fatherhood if you will go there like Father Dan gave us the example last night. You know it, you felt it, you experienced it. In Revelations it says we will overcome the kingdom of heaven with two things. The kingdom of Satan with two things. The blood of the lamb, we know what that is and the testimony of the saints. And the reason testimony of the saints is so critically important is because it's easy to talk about what Jesus did 2,000 years ago on the cross. It's very sterile, it's very safe. We don't have to put ourselves out there. But I'm telling you, everywhere I go, people want to know that story but beyond that story, the most critical question they wanna know is is Jesus real today? And the only way we can communicate whether Jesus is real today is how we show him through our lives. That's what Mary was talking about. That's what Father Dan modeled last night. How we show them that God is real to us because of the amazing things he's done in our lives. For my father and I, I didn't know his love in a verbal way. I only knew it because he would go out and work hard for me. That was the Hispanic model for loving your kids. But I wanted more of my dad. I wanted more time. I wanted him to embrace me and I wanted to draw close to him. And so one of the things as we started getting older is that you could tell I had this animosity and I had this other spiritual father in the church who was a youth leader volunteer for me. His name is Jorge. He's still one of my supporters. And he came to me one day and he says, you know, I've been listening to your talks for the last six months and a lot of anger is coming out in your talks about your dad. What is going on? And I began to realize that as I was going through some conversion and transformation that the Lord was beginning to trigger me and force me to look at things in my life. And unfortunately they were starting to come out. And I realized I needed to start directing some of this work with him. I needed to heal with my dad. I needed to forgive my dad. And so one day there was this Emmaus retreat, this men's retreat in that church in Miami and I went to my dad and I said, dad, dad, would you come this retreat with me? And he goes, oh son, no. Had no desire to come at all. At all. And so I'm like, oh gosh. But with my dad, you know, I'm gonna keep at it. So the next retreat was gonna be six months down the road. So I'm thinking and praying, Lord, you gotta give me the words. How do I break this down? How do I get my dad to come on this retreat? Cause it's an evangelistic retreat but I didn't even understand everything that was gonna go on there. I had no clue that God had a plan for me on that retreat. I thought I was just bringing my dad to a place where he could find salvation. So six months or five months comes down a road and I said, dad, I got something I have to ask you. And before I ask you, I just want you to know that if you would do this for me, it would mean the world. And he's thinking, whoa, the world. Well please, what is this? I said, I want you to go on that retreat. You said, no, six months ago with me. It's on again in a month. And he goes, oh, oh, I'm too old for this stuff. And I said, dad, God is older than you. So he came and my mother packed his bag. It was the cutest thing. He had this cute little suitcase and there he is, tromping off on retreat with me. You know, it was beautiful. So we're on this retreat and then Saturday night, Saturday night of that retreat, we're all sitting and my dad and I are sitting in the front row and it's really close room. So the speaker's there, behind the speaker is this, is a wall with a slide projector picture image of just a drawing of Jesus' face. And I'm sitting there and my dad is sitting next to me and the guy who's leading this particular session said, you know what we need to do is we're gonna give you an opportunity to forgive the people in your life who you need to forgive. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna ask you to take an Emmaus brother to be there with you and he's gonna be the one who sits in the place of the person you need to forgive. And I'm staring at Jesus' eyes going, dang it, Lord. What the heck are you doing? And my dad is sitting there thinking, well, this is gonna be another floater of a night, okay, just kind of going on. And I'm sitting there and he starts talking about the need to go and the Lord just starts speaking in my mind, you know this has to happen. You know you need to go to him and you need to ask to forgive. And so the way that they did it is that they had the, the Emmaus brother sit down and you're supposed to pick a brother and then they said, the brother opens his legs like this and you're supposed to kneel right before him. So I'm there and I, my, I grabbed my dad, he's sitting there, has no idea what's going on and you're supposed to pull him up to the front to one chair, so it's done one at a time. I know, right? That's why I'm looking at Jesus going, you, right? So all of a sudden I get my dad and he put him down the chair and he totally freaks out. He's just, he's tapping his fingers. I remember, because I'm looking down like this, I can't do this and everything in me is saying, oh no, no, I can't, can't, can't. And then finally I said, screw it. I grabbed his hand and just went up and put him in the chair and he's like, what, what, what? And he sits down in the chair and I kneel down and I just go to my dad and I just, and of course the tears start coming out. I'm like, dad, I need to ask your forgiveness. I've been judging you for so long. You see, I've needed you and I felt like you've never been there for me. And I'm standing right in his eyes and he's looking at my eyes and it's the second time in my life I'd seen him cry. And he just, he started to cry, I started to cry and I knew that their relationship wasn't doing well. And I said, I need a husband for my mom and we just started to talk. We hugged each other. He asked for forgiveness and I didn't. But you know, I would have never done that had Jesus not put me in that situation, right? Because we're just a bunch of chickens. We are, we're scared to death. We're so afraid of what could happen that we're never willing to follow Jesus into what will happen. So my relationship with my dad is one that's continued to grow. I moved him in my house like 15 years ago. Right now he lives in an apartment basement. I built two minutes away from campus. He lives in the basement. We let him out once in a while. But I married my high school sweetheart, Susan and I began to play this role in my house of father. And first I was husband and I don't know that I was a good husband because as most of you know, I had an addiction to porn, particularly at the very beginning of that relationship all through that dating relationship and engagement. And I was a coward and I didn't tell her that I was addicted. So I had something growing in me. But I tell you, once we had our first daughter and here's just something that we can certainly apply to our ministry is that when Sarah was born as somebody alluded to earlier is that when you see your child in front of you, God creates space in your heart for love. And I saw that child and I thought, oh my God, what have you done, placing this child in my care? I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do it. And we try the best we can, we do with what we have, but we fall short because of everything else. So I thought my job was to go work and do and all that kind of stuff, the model I had experienced. But Jesus wants to fashion the model. That word that I got for us last night, let me build you is critical. Let God make our fatherhood. Let God fashion us. I think for many of us because we're men, we have egos, our desire is to make a name for ourselves. We want to have a name for ourselves in the diocese. For me as a youth minister, I wanted to be the best youth minister in the country. And that's all I worked towards was creating this name and this title because I was so broken, that was the way I was going to fulfill my needs instead of letting God do it. And as Dave talked about, it says, we're so busy trying to do it, but God is the only one that can do it. So why are we continuing to try to do it ourselves? And I kept going back to the Lord and saying, Lord, I need your help because I don't know how to be a father. This is the first time my kid's growing up. You know, I'm loving, my heart is growing and all I want to do is love. And here's the transformation is this, is that in ministry, in programs, we get so focused in on the numbers and we see people as the people, as just the group or a program, we forget to see the person in front of us. If we don't love the person in front of us, how effective is our evangelization really going to be? It's not enough to love a group, a parish. We have to see them and that's when I began to realize because my family started to grow. I remember when Rachel came on board, she was, well, she was in utero and I'm asking the question, Lord, I don't understand how I'm supposed to do this because I love Sarah so much and I don't want to take away my love from Sarah, cut it in half and give it to Rachel. I want all my love for Sarah to go to Sarah, but what God does, the more you choose to love, the more he expands your heart. He gives us the capacity to love more people. If we are willing to dispose that part of our heart, our lives, our being to God, he can love multitudes through us. If we, say, help us and we choose to engage because you know, it's just easy. Well, my kids started growing and everything starts doing some of me, doing, you know, they're all just growing up. Now I got three kids and my wife and I are, people are going, oh, you're going to go for number four, go for the boy, and we said, we're not going to have any more kids unless we're a good, God has a good sense of humor. And next thing you know, we conceive again and it's not another girl, it's two girls, twins. I know, right? This sucker's got a twisted sense of humor, I'm telling you what. He gives us now all of a sudden and at that time I'm living in Miami, Florida, making millions of dollars as a youth minister for the Catholic Church. And I'm, and here's where again, as a father, I feel like it's on me. I'd start taking responsibility, I'd start taking God's job and now I'm the provider and I go down there and I'm freaking out, how? Because I didn't want my wife to work, I wanted her to be home with the kids. So we are living on an extremely shoestring budget, so tight that I was praying my kids wouldn't be invited to a birthday party because we had no money to buy presents for them to go to that party. It was just tight. But every time God provided what we needed. But now I'm freaking out, thinking my family's too big, I've got to do something. And I saw what I thought was wise counsel and I went around and then I took on the next step and that was I got a vasectomy. I thought I was being the protector in terms of protecting my family so that I can provide for them when in actuality, what I did is I took all control away from God and I said, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna be in control. I can manage my family better than God. And I made a horrible mistake. When we think we understand and how in control of our families and which way it should go. So we make these decisions. My brothers, how do we apply that to our ministries? When we preach, we think there's a certain way we should preach instead of stopping and listening. God, what do you want me to say to these people? Because when we become fearful and we're afraid to preach the truth, it's like using spiritual birth control. We say words but they have no potential to bear life. And I did that to my wife. We moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and I started to become familiar with this document, strange app, just very, I don't know. I hadn't heard of it. It's very obscure. Maybe you've heard of it. It's called Humana Vitae. Reddit realized I had done something horrible. I talked to my wife about it. She equally felt the same because the Lord was working in her and working in me. It was hard. I didn't know what to do. We went to confession. We beg God for forgiveness. Viability of getting that repaired is 10 years and we were at the seven year mark and it's just right around the year 2000. A lot happened to me in 2000. We had found about six months before a doctor in San Antonio, Texas who there is one still there today and I'd be glad to give you his number, who does vasectomy reversals for a quarter of the price, $2,300 as a ministry. Well, that year 2000, the first time I started speaking at youth conferences for Franciscan and very tight budget. All of a sudden I get this check in the mail and the cost was 2,300 bucks to get a reversal and I had this check that came in the mail after the conferences was over and for doing several conferences that year and the check was for $2,300. So I went to Susan. I said, Susan, I think I now, Susan, I hadn't had any conversations about going to see this doctor or anything. Susan, I wanna go and I think I know what I wanna do with this money and she goes, I know you need to go and I'm like, what are you talking about? You need to go to Texas. So we scrounged up some money for an air, a flight in a very, very cheap hotel. Went in on Friday, got the procedure, chilled out for the weekend and met the doctor on Monday before I flew back and he said this one thing. He said, I wanna warn you, now that you have restored your wife's ability to bear life, I wanna warn you that you're going to have an assault against your marriage and he wasn't wrong. Months later, you could have taken a feather and pushed our marriage off that cliff to divorce. See, as a father, we're protectors and we're supposed to protect our family, our flocks from the evil that is constantly around them. But sometimes we get afraid. We get afraid and we don't rise up. We get afraid of what's gonna happen to me and we forget that faith. We forget that we're in the faith business and that we're called to teach people to learn not just know God, know stuff about God, but that knowledge of God transfers into a deep trusting of their entire being into God's providence. We don't do that. We call people to faith, but oftentimes we live without it and we depend on ourselves and our giftedness. It's just so hard. So I would just offer, as I continue with my family growing up, I wanna just offer for you just a couple of three ideas. How do we take this forward in very tangible practical ways? And I've come up with three simple phrases. One, love covers a multitude of sin. I love that phrase. It's one of my life phrases that I live by and I've been instructing my son-in-laws with this. I'm a wretched sinner. I've sinned a lot. I sin a lot. And I know that I've let my family down, I let my people down. And so what I've begun to realize is that idle hands are tools of the devil and of course with pornography I learned quickly that you have a lot of idle time with those hands. And so I needed to keep myself busy and I would, instead of sitting down resting I would look for situations in my family, in my house that needed to be fixed and repaired without being asked to do it. Whether the dishes needed to be done, I'd get up and I'd start doing the dishes even though I got five daughters that could do it. And in a Hispanic family, that's the expectation, right? So my mother says, let your daughters do it. I said, no, I'm going to get up and I'm going to do it. I realized that I needed to become the servant of my family. That they needed to see me being the one who gets up to go. That they needed to see me one that says, you know, yes, I could use some rest and I'll take the rest when I need it but when there's things that need to be done I'm going to go do them and not expect somebody else to do it because I need to atone also with my Lord, by my love. So I would look for opportunities to love whoever is around me. I would look for ways to do that for them and I just want to encourage you when you begin to start doing that it really leads into the other one and that is that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Mary Poppins, when you give sugar to your people they are prepared to receive the nasty medicine. When you love your people, when you love on them, when you constantly know and they are affirmed and feel confirmed in your love for them you can tell them anything you want and they will listen. It's with teenagers, it's a typical with teenagers. Isn't it funny how sometimes we'll think, well, I'm going to step into this role and play father and I'm going to crack a whip. Been there, done that. I remember one time I had one of those ministry days where I got the crap kicked out of me by pastor and by parents and I came home and I was just looking for silence. I just wanted silence, I want to come home quite home and at that point my kids were like, eight years old and younger, nothing but ankle biters and you know what they were doing? Being kids. But I come walking in and they're fighting. And Hannah says something to Becca or Becca says something to Hannah and Hannah just goes, and goes, boom. And I walk in the door to see Hannah go, boom and Becca goes flying. Becca sees me, of course, you know what she does. And I just immediately reacted. She looked at me like, dad, you don't know what just happened, but deeply wounded. And you know what I achieved? Silence. Everybody went and started doing stuff. Got ready for dinner. We always sit down for a family meal at dinner. Please go call your sister from her room. Everybody's sitting around, we're talking, chatting. Everybody's having a great time except for, I knew it, I sensed it. And of course the Lord, you know, he's doing those quiet two by fours. Hello. Right? So it's time for baths. Hannah's off. She separated herself from everyone else. She's changing. I got into the room, went into the room with her and I knelt down to her and I just said, honey, I need you to know that I'm sorry. I came in and I reacted. What happened? So I've learned, you got to ask what happened. Because they still want to talk and share. So then I apologized again. We hugged, the tears ended, the joy returned. What we do as dads is huge, huge. One of my biggest prayers is Lord, don't let me react anymore. Don't let my stuff get in the way that forces me to react in anger or whatever else. Give me the grace I need, the patience I need to just love the way you would love. And I know I need your help to do that because I can't do it. See, I've learned and I do a lot of, not a lot, but some marriage counseling stuff with couples and I help them understand this deal is that every person is like a bank account, every person. People that we work with are parishioners, family members, spouses, they're a bank account. And everyone has an account in that relationship. The more love you put in, it's like making deposits, making deposits, making deposits, making deposits. And then there are times where you're gonna have to not be there and you're gonna need to make a withdrawal. And the key is that you always need to make sure you have enough money in the account to make the withdrawal. Teenagers rebel from their parents because their accounts are zero. And the parents are trying to give instruction and teaching and they don't wanna hear anything. Ever have parishioners like that? They don't wanna hear what you have to say because all they hear from you is rules or they feel negative, but if we are loving them, pouring it in, and I'm telling you, it stretches us and I'm gonna be up front, I'm gonna tell you right up front. If you choose to go this route, I'm gonna be honest with you. You are going to be wounded deeply just like Jesus because the truth is to love in a fallen world is to experience pain. Is it not? Isn't that what the cross teaches us? The greatest example of love is the cross and it is fraught with pain because it's happening in a world filled with sin and evil. But what did God do? Jesus, he could have just stayed up in heaven in his majesty, but what did he do? He chose to come down and enter the nastiness of our existence. He chose to enter and become one of us, right? And isn't that what Philippians two says? He humbled himself to become one of us, to enter the garbage, the lies, the hatred, the vile, the deep sin, the gross sin, all of that garbage. He came to be amongst us. He didn't stay in his office. Just saying, he didn't stay in his home. Just saying, he came out amongst the people. I'm gonna ask you to do one thing beyond just the ministry of presence because that's a powerful ministry. Believe me, as a youth minister for 20-something years, I long to have my pastor show up. I long, do you know why? Because my kids, you know what they wanted to be after they graduated high school? They wanted to be a youth minister. Why? Because I'm the one loving them. And if my pastor had shown up, then they might wanna, and if they felt loved by them, they might wanna become a priest. But they look at us and they see us so high and they realize, oh my gosh, I could never be one of you guys. I could never be, because you guys got something special. I'm the sinner who's been abused as a kid, who got stuck and porn, who had a vasectomy as a young man. I'm just this wretched sinner. I could never do what you do. You guys have something special. I'm just a waste. I'm just a pew potato and that's where I belong. But it's not where we belong. Love covers a multitude of sin. Draw close. Seek intimacy. You know what intimacy is, don't you? Into me, see. Seek intimacy with your people. Let them know that you're on a journey. When I do staff training, sometimes I'll give this image and I'm like, and I just, the priest is sitting there. But with the staff, I direct this to the staff. I'd say, I'm gonna ask you guys, I'm gonna give you a scenario and I'd like you to just unfold this, unpack this, so that you could just express how that would make you feel. Let's say I'm father such and such and the mass is beginning and you know how it goes. It's so easy. You guys got the book. You can just start reading. But what happens if before you start reading, father such and such steps up and he's on the mic and he goes, my brothers and sisters, I, before we start mass, I need to just ask you to do me a favor and they all get quiet. I need you to pray for me. I just had a tough funeral yesterday and I'm really hurting today. And I know I'm supposed to do the mass but I need your help to help me say the mass today. Could you just take a moment of silence, maybe extend your hand towards me and pray. And then the pastor gets on his knees before the congregation opens himself up. And if somebody feels led to pray, would you just say it out loud so everybody can go with you? Because you're still teaching. And then I ask the staff, what would happen if you saw that? Well, how would that make you feel? What would that do for you in that moment? It would make me endear me to my pastor because you're showing me some of your humanity. We all know, we all know. We don't wear the collars as much as you guys do, us deacons, but it's easy to hide behind that collar. It's easy to play the role of priest and no longer be the human. But you know where I learned that whole idea from? There was this wise priest in my, when I was a youth minister and I had my kids, his name was Father Wallin. He says, you know, parents, what I'd like you to do, he had one of those children masses and he says, tonight, when you go to kiss your kids goodnight in prayer, instead of just praying for your kids, I want you to lay your hands on, ask your children to lay your hands on your head and ask them to pray for you. And I thought, oh wow, that is so cool, awesome. So I tried that. Sarah was the oldest, so I figured I'd try it with her and Sarah's sitting there. And so, you know, I have this thing that I would pray for, this ritual, I pray for three things, for her, for every one of my kids, every night. And I prayed for her and I said, Sarah, would you pray for me now? And she's like, I don't know how. I'm like, it's easy. Okay, well, what do I do? Take your hand and put it on my head, right? Stuck it on her and said, and then just pray to Jesus. What do you say? Jesus, Jesus, bless my daddy, bless my daddy. Help him to open up his heart. Help him to open up his heart and know that he is loved. So we would do that. And then came the day when I had had another one of those days and I was broken. And I barely could get into there to pray because I just wanted to go to bed and lick my wounds. And I'm laying before, I'm kneeling before my daughter and I pray my prayer for her, it's all broken. And I said, Sarah, I need you to pray for me. And she goes, okay, puts her hand on my head and I bow my head and she sees me begin to cry. And she goes, daddy, are you crying? And I said, yes, baby. She took her hand off my head and she grabbed my cheeks and lifted my face up. She goes, oh, daddy, don't you know? Jesus loves you. And I just went, and here's my little girl hugging her daddy who's crying on her chest. Father Dan showed us last night, guys, the most powerful weapon God has given you to minister to these people is you, your heart, your life, your brokenness, your imperfections and your gifts. What I have found in trying to learn how to father my family, that I can't do it and that my sinfulness creeps in everything I do. And I, you know what I'm constantly doing? In marriage, I say this, there's three hard words to say when you're married. I love you, I forgive you and I'm sorry. I love you, I forgive you, I'm sorry. Has your bride heard you say those? How frequently? Because if we're really human as we are and we desperately need confession because we're all part of the sin club, shouldn't that be a normal part of our speech? Regardless the office we hold? I mean, I'm the priest of my household, I'm the top dog, the bug stops with me. But if I lead by example, then I want everybody in my family to use those words a lot. I love you, I forgive you, I'm sorry. One last thing, I've given you two major phrases. The first one was love covers the multitude of sin. Second one was a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. And this is the third one and this is for your house. And it's something that I had to learn, particularly in that illustration with Hannah screaming at her, showed me that I needed to go this route and that is this, is that I need to make peace, the premier goal of my household. I need to make peace the premier goal of my household, why? At the end of the night, I want everyone in that house at peace. They may be alone but at peace and sometimes that's not happening and it forces dynamics to occur within the family if peace is not the paramount goal that we're trying to achieve. One, you can't have peace without the truth. Is that not true? This idea of let's just bury it and pretend it doesn't exist, that's not peace. That's living a lie. That's exactly what Satan trains us to do and have dysfunctional families. That means we have to constantly be in the truth. We have to talk about the truth and what's going on in everyone's lives. We have to be up front with each other and my family, you know, like my daughters, they, people think that I'm really protective over my daughters and who they're gonna marry. You know, have you ever been to a men's session with me and heard me tell some of my stories? I'm in the guy's faces. And there's no guy that's gonna take out my daughters. Unless I've met with them at least the day before, we have a little chat, okay? But I'm pretty protective, but the sisters are extremely protective of one another because they have grown in an atmosphere where they want nothing but the best and peace and truth in their lives. So they're prepared to reflect truth in any moment, in love and sometimes not in love, but that's when the I, I'm sorry and I forgive you come back in again. But here's the deal. I, particularly as they were getting into high school, you know, the older they got, I needed to go to bed. My time, my bedtime was like, you know, 10 o'clock and I need to be in bed by 10, which means you guys are really killing me. But anyway, I'm in bed lying there and all of a sudden I'm, I'm just ready to go to bed and I hear outside my door in the hallway upstairs that this fighting and it's not just this fighting, I'm like, come on, I just wanna brush my teeth, let me in. It's one of those, oh, this is a bad fight and someone's getting, there's wounds being made. Right? So I realized that if I'm gonna have peace, paramount in my family, I need to demand that peace occurs. How do I do that? Well, when I talk about it and let people know this is what my goal is for us. I had family dinners, I would say, this is what our goal is, peace. Because peace only comes when we're right with God, amen, and with each other. So what happens is I got up and the two girls are fighting and it's 10 o'clock at night and I said, that's it. Sit down, we sat right there in the middle of the hallway outside the bathroom door and we began to talk and I said, no one is going to bed until there is peace. And they're looking at each other, you know. Oh. And I'm like, I'm waiting. And they start talking and talking and talking and fighting and start getting excited. I'm like, shh, calm down. Let's keep going. And I'm there, I engaged in the nastiness. I could have just stayed in my bed and I go, oh Lord, I'm so glad I'm not there. But instead I stepped in there and I waited. And I was tired, I wanted to go to bed. But I could not go to bed because I was not at peace because there is no peace. And so I engaged and finally at one o'clock in the morning, there are the tears and the hugs and I could go to bed. You see, if you don't make peace paramount, there will never be a desire for reconciliation. Why do our people not utilize the sacrament of reconciliation because we're not talking about sin and they've grown accustomed to living without. And we need to bring peace back. We need to be able to create an atmosphere in their lives where they know, where they understand that this is the goal. To have peace with God, to have peace with one another and that when we're not at peace, to move through the fears that Satan uses to hold us back, to secure that peace once again. It takes a lot of time. It takes entering into all of our garbage like Jesus did for us. It takes the presence of fathers who will dictate. I tell you, you know as well as I do because you've been doing some of the counseling times for the kids. You know, there's almost the next worst best thing, best worst thing when dad is nowhere to be found when he's gone out of the picture is when dad is there and he's not there. Isn't that true? Because then you're left with their, the demons are free to start saying, see, he's here but he doesn't have time for you. He doesn't love you. He doesn't want you. I think oftentimes the demons have more fun with that one because dad is still physically there. My brothers, it's not rocket science but it is nasty work. It's the foot washing of the church. It's the getting in. Listen to me. How powerful, I don't know, you're parish but in my parish getting people to get their feet washed on Thursday is really a hard thing to do. It's like pulling teeth, right? But if we really had that kind of relationship where we washed feet and there was the intimacy like Jesus, then what does Peter say? Well, then Lord wash all of me. I would gladly come to be washed. There's that intimacy, that connection. And the way we do it is by us choosing to believe. This is where faith comes for us guys. Choosing to believe, this is where we live it out. It's not the theological stuff as Mary was talking about. It's where the rubber meets the road of life where we're gonna go into the families and go into the people's circumstances and focus on love and focus on how can we love? How can we bring love and peace out of this? Because Jesus always wants to heal and Jesus is prepared to heal. So let me be Jesus in this moment. How are we going to do this? What needs to be said? How do we do it? And then we share our stories. We share how we're broken. We make ourselves available to them to see that we don't have it all together. That we're not just playing the role of the person we're supposed to try to look like. We just become lovers. The question when we leave here today is can you go back to your parishes and love the people as a father would love his children? And some days some children are very easy to love and some days those equally are difficult to love but can we love nonetheless? Can you leave here today confident in knowing that God wants to powerfully flow through your heart to love that you become the conduit of love? The same way we felt love when Father Dan last night just shared his story. The same way our people feel loved when they know that we're open and we're giving ourselves and we're giving them Jesus. Can we leave here confident enough to make a plan? Cause some of us have some long drives. You've got some things to think about. Not just the fires. Let not our ministries be about putting out fires. Let our ministries be about doing the preemptive strikes so the fires never occur. Which is almost impossible I know but you know where I'm going. My daughters, we have this dream about wanting to live in a cul-de-sac together. A bunch of them will move to Texas and they're lobbying heavily for my wife and I. Of course, we work for the Lord so he tells us where we're gonna go but there's something really powerful about when we get together. They wanna be together. Wouldn't it be cool if we had parishes with the people? You had to kick them out. I gotta lock up the church. Time to go. Wouldn't that be a wonderful problem? Why? Instead of people coming to Mass and immediately racing to the parking lot so they get caught in a trap. It's really not that hard. There's not a 45 point plan guys. There's just simply the choice to believe. I think for me personally, the hurdle was this, is that it's easy to believe in God. Sometimes it's just much harder to believe that God believes and wants to just use me to love. And guys, I love being here with you because when I get here, you know what I get to see? I get to watch you love each other. You are a beautiful thing.