 Dear brothers and sisters, we have such a beautiful and fitting gospel for this conference, a gospel that emphasizes the Word of God, the power of the Word of God. But it also emphasizes the human soul, our own souls. There are different type of souls. Certain souls are closer to God. Certain souls are further from God. Certain souls have a spirit of receptivity. Certain souls have a spirit of receptivity that is so rooted that nothing else will distract them. Other souls have such a spirit of receptivity that still struggles with temptations, still struggles with surrounding attractions. There are so many idols. The first reading speaks about idols and how God is a jealous God, and he wants us to break the idols in our lives. And what would be the tragedy? The tragedy would be if you come into this conference, you receive inspiration, the spirit of God speaks into your heart, you are set aflame, you are ready to do God's will, and then you go back into the world and you are just seduced by the temptations and the attractions and the burdens and the worries of the worlds, and that seeds that was sown does not bear great fruits. But there's another calling. It's a radical calling. It's a radical calling that says, I want to live for Jesus. I want to live for eternity. I want to live for the kingdom of God. There is nothing more important that is nothing greater. Why? Because you, beloved soul, you, beloved soul, have a chance to enter eternity in heaven, experience eternal bliss. There is a room reserved for you. You have a chance because he shed his blood on the cross. You have a chance because he gave his life for you. He was tortured, humiliated, mortified, humiliated, tortured in front of his mother, abandoned and betrayed by his apostles. And for you, he endured it all. And what he is asking of you, dear soul, is return love with love. Respond to my love with your love. This is so important. It is also so important, as today's gospel emphasizes, to be rooted. Notice how the gospel says, the seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the words and receives it at once with joy, but he has no roots and lasts only for a time. It is important to be rooted, to be rooted. Every single one of us is rooted differently. Every single one of us has a different experience, a different past. But part of the rootedness is going back to the first love. How did you encounter Jesus the first time in the most deepest way? How did you encounter our lady the first time in the deepest way? How did that first love stir your soul? It was the experience whenever I have the opportunity, the privilege of giving a retreat for Dr. Han and the St. Paul Center. I usually share this story because it speaks about the importance of both rootedness but also the work of the St. Paul Center. I shared the experience of when I was in graduate school, I did a master's at Yale Divinity School. And I remember there was one class that was being taught that was called historical Jesus. So I was really looking forward to take this class. Naively, I was thinking to myself, this class is going to help me understand the historicity of the Bible, the historicity of the Gospels, how I can support the historicity of the life of Jesus. And little did I know that the enemy has invaded the Ivy Leagues. Little did I know that when you go to Harvard and Yale Divinity and I heard Duke II, although that's not an Ivy technically, little did I know that the scholarship and the teaching will often be so reductionistic, reductionistic, turning Jesus just into a man in that historical Jesus class, the professor who was a Catholic who attended Mass with us. She gave this whole presentation in class that Jesus's miracles probably were not real. And there was no explanation for it. There was no logical explanation why you believe this. It was simply an underlying rationalism that no longer believes in the supernatural. It was an underlying rationalism that no longer believes in the divinity and the supernatural truths of Christ and our sacred faith. And the questions that were being asked in that class were questions like, what language would Jesus have known? What languages would he have spoken? And I'm thinking to myself, here's the pre-existent eternal words. He created language. Every language we speak comes from him. He is the creator of all that is. What kind of ridiculous question are you going to ask me here in this Ivy League class? It's so interesting and sad. It's so sad. I remember one of the students in the class at one point mid-semester, she made a comment that I'll never forget. She said, I entered this class as a Christian. I don't really know what I am anymore. And that was tragic. That was absolutely tragic. But then the question also becomes for myself, for my own personal journey, how was I able to withstand the intellectual storm? How was I able to withstand the indoctrination? How was I able to withstand Satan's influence in a classroom where young people are literally losing their faith, the most important precious gift that a human being has? How was I able to withstand that? I was able to withstand that because I was rooted. My own rootedness came from a deep love for the mother of God and also a deep love for the Christian mystical tradition. I knew that we have a supernatural faith. I knew that we have a faith of miracles, so many miracles, so many healing miracles at Lord's, so many Eucharistic miracles, so many Marian apparitions. I knew that the conversions happen in places like Lord's, Fatima, Medjugorje, Quebejo. I knew that the mother of God has been appearing for centuries. I knew about stigmatics like Padre Pio, who have the gift of reading souls, who have supernatural knowledge and wisdom that is not human, but that is divine because it is such a charism of the Holy Spirit. I knew that the supernatural is real. I knew that the miraculous is real. The Catholic Church literally, literally has an office in the Roman Curia, the congregation for the causes of saints that medically and scientifically investigates miraculous healings. And there have been so many healings that have baffled scientists, including scientists and doctors who are not Catholic, but they need to acknowledge something happened here. So I knew about that because those realities, those realities, the realities of a Padre Pio, the realities of our Lady's apparitions, the realities of Eucharistic miracles and miraculous healings, those realities speak to us about the fact that Jesus Christ is alive and still acts today. He is alive and he acts on his supernatural power because those miracles, they are not able to happen because of any natural word, any natural cure, this is the divine power of God. This is real. Jesus is real. The miracles of the 21st century and the 20th century show us that the miracles of Christ in the first century Palestine are a burning reality, burning reality. He is real. He is divine. And knowing that, coming from that foundation, I knew the Bible is sacred. I knew the Bible is more than what a reductionistic Ivy League scholar will tell me. I knew that there's a 2,000 year tradition and of course extending before that in the Old Testament that speaks to miracles and prophecies and resurrecting the dead and this still transpires. But to be truly rooted, to be truly rooted, it's not only about knowing about the miracles and wonders in the history of the church, yes, the Lord gives us that. The Lord gives us that as signs and wonders that point to his authenticity, his palpable real presence. But to be truly rooted, dear brother and sister, you need to be someone who has fallen in love. You need to be someone who has either fallen in love with our beloved Jesus or fallen in love with our beloved Holy Mother, Mary. And you need to be able to be loyal to that love, to be faithful to that love. I had my conversion experience. I was a college student. I was far from the Lord. I was not leading a holy life. And I had my conversion experience when somebody gave me a book called Medjugorje, the Message by Wayne Weibull, a book that transformed my life. A book where I read about Our Lady's Apparitions, a book where I discovered that the supernatural is real. I remember a quote I'll never forget, Pope St. John Paul II, really, in a very personal way to me, spoke of my conversion, although he was speaking universally, when he said, Today's world has lost its sense of the supernatural. But many are searching for it. And they find it in Medjugorje through prayer, penance, and fasting. And that is such a bold statement that speaks to the power of a place where there are Our Lady's Apparitions, where the supernatural is real, where the miraculous happens. And for me, it was personal, because for me, I fell in love with a woman. I fell in love with the mother of God. I fell in love with Our Lady, who led me through her maternal, feminine, beautiful voice to the priestly vocation, who became my best friends, who became mother of sorrows during my times of suffering. Mother of sorrows, how beautiful the presentation by Kimberly, how beautiful that emphasis also on the mother of sorrows. We need to go to her in our sufferings. We need to meet her at the foot of the cross. We need to realize that at the foot of the cross, we can be with our mother and with our mother, we can contemplate the face of her crucified son. And as we are contemplating his face, our wounds meet his wounds. And when our wounds meet, that is the place of deepest vulnerability and intimacy. Bring your sufferings to the cross. Bring them and unite them with the wounds of Christ. Trust him. Love him. He died for you. He suffered for you. Our beloved mother suffered at the foot of the cross for you. Our beloved mother still intercedes, still prays, still is a part of your life. Jesus and Mary. That is all that I need. Jesus and Mary and the cross. St. Bernadette said, that is all that I need. That is where true joy comes from. True joy comes from that place because Calvary is the place of deepest intimacy. Calvary is the place where your life was saved. Calvary was the place where your life was saved through the ultimate act of love. Crucified love. Let us never forget what he did for us. Let us always honor him. Not only is he supernatural. Not only is he divine. Not only is the word of God the sacred truth, but he is also intimately personally your beloveds. The beloved of your soul who gave his life so that you may have eternal life.