 Good afternoon. I'm not used to standing up here. I'm used to being down there with you, so If I'm like Father Dave, that's a great compliment for me. It may be scary for him, but that's a great compliment for me Hope you're having a good time. I know I am this is my first time on campus, but I grew up about 60 miles from here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Bethel Park and As I was reflecting for this talk and coming for this presentation we do a lot of ministry and have for many years with priests seminarians and Religious others in the church, but I was thinking about how How the Lord forms us if you think about this in your own life just the formation that starts even before you're aware you're being formed and As I grew up We were surrounded in our home And in my grandparents home at school at church with priests and seminarians It was just my family was in Christian family movement, so we had priests all the time in our home. We had seminarians all-time picnics, but my grandfather Love to Invite priests into the home and so when my aunts were away at Catholic colleges He'd always make sure that they invited the priests to the home So I met all these priests from all over the United States I remember learning how to play hearts from a father heart and I remember Hearing stories all the all the time growing up my grandfather Lebanese like Bishop Sam Jacobs he was a great storyteller and He would tell stories about some of his trips and the one that stands out of my mind as I got ready to prepare for this Was a trip he took with with our pastor from our church who I think was a Monsignor by this time And they went down to South America just the two of them. They were friends. They just wanted to go relax my grandfather I think was a benefactor for from the Monsignor and He tells this story about checking into the hotel in South America and and the way he tells the story He said it was sweltering hot and most of the time when my grandfather was at home He was in his boxers, you know, maybe a t-shirt, but just as boxers and This story probably wouldn't go very well these days, but back then there was no, you know, no concern about What he was gonna be doing there, but he goes and checks into his room and Father Al I won't identify the priest not that there was anything wrong, but I just won't identify who he is but father Al was still checking in downstairs and my grandfather Sam was up in the room and It was so sweltering hot no air conditioning. He just completely undressed except for his boxers. So he's laying in the bed and He's laying there a couple minutes and out of the bathroom this woman walks with a towel And so he jumps up with a What's that but you have to catch my grandfather probably made some joke or something with her and she's obviously embarrassed Well, her husband walks in right behind So you'll talk about a mess well right behind them Monsignor L walks in And just to hear the description of my grandfather in that moment I realized so many things I realized That even as a child The priesthood was very human and very divine both at the same time Father L got him out of a very sticky situation but he was there as his brother and as his friend and The time that they enjoyed together. I want to talk to you today about identity We'll build on this tonight and tomorrow, but if you think about I understand Bishop Jacobs already spoke earlier about beloved son and The theme of this talk today is if you have a handout in front of you. It's beloved son to faithful father But there isn't an immediate jump from beloved son to faithful father. I want to I want to make the bridge for you of The stages that are involved in the process of growing in our identity Up to a faithful father and they're really critical and that's where healing comes in This would be my talk tonight is about healing and tomorrow is going to be how to impart this in mission As you fight for the hearts of children So a little more about my background as he mentioned to John Paul the healing center We obviously took the name John Paul the second because of the great love and admiration Information that he had in my life and in all of our lives in the ministry But we're we're dedicated to transformation in the heart of the church And so we work with everybody in the church church who's in any way in the process of forming The church so our number one Priority is priests and seminarians. We have a priest program. We have seminarian program effect I had to leave the seminarians. They're there for a month right now In our seminarian program. We also put on conferences around the country and in Tallahassee on healing sexuality marriage and family and So I Out of that experience as a child. It's really allowed me over all these years To love the priesthood and love the humanity of the priest and to love the Christ likeness of the priest for many years I worked as a therapist working with priests who are going through different issues and I've also had deep friendships with with priests over the years. Our pastor has been there for 30 years It's unheard of these days but He's my whole family has grown up with him My he came we came to the parish when my daughters who are now in their late 30s We're getting first communion and He gave them first communion. He He was there for their confirmations helped in the formation. He at was the At the wedding, you know, he didn't he married them both of the daughters and my sons-in-law He's been present there for My brother-in-law and mother-in-law and father-in-law's deaths He came to my brother's funeral In another city. I mean, I know what it's like to have a pastor who loves his people and so my experience of the priesthood has been almost entirely Positive in very very good ways and I just want to thank you as I start this Thank you for the ways in which Invisibly you lay your life's down, you know, because Father Mike our pastor is such a humble man, you know him Father Tom Such a humble man. You'd never know but he is just we've got a parish of about 4,000 I think he knows everybody's name 4,000 families. He's just an incredible Pastor in his heart. So I dedicate this talk to all of you That you can live in the fullness of who you are one of the things that John Paul the second Constantly proclaimed be who you are. So I want to tell you remind you of who you are today and Then tonight and tomorrow talk about how to live into that in deeper ways. So if you have your handout How many people are familiar with IPF Symposium Institute for priestly formations. Okay, if you're familiar with those Every year there's a focus on a different identity of the priesthood of the priest So as you are as your identity is in Jesus all of Jesus's identities are yours and so the symposium has focused on different years on The sonship of the priest The spousal Communion of the priest the fatherhood of the priest the healer the priest the healer the priest the good shepherd Interestingly the one that I haven't seen them do anything on that we're going to talk about today is priest his brother Priest his brother. I find that's a great oversight In the identity of the priesthood that's very important that you can't become truly a faithful father without being Whole in your identity as a brother because they build on each other so I was able to speak at the symposium on chase celibacy and In that a love with a father apostolic was talking about in terms of the procreative in the unit of that What's it like to be a father? Without being a spouse, I mean, maybe you don't know but we're filled the whole culture is filled with Fathers who are not spouses. What kind of fathers do they make? It's really the tragedy of our time and so in the priesthood Nurt learning your identity as a spousal as a bridegroom in Christ is really critical to understanding your identity As a father, so I want to walk through each of these identities beloved son brother spouse and Faithful father and as we do this I'm going to be drawing on two sources In addition to all the work with the IPF and John Paul II and the one source how many people have heard of Father Thomas Philippe from France not not Jacques Philippe, but Father Thomas Philippe. Okay, he's done a lot with communion and gift really brilliant Priest from I think he's not living now But I'm going to draw on his work and I'm also going to draw on the work of C.S. Lewis Father Andrew was talking about the different loves and so I want to bring those together So if you look on number four here Or number three We have these four relational identities son brother bridegroom and father and Our ministry has to flow out of those identities if we're trying to do I if we're trying to live out ministry Without being solid in those identities There's always a sense in which our ministry Becomes a false presentation if we're trying to do ministry without the solid sense of our identity There's always an effort that's going on to try to be something rather than knowing who you are So it's really crucial is why the IPF has spent so much time in developing this over so many years and others It's really crucial that we come to accept and received each of the other four identities If you think about these identities with Jesus He was not only the beloved son of the father, but he was the beloved son of Joseph and Mary our sonship is both human and divine and If either one of those is Impaired in some way either either identity of sonship with the father with God the father or Our identity as son with our mother and father if on either case that identity is wounded There's a place in which we're handicapped in our growth and development For a beloved son and obviously you've been talking all week. I know Bishop Jacobs talked about The baptism of Jesus. This is my beloved in whom I delight. I want you to think for a minute Back to your childhood with your parents before we're gonna take God the father second but I want you to think back to your your childhood as a son and Did you know that you were beloved by your mother and did you know that you were beloved by your father and If in either case you're unsure of that How did you respond to that? How have you responded that in your life? I would say for all of us. It's not been perfect But for some of us we've received an identity there and for others we haven't or we received it from one parent and not from the other Your grandparents can come in here to or some aunts and uncles that are influential in your life But we need to know every every child needs to know two things To have a secure identity as beloved son Need to know that they're safely loved what I mean by safely loved That there's a security in the relationship that it's not conditional That I will love you if or I will love you when But I love you no matter what you know what we typically call unconditional love. I Will love you no matter what and that's called affirmation We have a sense of our goodness being affirmed that we're delighted in So I want you to think for a second and maybe allow the Holy Spirit to bring you back through your life just different images of your growing up and How did you receive that delight from your mother and how did you receive that delight from your father? One of the ways we know delight is somebody's face lights up when they see us I have several friends here and just what a delight it is to be with my friends as I see them My face lights up my heart lights up. Did you as a child experience? With your mother a Real joy in your presence was she delighted in you and with your father when you were in his presence Did you have a sense of him delighting in you? Now for many of us, it's not even all the way across the board our parents went through difficult times And so sometimes we may have experienced it and at other times not it's certainly true in my own life As a young child, I felt the delight of both of my parents But then they went through a very difficult time in their marriage and getting divorced and I lost my father's delight I lost a sense of being a delight to my dad Which is a lot of my wounding I'm very grateful the healing process we've gone through together that that's been restored now my father is one of the people that Delights most in me and I delight in him But there were years in which I was very uncertain about my sonship my being beloved with him Whatever happened there With mother and father is not fixed It can be healed, but it has a huge impact in your life almost every person I've worked with this with a sexual compulsion which is getting into the third stage The bridegroom stage but every person I've worked with the sexual compulsion has a wound in this area of being the beloved son It can either be a rejection from the father or a rejection from the mother or both But we spend a lot of time trying to solve it at the level of behavior and it's not an issue of behavior It's an issue of identity certainly the behavior is important But the compulsion is driven by the woundedness and where do we get that healing? Well, the healing comes from other father figures and mother figures in our life, but the healing primarily comes from God the father That's why it's not a light thing for us to keep coming back to that baptism of Jesus I'm going to do a quick meditation if I can with you so that you can not just hear this but experience this Like for you to imagine that you're on the sea The Jordan River on the side of the Jordan River and Jesus has invited you To be baptized with him and so that you're side by side with Jesus in the water and as you go completely under John the Baptist is bringing you completely under the water as a symbol of death and Bringing you up as a symbol of resurrection All of a sudden you realize that there's no separation between you and Jesus. You've been joined together That as Jesus comes up out of the water you come up out of the water And as you come up out of the water, Jesus comes up out of the water And it says right after he was baptized as Jesus was praying Notice that we come to know our belovedness in prayer and in sacrament both of them together As Jesus has come up out of the water you've come up out of the water The father Bellows from heaven. This is my beloved son in whom I delight This is my beloved son in whom I delight Can almost imagine The face of the father lit up in joy over you in Jesus and Jesus in you Now we tend to discount that well, he's delighted over Jesus not over me. No, he's delighting in me in you In that moment as beloved son the second thing that happened as he's in prayer is he's not only hearing the affirmation from the father But he's experiencing the Holy Spirit coming upon him and the church says this is the foundation of our whole sacramental structure blessing If you read the catechism where it introduces the sacraments the sacraments are all about blessing and as the catechism describes Blessing always involves word and gift So that's what's happening at your baptism. That's what's happening at Jesus's baptism. The word is being spoken The sacramental form and the gift of the Holy Spirit is being given The power to live that sacrament So I want to establish it as a fact Even though we recognize that all of us have a healing journey to go on as a fact by virtue of your baptism Every single one of you has been brought into the reality the identity of Jesus as beloved son You didn't do anything to deserve it You didn't do anything to earn it But it's a reality a gift that's been given to you and if you're like me you probably say but Jesus is worthy of it I'm not in the Father's mercy He gives us the gift that he gives to Jesus You are beloved how many people read Henry now in his life of the beloved Anybody I would recommend after you leave if you can find that beautiful little book very easy You can read it in a couple hours But he really drills this home What he says is we're so filled with rejection all around us That even though this is a truth. We don't believe it. We don't believe in the depths of our hearts That this is true about us and he says the biggest problem that every one of us faces in our life is self-rejection Another word for that is shame self-rejection We're constantly telling ourselves why we're not beloved We're constantly Loving ourselves if at all conditionally and then rejecting ourselves when we fail our standards Now I want you to know that self-rejection is just the inverse of pride The only reason why we can reject ourselves is because we have the pride to think that we should be better than we are When we come to receive ourselves as gift and this is what this is what the first stage of Identity is about receiving ourselves as a gift When we receive the Holy Spirit as a gift, this is the work of Father Thomas Philippe The task for us is to receive ourselves as a gift And I've had many people say that's so self-indulgent You know, what's this about receiving our get aren't we supposed to deny ourselves? Yes But we have to deny ourselves only after we've received ourselves How can you deny something you haven't received to reject yourself as not self-denial? It's to call God a liar It's to tell God that his his mercy is ineffective in our lives And we're not only is it baptism, but in the sacrament of reconciliation The sense of our belovedness continues to be restored Again familiar to all of you as priests who hear confessions, but think about every time You go to confession You either come as the older brother wrestling with self-righteousness Whereas the young younger brother having spent time in the pig pen But what does the father do in the sacrament of reconciliation? He comes running out to us He says everything I have is yours Everything I have is yours The father delights in both sons The brothers didn't delight in each other, but the father delighted in both sons The sacrament of reconciliation is the constant reminder of our identity as beloved sons No matter how deeply we've betrayed it no matter how deeply we've been hurt We're constantly reminded of the father's embrace in that sacrament I want you to also notice and this is some of the work of C. S. Lewis and I was glad to hear Father Andrew talking about this each of the Each of the identities also has a love that dominates of the four loves of C. S. Lewis and For the beloved son the love is store gay It's the love of family affection. It's the love of delight So it is not an abstract It is not God saying in the abstract. I agape you that is true But he's saying I have great affection for you great affection for you. Do we believe it? I know there was a period many years ago when I was having this as a focal point and It was a time of great healing with my dad and there was other men in my life who were part of my fellowship group and I remember Asking God, how is it possible that you delight in me? How is it possible and then reading the office? I would run across phrases like The Lord delights in all who revere him and I said, I guess that's me. I do revere him. I guess that's me and Then I'd run across another phrase and another phrase and another phrase So he's beginning to work on it, but in the middle of that he brought a friend of mine Who's an older guy who? Has the gift of blessing and my dad together on the same retreat and As this older man began to speak to my dad blessing me What a delight I was to him It unleashed something in my dad and my dad then began to be able to speak blessing Over me and there was something in that that I could receive the father's blessing Through the human blessing. We all need to be blessed. We need to be blessed continually every day Okay, it is not vain glory You will have vain glory to the extent to which you don't know that you're beloved Let me say that again. It is not vain glory To know that you're delighted in by the father and that you're beloved vain glory comes when we don't know Because what is vain glory vain glory is always trying to prove to ourselves that we're good enough Being beloved is the knowledge that we're good There's no good enough. It's we're good. We're delighted in We're treasured and as I'll talk to you about tomorrow You need to receive it so that you can pass it on to everybody around you the reason why my father couldn't pass it on to me Totally is because of the woundedness in his own life And one of the great joys for me in the healing process that I've gone through is being able to pass that on with my Brothers and sisters and dad and mom and to watch my dad come into that identity of beloved later in his life So that's beloved son The second identity on this way to becoming faithful fathers is loving brothers Loving brothers and notice the love here is philia The Greek word philia term for Philadelphia brotherly love Although I don't know how that city got named I'm from Pittsburgh, you know But brotherly love One of the one of the gifts in my life is having brothers and sisters and we've had a close bond all of our life But with my older brother Dave We went through a long period where he was a heroin addict and I and I lost him for about 20 years Just the same time I lost my dad for that period of time and I Forgot how much I loved him And How much he loved me until he was dying and there was something about him getting free from the drugs and dying in Christ in The process of our learning to love each other again Reminded me of the deep friendship I had with him as a young boy And since he's died it was a it was a catalyst for all of my brothers and sisters to not take each other for granted We can't go in a conversation Well, we can go but we often don't go in a conversation without saying I love you But no matter what our relationship was like with our siblings Jesus as brother Is your identity your identity is Jesus as brother Before you can be a bridegroom and before you can be a father the identity of brother has to be solid within you What does it mean to be a loving brother? It means to take the gift that I've received of myself and give it to my brother To be able to see him with the delight in which I've been delighted in or my sister To be able to see her with the same delight in which I've been delighted in That's really the sacrament of confirmation in many ways The sacrament of confirmation is receiving the gift to be able to give it to my brothers and sisters So that just as Jesus calls all humanity his brethren his brothers and sisters We all of us our brothers and sisters with everyone and what kind of a brother am I and how have I received brotherhood and Sisterhood from those around do I have a sense of connectedness? I know on my own life again. I have a brother and sister in our ministry And several others have been involved in different ways, but we have gone through a lot of trying times together Forging out that relationship, but there's one thing that's a constant We know we love each other so we can work out almost anything because we know we're not going anywhere We know we love each other Jesus has that relationship with all of us He's not going anywhere and behind all the difficulties we work out He loves us And as Bishop was talking about today the question is are we a brother to him and Through him to all the rest of humanity around us Are we making the gift that we've received? available to our brothers and sisters Mary did a great job this morning talking about that Not only his daughters, but his sisters third identity is chase bridegrooms the type of love here is arrows and Unfortunately in our culture arrows has taken on a dirty connotation you know we think of erotic as perverse as as you know pornographic But arrows to the Greek and many of you know this know you've studied philosophy and School for the Greek arrows is the love of goodness truth and beauty The love of goodness truth and beauty And as it began to be applied to the love between the sexes It's the love of attraction As father Andrew was talking I guess it was last night about celibacy and chase celibacy Chase celibacy is not putting our sexuality in a closet Chase celibacy is being more attracted Not less You know as I get older and I identify with what he says it's easier to grow in chastity as you grow older You don't have the raging hormones in the same way and the insecurities that you had as a younger man But as I get older I See the beauty in every woman and as I was saying the other day I fall in love with all of them Even though I'm a married man for 40 years. I fall in love with all of them Because it's just beauty Goodness particularly women in in in the faith life But this is where chastity comes in if we don't know that we're a gift And we don't have brothers and sisters that we can love well. We're gonna try to get our needs met through the opposite sex Or we're gonna fantasize about what we don't have pornography Fantasy masturbation Those are symptoms. Those are certainly sins, but they're symptoms of a deeper disease And the deeper disease is not knowing yourself as a beloved son a loving brother and a chase bridegroom as You grow in the first two identities you can live into the third As you become a chase bridegroom then women become safe around you what Mary was talking about the fear that is around And I and I run into it all the time too, and I understand it in my own life This fear of what's gonna happen if I allow my attractions to come out What am I gonna do? And it's not a question of boundaries or vulnerability It's a question of how do we be vulnerable and have good boundaries together because that's what chastity is That's what healthy chastity is. It's being able to be in love Being able to experience the beauty of the other But not give yourself to them because you've given yourself already to one same thing as a married man I Can enjoy the beauty of women love them deeply as long as I continue to remember Who I'm married to and I can only give myself in that way to that one So as a chase bridegrooms There's this commitment to the other And in my case, it's a commitment to both St. Paul says, you know a married man has to please his wife and the Lord So you guys have it better in some ways Just have to please one and he's a lot less wounded Than all of our married spouses. I understand we have some advantages in this too, but as a chase bridegroom The only way that you can become a faithful father is After you've come to an identity of chase bridegroom I went to speak to a group of seminarians a couple years ago on one of our intercessors Who's a woman who has gone through a lot of brokenness, but is now a beautiful Catholic family? She said to me, would you please tell those seminarians? That they have to deal with their stuff now while they're in seminary so that when they become my father I Can give my heart to them Same thing Mary was saying today If because of all the scandals and all of our insecurities and our lack of identity if you as fathers Don't know who you are as chase bridegrooms You're not going to really be a father to your daughters. It even happens in the family Okay, a father who has struggles with pornography In a family when his daughters get to be teenagers can't give himself to his daughters and teach I've heard so many young women talk about how they felt so rejected by their father when they went through puberty Because the father didn't have the security of his own sexual identity In his own sexuality his own chastity He then had to back away out of fear of lusting for his daughter Well, you're no different. I say this very sadly over this last Year I've interacted with at least a half a dozen the priests who have fallen with women and Every one of these priests have been good holy priests who understands their identity in Christ But they had woundedness in these three three areas of identity And so rather than be a father to their daughters Be a brother to their sisters They became a predator to a vulnerable woman Now the woman's participated out of her own needs But it's the father that has to keep the boundaries of that relationship This was the beauty of what I heard in Mary's talk today women and men Need your heart to be free. It's not okay to be a CEO kind of a father If any of you grew up with a CEO kind of father you recognize he wasn't there for you He may have provided for you. He may have set direction. He may have given you a bunch of rules, but he wasn't there for you Do you want to be that kind of father? Who's not there? I found myself I'll talk more about this possibly the next couple talks But I found myself at the age when my dad left and I hadn't dealt with my pain I was 13 when my dad left. He was 33 When I got to be 33 all of a sudden all the things that had Been unresolved with my relationship with my dad Became right to the surface. I had never had a thought of divorce before I was 33 when I was 33 They were constantly plaguing me It's the age that he was when he divorced. Thank God. He saved us. We've now married 40 years But at 13 years of marriage 12 years of marriage. I was plagued by the thought of divorce But I also began to get so invested in ministry as a way of running from the pain of my marriage that I ended up leading my children to do ministry and They ended up experiencing some of the abandonment that I had felt at 13 when I was doing all good things I thought I couldn't see myself following dad steps at all But in many ways those were the roughest years of their life because of the the tension between their mother and I But also the places where I was investing in ministry and not in their lives Both of my daughters are now in our ministry and and we have great beautiful relationship and We're able to walk through a lot of the places of those years But as a father I can't be a distant father. I can't be a selfish father. I Am many times but as a as a faithful father there has to be a self-gift, which is why this fourth Kind of love is a gap a a gap a the self-gift and The other three loves don't go away being a father incorporates all four loves just like God the father Do I have the love of affection for my children? Do you have the love of affection for your children? Do you light up when you see them? Now I recognize it's hard when you got 6,000 and you don't know how you're gonna meet the needs of ten of them But do they see you burdened? By them or do they see you delighting in them? There's also as a father this brother sister relationship this filial love this friendship As Mary talked about this morning you can have very real deep friendships with men and women with the appropriate boundaries too often These priests that have fallen that I'd worked with Too often. It's the only relationship. They have they don't have any brother relationships or sister relationships And they put everything into this one relationship and naturally you fall in love in a in the wrong way In the wrong way That becomes your identity and so what happens when this woman is coming to you as father And she becomes adulterer instead of daughter What happens to her psyche? We're in the middle of a seminarian program and one of the seminary talked about the devastation at seeing one of the priests That he really looked up to have to leave the parish for a year because of some transgression He says my whole priesthood is shaken now my whole thought of priesthood is shaken now I'm now living in self-doubt And I understand that because that's what happened to me at the age of 13 when my dad left and had an affair as a father Wasn't faithful to us and my mother My whole foundation was shaken. I had a good foundation, but it was all shaken. I Didn't know if I could be a husband. I didn't know if I could be a father Because the person I was learning from Just fell and fell in a big way for about 20 years as an alcoholic and multiple adulteries I'm very grateful for his healing and his return and all of our family healing But I say that back to you Are you the kind of father? That sons that seminarian sons can look up to and say I want to be that father Are you that kind of father? Who has the kind of relationship with sons? That's real and authentic and you can delight in them and bless them and bring them up into their manhood So I'm gonna talk about tomorrow morning Are you the kind of father that can look at a daughter and delight in her? Perhaps have attraction because you're a healthy man But you're not gonna use her you're gonna love her she's gonna have a safe place She's gonna have a place where she's gonna be protected and there's gonna be boundaries Are you gonna be able to delight in her and bless her and help her become who she is? There is an incredible power. We've been talking about it all week. There's an incredible power in true fatherhood and true and genuine fatherhood The power of God is made present But I want you to hear you can't jump to be a father if you're not a son a brother and a bridegroom Jesus didn't jump there He spent 30 years developing those identities before he became bridegroom and father God could have put him on earth just to be a father a Father to his disciples of the father to all the people that he met But the father wanted Jesus to experience sonship the father wanted Jesus to experience experience brotherhood Friendship the father wanted Jesus's bridegroom chase bridegroom Identity to be intact That is to be solid to be solidified He spent 30 years in celibacy before he got there for many of us in Particularly in our culture the way we live these identities all four of these identities have been so wounded We've been wounded as sons We've been wounded as brothers. We've been wounded as bridegrooms We've been wounded as fathers, and so we're all in desperate need of healing This will be the talks the theme for tonight What does it mean to be healed in all of those areas so that we become the fathers we can be fathered and come to be those fathers I'm on number five right now as I mentioned before Jesus baptism is the prototype of all the sacraments Can I very quickly have three volunteers just three volunteers just come out real quick And I won't tell you what it's so you're gonna be reliving Jesus baptism Okay, and I'd like one of you to be the father one of you to be Jesus one of you to be the Holy Spirit, okay? Okay Are you saying you be Jesus? Okay, and if you could if you could kneel down here, okay? Just kneel right like this. Yeah, right in front of the father and father if you can bestow blessing on him Because I know you know how to do this and if you the Holy Spirit can be the gift that comes and fills him in that place Okay, and if you like you got me to do many years ago Bellow the blessing As this is going on we've already talked about baptism, but what else does this remind you of? Ordination okay, and who Who is the one who becomes father in the ordination? Your bishop, okay What's your relationship like with your bishop as father? That's a loaded question because I know there's not many Bishop Bishop Jacobs is one of the Examples of fathers, but even I've been in his diocese even some of his priests resists his fatherhood But in ordination he became your father that day and all of his successors and Our church will not be healthy Until that relationship is true fatherhood until the relationship of Bishop to priests sons becomes truly fathering Priests are not going to become the priests that God's called them to be and father The children that are set before them now. I know you can't do anything about that Okay, you can you can do some things about that, but it's ultimately on the side of the bishop But you can go and invite him Into a father-son relationship if you're not terrified of doing that, but that's powerful What else does this remind you of? Trinity, right? right every sacramental Communion we're going to deal more with the Trinity night every sacramental communion is a blessing It's a bestowal of identity and notice it's not that you were ordained You are ordained It's not that you were baptized you are baptized It's not that you were confirmed. That's what else this looks like It's not that you were confirmed. You are confirmed the sacraments are not past events their present realities and The sacrament of baptism and the sacrament of holy orders are the bestowal of this beloved son identity and The faithful father identity But they assume the other two identities in them. All right, you can stand up if we don't have a microphone Can we get a microphone real quickly? One of the handhelds you just stand up You just share just from your heart nothing made up just what that was like being there besides your knees hurting What was it like? Tom's a great guy. So I know more than years from here. So Actually, I did the wild and hard a couple years ago to book and The thing they asked God the Father to tell me who I am. That's what I heard my prayer Yeah, so I can't report me back to that moment. So your name. Yeah We want to share your name. Oh Chris O'Connor. Yeah, guys, this is Brooklyn. Okay, so you received your name I received the beloved son Okay For me it was just a delight to hear myself say that word you are my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased and as I'm getting older I'm realizing more and more how The length of time Relationships take and how deep the affection is the more you know somebody and just how how you delight in that As a Holy Spirit you have any experience there Besides your arms tired. Yeah, my arms did get tired I found myself regretting that we are not Feeling like sons with our bishop. Okay Thank you. Give him a hand. Thank you. Yeah, I Want to encourage you to allow that regret to grow Into a desire for all of you one of the things that I'm deeply Pardon, I understand but yes, there were there were 20 years where my dad didn't want to be my father But I never let the desire die Maybe God brings another bishop to put in his place, I don't know what that is but don't let the desire die in the formation die Because it was my brothers and sisters and I who brought my father back to fatherhood He then went through his own conversion, but it was only after we went seeking him as father in Doing our own healing process. I want you to reflect back for a minute And we just have a few minutes to your ordination day So we were demonstrating that And I want you to think of the four identities on the day of your ordination and the day you celebrated your first mass When were you the beloved son on that day? How were you the beloved son on the day of your ordination? We just talked about one of them when the bishop laid his hands on your head, but when else? All of the players were in the room Probably your parents were there right and they were beaming right Most of you all of you your parents were beaming at that moment They were saying this is my beloved son. Look at how proud I am of him. I delight in him You laid yourself out on the ground before the father and you said I give myself entirely to you as my as your son. I Am yours And he says everything I have is yours How about brother? What were the moments of your ordination you felt most like a brother? Yeah, that just always moves me when the priests come First to bless you as brothers and then to hug you Right I want you to get just as hungry to live that out in reality in your priesthood Again, I go all over the country. I work a lot with priests and seminarians I know it's there in places and in other places. It's completely missing But unless you have that brotherhood with your brother priests, you're not living into the full identity of brotherhood Now some are open and some aren't but there are some that are hungering for it Just like you are or you may not even be aware that you're hungering for it, but you are How about his bridegroom at what point did you become bridegroom? That's when you became father Yes When you celebrated your first mass Well, yeah, you because you married the church. Yes, and that was both son and bride bridegroom. That's good point This is my body given for you So just like I constantly renew my wedding vows Every time I offer my body to my bride You are continually renewing your wedding vows every time you offer yours Jesus body and union you renew it every day How can you forget that you're the beloved bridegroom? The bridegroom who gives himself to one and to all Then finally, when do you become father? As you bless right at the end of every mass you repeat the action of being father and Then everything you do outside of there is living out of that fatherhood and Living out of that bridegroom and living out of that brother and living out of that sonship Okay, your ordination is not an event in the past. It's the reality of what you live every day and All four of those identities are part of your ordination and part of your life as a priest and they build one on another So if you go down the bottom of the page, I'd like for you to remember it this way. This is how we Do our teaching and it's kind of the framework of the book that I wrote be healed Growing in wholeness as a priest starts with the security Ephesians 3 I Bow my knee before the father Through whom every family on heaven and earth receives its true identity That you may be rooted and grounded in love You may be rooted and grounded in love that sonship that security And then Ephesians 5 the gifts of the Spirit are not so that we can somehow Demonstrate that we have the God's power the gifts of the Spirit are for unity of the building up of the body of Christ Until our chiefs wholeness in Christ That's maturity sonship spousal Chastity which moves into chapters 5 and 6 which is purity Chapters 5 and 6 and Ephesians is how do we live in the wholeness of Christ in our vocations and Purity comes from security and maturity. You will not have purity unless you have security You will not have purity unless you have maturity Security is being rooted and grounded in love maturity is growing up into the fullness of Christ love purity is the overflow of that We spend so much time in the church trying to solve our moral dilemmas out here Because we know that there's sin, but the roots of them go back to the basic foundations of our identity of being beloved and loved brothers and sisters chased celibates or married committed and Then faithful fathers We'll talk more tonight about the whole healing process and how this all can can become more realized in our life God bless you