 Hey everybody, welcome to the webinar tonight. My name is John Bulley. I work for the Christian Outreach Office at Francis University. I'm joined by Joe Stepanek and Favad Dave Pavlaka. Well, your little name tag is in the bottom left hand corner there. You know, should I say Dr. Dave? Anyway, we're just excited that you're here with us and we're going to try not to be too silly as we go through this because we have a really good topic tonight. It's conversion in grace, how to live a life of transformation and to get us going, I'm going to start us off with a prayer. So as bow our heads, and then the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. Good and gracious, God, we thank you on this evening for your unconditional, limitless love and the love that embraces as we are, but loves us too much to leave us as we are. It constantly is calling us deep root in the mystery of your love. Then we will be changed by what we experience, changed by our communion with you, changed through the work of our lives to become the people that you intended us to be when you're hearing us. Lord, I thank you for everyone out there who is part of this webinar. Just bless them where they are tonight. Let your grace fall upon them in a fresh way. Let a fresh outpouring of your Holy Spirit come upon them this evening to refresh them and renew them in their journey with you, Lord. We ask, Lord, to do bless our words, let them be what you want us to speak and just use this webinar to build your kingdom, to transform lives, and to give glory to your most precious name. We ask this all in the name of Jesus, Amen. The Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. Alrighty, like I said, our topic tonight is conversion and grace, how to live a life of transformation. Simply put, the work of becoming more like Jesus, walking the spiritual life, and becoming holy in our lives is a universal calling to all of us as Catholics, and yet myself included many of us struggle on that path of holiness. But hopefully through what we're going to share tonight, you'll be able to maybe have an understanding of how the Lord wants to continue to lead you down that path of conversion. A little bit about myself. Like I said, my name is John Bulleyou. I work in the Christian outreach office at Francis King University. I've been back here for 13 years working, and prior to that I spent 15 years doing full-time youth ministry of Perishes in Texas and North Carolina. I also spent two years traveling with non-ministries, and basically my passions in life are in my relationship with God, my family, and just being able to share the gospel, those things, the Lord leads me to do that. It's been an incredible journey. I'm happy to be a part of this panel tonight, and the first person I want to introduce to you, he and I will bring back to our days as students here together at Francis King University, Father Dave Balacca. I just want to say hello to everybody. Thanks, John. Thanks so much for being the invitation to be here. It's great to be here with John and Joel, two men who are trying to love the Lord and serve him and do whatever he can to build up the kingdom. Let's see, I've been a priest for almost 20 years, worked at Francis King University for the youth conferences for 21 years, I guess. And presently, I travel full-time. I preach and do ministry full-time, and it's just a great, very simple lesson to be able to learn. So the Lord in this matter, and I'm really excited for tonight because it's actually one of my favorite topics, so I was invited to be a part of the panel tonight. I was very, very excited. So just thanks for the invitation, John. You're welcome. You're welcome. And also joining us, bring a youthful flair to our panel tonight is Joel's panel. Yeah, you know, it's true. Just deal with it. Joel, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah, it's so great to be with everybody tonight. I'm really excited. I've been looking forward to the webinar for the past couple of weeks. I live out in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm originally from Wisconsin, though, so I'm a man who loves his extremes, the extreme cold and the extreme heat of Arizona. I think that the past 15 years, since I initially had that first conversion moment at a student building youth conference, my freshman year of high school, the Lord has been leading me on such a blessed adventure. And so the topic tonight is just exciting for me to have the opportunity to look back on my life and the ways that God's grace has been present and that the Lord has been working on me and just where he's been able to bring me, so to be able to share that with you right now, I live in Arizona because I work for an organization called Life Team. We do a lot of different things and we partner with Franciscan University and some really cool things like student building youth projects and some certification things for adults, which we're pretty pumped about. So just a blessing to be here. I'm so excited to share with all of you tonight about what the Lord's done in my life and maybe that stirs some things for what he's doing in your life as well. Excellent. Now for all of you who are signing on and have just joined us, one of the cool things about this webinar is in your toolbar on the right hand side of your screen, there's a little place where you can type in questions and we are welcoming your questions. What we're going to do is here in a few minutes, Father Dave is just going to kick us off and start sharing. If you have any clarifying questions for Father Dave while he's speaking for free, type them in and we'll kind of moderate those and give them to him so he can answer. Then Joel is going to speak for a little bit. I want to say a few words at the end. And through it all, like I said, feel free to go ahead and type in your questions and be ready. We'll be ready to answer them as we can and we're excited to be able to do that. So if you have any questions, even on a tech question, like you can't hear somebody or something's not working right, go ahead and type that comment or question into that panel and send it off to us and we'll take care of it right away. So once again, you know, our topic is conversion and grace, living a life of transformation. And yeah, I'm going to pass it right off to Father Dave and I think he's going to really get us going in a really good direction. So Father Dave, take it away. Good. Thanks, Mark. Actually, it was great listening to your prayer because some of the language that you used, whether or not you planned it, I guess that you just really really do. But you said a couple of times the idea of change. And at the heart of our topic tonight, at least the part that I'm going to represent is this idea of change, that our title is conversion and grace, living a life of transformation. And what I think is key about that is it's living a life. It's not simply a singular event. And that's one of the things that wanted to get rid of this conversation about conversion. It's not merely a singular event that happens once. I recall when I was working at Francis University, I was talking to a couple of students and they were incoming freshmen and they were all excited about about being at the university and all that was possible for them. Well, I remember in this conversation, I had said to them, what can you use to experience conversion? But by the end of your graduating time, you'll experience conversion, you'll grow in holiness, and it was just kind of a nice conversation. And well, I found out years later that they walked out of my office and they were frustrated and they were angry with me. It's like, why is Father David saying that? Why does he think we need conversion? We've been converted. This is ridiculous. I mean, all this kind of thing. And then they shared with me after the fact that they understood what that was that they came to realize that while yes, they had an initial conversion, I think Joel, you mentioned in your introduction that you had this initial conversion when you were at a youth conference. Which makes me feel a little old, but that's a whole lot of the top. But that's really profound is that we have this initial conversion, but that is not the end. And it's clear to understand this is Catholic theology is that we don't merely have a conversion and then we're done. This is not a one and done type of field. It's not one shot, but this conversion is this life on process, the life on process of transformation. So to go again, Brett never chose the title. I think it's fantastic. A conversion in grace living a life. So at the heart of our conversion is a life that we're called to live a life in relationship with the Lord. Life which is affected a daily is the part of our prayer daily. The reason we do an examination on toxins at the end of the day is to be able to ask ourselves, did I experience conversion today? Did I recognize that the Lord was present in my life? He was inviting me to, inviting me to change a purified meaning. So this idea of conversion at the very beginning or for the Catholic is that this is a process that we are never finished being converted. So I reflect back and this is probably why I'm passionate about this topic. But for my friends and sisters, and obviously, obviously not so obviously, Francis started the first order, second order, and the third order. And I have a part of the third order, that's that run a princess university in Ohio, the first in the road of Pennsylvania. And the main charism of my community is conversion. I remember the first time when I really began to read about the princess community, I saw that their care is in this conversion. And that really spoke to my heart. I mean, I don't know why John, you mentioned run that as was I a long time ago. And that was really when I came to a fuller understanding of this, this idea of this life long version that we are never finished. Well, one of the things that I discovered as I was studying more about my princess in life is I was looking at the community. Excuse me. There's a Greek word called metnoia. And metnoia means literally to change. And that's why in your prayer at the beginning, John, you said a couple of times that we would change, that we could change. Well, the idea of metnoia is the idea that this change is a lifelong process. It's not merely something that happens once, but that we continually go before the Lord time and time again and experience this conversion. And then it's important that we see that, that we have these initial conversions and kind of an image that I use is this initial conversion gets the big prop, the big pieces out of the way, you know, kind of puts us, it turns our heart to the Lord and you begin to focus on him. But then the rest, literally the rest of our life is this process that I kind of equate like a radio. When you're tuning a radio, when you're fine tuning radio, that's metnoia, this idea that this conversion goes on time and time and time again. So if we look at the spiritual life, we speak of an area of conversion that we were experiencing, maybe those who are listening, I would ask you the question. If you take a look right now in your spiritual life, just for a moment, just ask all these spiritual kind of questions. And ask yourself, can you recognize or identify an area of conversion that you've experienced in the last week? And I think one of the struggles is, is that we get so busy that we're not aware of that. It's kind of like, okay, well, I've got the heavy lifting out of the way. Well, maybe, but maybe not. And I think that Catholic Christian needs to be continually open to the Lord converting him. If we can't identify, okay, this is an area that I believe the Lord has really drawn me to a deeper conversion. If we can't identify that, my fear is that our spiritual life is becoming stacked, that we're not changing, that we're not moving, that we're not developing, that we're not growing. And stagnant is never a good thing in the spiritual life. There always needs to be the sense of movement. Now, let's not to say that every day is this, this wonderful union where we're experiencing great grace and everything makes sense, but we're continually moving in that direction. I can just, I can speak to myself and sometimes when we speak about these conversions, it's like, well, I know that. But the last couple of weeks, I've had this, maybe even since the length started, I think it was before that started, but I've just been growing in my understanding of God's faith. Now, my guess is everybody knows that God is faithful. And if you'd have asked me two months ago, oh, they've got faithful, well, of course he's faithful. I mean, of course we know that. And yet I had this encounter where I was in a conference that I was giving this talk and before it, somebody came in and they had a prayer answer or something like that. And somebody's response was, oh, God is faithful, which is true. God is faithful. And yet I found myself reflecting that oftentimes I think we equate God's faithfulness with him doing what we want him to do, or him answering prayers in the manner with which we would like him to answer. And over the last several weeks, again, it's been about six weeks, I've just really been praying over the whole idea that the God is faithful regardless of what he does, that I'm experiencing the speed written version and understanding God's faithfulness in my relationship to that faithfulness, that whether or not God answers my prayer, God is still faithful. Whether or not God does what I want him to do as he should, that God is still faithful. So it's, again, it's this fine-tuning. If you had asked me a year ago, that's God's faithful, of course we know that God's faithful. Or does God love me? Of course we know that God loves us. But this idea of metanoia is this coming to a deeper understanding of whatever the spirit. It could be all kinds of spiritual realities, but that we're open to that. And that's where I think that it's imperative that we continually go before the Lord and seek the Holy Spirit. And we ask that the Holy Spirit of Jesus would be poured forth upon us so that we're able to identify, that the one of the graces and the gifts of the Holy Spirit is to help us to be able to identify those areas of our life that need to change. So I think in my life when I had, you know, I've always, I've always taken my faith fairly seriously. That's not to say that I didn't do stupid things or make mistakes or sin, those kinds of things. But that there was this sense that my heart was turned to the Lord. Even when I did make mistakes, I would go to confession. So I knew that what I was doing was fine. Well, I have this initial conversion. And there are some things that are obvious. You know, I'll speak for you. You know, sometimes my language when I was younger, this was pretty propped and it's like, like, I need to work in my language or or being negative or things like that. So those big things, the initial conversion, okay, recognize those. Well, the next many years, again, is that fine tuning. And that's where I go before the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit revealed to me those areas of my life to change. Now, because sometimes I'm just clueless to them. And it takes time, and it takes transformation, and it takes brotherhood, and that's why I'm loving the prayer we just take. They remind me of things that I don't do well. They remind me of the things I don't love. I've heard that marriage is somewhat like that, but I certainly can't speak for that from the first time now. But that it's understand that this initial conversion is what I call externals. That these externals, which are more noticeable, I mean, they're early on our conversion. The rest is, it goes to that fine tuning Lord wants to do. And this is where I think it's so important that we seek the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit's timing is perfect in this. I mean, if the net was a profound conversion experience in my life, and just really awakening me much more to the dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit, how that could end in my life. If that, let's say that week, if God would have showed me everything in my life that I need to work on, that I need conversion on, that I need transformation on at that day, I would have died. I mean, I would never have made it. So the Lord in His mercy and His kindness and in His patience, which is really remarkable. I'm sure the Lord is out there saying, okay, eventually I'm going to have to have to be able to work on this, but it's not ready for it. So it's me continually going before the Lord. So when somebody comes to confession to me, unless they just dive in and start, I'll always say, Holy Spirit, reveal the area of their sin. Reveal them their sinfulness, not so that they would judge or condemn themselves, but so that they would rule in person. And that's what the Holy Spirit wants to do. The Holy Spirit wants to be able to come upon us and convict us of our sin, not to judge us and not to condemn us, but to convert us. So it's a great grace of the Holy Spirit to come upon us and to allow us to see those areas in our life that we've changed. And I trust in the Lord's timing, that as long as I'm continually faithful and going before Him, that He's going to reveal to me those things with which I need to grace and to convert it by. So I really trust in the Lord's timing and all of that. Okay, so a couple of other things related to convert. The word itself, as we mentioned earlier, is the idea of change. Now, John Newman had this quote, and he said, I don't know about the next life, but in this life, to live is to change and to live more perfectly is to change off. That's, I think that's hard for us at times, that oftentimes we can look at other people and we can say, okay, if they would change this, I could be more loving. If they would do this, I would be more patient. But the reality is it's the, I mean, more often than I care that to mention that my prayer is simply going before the Lord and say, change me. Lord, change me. It's because I'm the one who's struggling and I'm the one who's hard in the heart and I'm the one who's critical and I'm the one who looks upon the brothers thinking, why don't they just, I mean, yeah, like everything is personal. Somebody leaves a dish out. If they did that out, they did that to bug me. They didn't leave the dish out just because they forgot. They did that to bug me. So it's me that needs to change. I continually go before the Lord. And sometimes that simply is my prayer. Change me. And for me, the biggest somewhere in the block is my pride. It's like, you know, Lord, I've changed enough. You know, I've worked hard enough at this and we need to continue to go before the Lord and say, Lord, that I recognize that the measuring rod or what I'm going to compare myself to in relation to change is not my brother. It is not the person in the supermarket. It's you. You know, and if the Lord is always the one, the model of which I'm looking, to whom I'm looking, then it's me that has to change. So I continually go before the Lord and I say, change me, change, change my heart, change my pride, change my whatever it is. So that's a good, I think that's a really beautiful prayer for conversion. And that's simply that it's just changed, changed. So the last part of this in this idea for conversion, and this is a particularly consistent thing, although I think it resonates with us. And that is this idea of being empty, going before the Lord and allowing ourselves to be empty. There's the text in the 2nd Philippians, and it's called the Canotic Text. It's a Greek word, the Canosis. And the Canosis means self-empting. And we read it every Thursday or every Saturday evening in the occurrence. Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not seem to be in equality with God, so he progressed back. Rather, he emptied himself into the form of the slave being born in life. This image of God, and just a beautiful image or effect on that, that God empties himself and takes on flesh, as we know that Jesus did not always have flesh. So he empties himself and he takes on flesh, the form of flesh. This self-empting is actually a model for the spiritual life. It's a model for conversion. That at the heart of the spiritual life is just that. It's a self-empting. And I think, particularly in the West, the spiritual life is all about getting more and adding on and building and all these much more like is that, you know, bigger and faster and stronger and all these kinds of things. Well, it seems to me that that's quite the opposite of the spiritual life. The spiritual life conversion is allowing myself to be emptied, again, to be changed, to be stripped, if we dare say, to be broken. And that really, again, is dependent on the Holy Spirit. That I go before the Lord and I give him everything. Some of you are familiar that I walk the Camino, the Father in my walk across Spain. Well, that was one of the profound conversions from the beginning. And that is, what is it that the image was my backpack? But what do we carry if the Lord wants us to be able to surrender to let go and we don't have to carry around? I mean, our life is difficult. The backpacks are heavy. So what is it that we carry? Well, that self-empting and that letting go, that stripping, that recognition says, okay, Lord, I give you this. I give you this. I give you this. Take this. Changes. We continue to do that. And that's always our prayer. I mean, if we have, if we have the courage to be able to pray, say, okay, Lord, take away everything in my life that keeps me away from you. That's kind of a startling prayer. It's like, well, everything? Well, if he does that, he's going to take this. Well, if the deep inside my heart is to be transformed to the degree that God wants me to, to be in the image of his Son, then I want everything that keeps me away from that, to be taken away. So that's self-empting. So I continue to pray and ask that the Holy Spirit would reveal those things that I hold onto that I need to be emptied of. Maybe find me, in conclusion, that St. Francis said, oh, God, you are enough for me. And I like reflecting and praying on that. St. Francis did not say, oh, God, you are everything for me. Rather, he said, oh, God, you are enough for me. And in that is this, well, I mean, I've met people who have everything, and they have really everything, and it's not enough. And I've met people who are absolutely poor, but they have this deep, beautiful personal relationship with Christ, and that's enough. I mean, that's at the heart of conversion, that it doesn't matter what takes place on the outside. It doesn't matter what, you know, the storm that's raging around us. But as long as I've got the Lord, that's enough. So my desire is just that, that my relationship with the Lord is such that it really is enough, that I continually be empty, that continually be changed, transformed so that I can actually say, oh, God, you are enough for me. For me, again, that's the Franciscan thing, but I think that's really the heart of the idea. Awesome. Father Dave, thank you so much. I know there's a lot that, you know, you know, people could just sit and meditate upon some of the words that you said. And I think let them have their full impact. And I just want to let people know that we will be having this, webinars being recorded will be available afterwards for you to watch again. So if you're out there trying to take, you know, fiercely trying to take notes and that, you know, if you miss something, don't worry, you're going to be able to come back and review the material again. And I also want to remind you, if you have any questions, be willing to type those into the question box. We'll get to those after a little bit more. But right now, I'm going to pass it on to Joel. Joel is going to share with us about his journey and what living a life of transformation, grace and conversion means to have. So Joel, please go ahead, Brad. You know, as Father Dave, you were talking about that idea of continued conversion and how we have these conversions all the time. I just really got to thinking at the beginning of the webinar, I mentioned that moment at my very first student bill conference in St. Louis, having that real first major conversion where the big stuff came out, but just the idea that it's a continued process, really a process of transformation. I've been reflecting on my own process of what God has done in my life over the past several years since that big conversion and many, many, many little conversion moments that have happened from there and just have been taken back in the past couple of weeks and how good God is. And so I just want to throw that out as encouragement to all of you as we kind of begin this session, just to think like, you know, if you're one of those people who's like, I just don't know, I can't get out of my head. I feel like everything I do is wrong. I feel like I'm never going to be enough. I feel like God's just never, I'm never going to get to that level like to know this, that God is not finished with you yet. God still is working on you and God isn't, he's not done. And there's so much more ahead as he continues to work on you. And so I offer up to you just a little bit of my heart and my story as we continue on. When I went to that first youth conference as a young man, a freshman in high school, I went in with a very worldly understanding of love, of acceptance, of being wanted. And that was all kind of destroyed there. The theme of the conference was that there is God and there is no other. And I realized that if I ever wanted to be truly fulfilled in love, that I would need to look to God as Father Dave again, echoed that beautiful quote, God is enough. And I left with that understanding, but there were still so many worldly trappings of what it meant to be loved and accepted. And for a young person, and for a lot of you, that means a struggle with sexuality and such an easy way to feel wanted. And so leaving that conference, I made a resolution, I stood up on the bus on the way home, and I gave this testimony about how I was really going to commit to living chastely, and sign my Chastity card. And I was going to live out that virtue and integrate who I was. And that was such a wonderful liberating moment. And my youth minister sat down next to me, and he said, I just want you to know that I think that's awesome. And you are in for the most beautiful, crazy, sometimes frustrating ride. And I'm there for you. And over the next few years, he was, and he walked with me when I would come to him. And I had those conversion moments. And those times, I'm like, I feel like I just don't feel like I'm ever going to get it right. And as a young man struggling with that, I remember talking to my mom, yes, I had this conversation with my mother once. And she said, well, you know what you should do? You should ask for the intercession of the saints. You should find a saint who really, you feel like you relate to. And so I kind of did a little bit of research, and I found St. Therese Lissue. And she was such a cool saint. If you haven't had an opportunity to get to know this incredible young woman you need to. But just her idea and understanding of love and God's love and living in that resonated with me. One other thing resonated with me. My mom told me, when I told her that I really liked St. Therese Lissue, that if you pray in Novena, that some people, when they pray in Novena to St. Therese asked her to intercede for them over nine days, that some people at the end of the Novena get confirmation of their prayers by finding roses. Either they're sent roses, or they see roses the day after, or the day that they finish with St. Therese Lissue is also called the Little Rose. And so I, being a high school boy, wanted to test God and just test St. Therese a little bit. So I said, fine, you know what? I'll offer up my intention to live in St. Therese. And then I'll get confirmation. The Lord can tell me He wants me to live in St. Therese Lissue by sending me a rose. You know, I will demand a sign and a sign hopefully will be granted to me. So I prayed in Novena, I go through the prayers and I prayed diligently with this intention for the grace to live a chaste life. On the ninth day I met a friend's house and a girl who I had just a massive crush on was there. And we started to flirt and she made a motion to my friend's bedroom to meet her there. And in that moment, there's kind of this choice as a young person at that time to say, well, this is a person who I like, and maybe likes me back and maybe wants me and accepts me and could even one day love me. All of these things that I had kind of been seeking. And so I met her there and sat down next to her on a couch in the room. And in kind of, I think a play for, you know, to make a move, she picked up a card that was on the floor and sat down next to me and said, oh, look, it's one of your friend's ex-girlfriend's cards that she gave to him kind of joking. And she handed it to me. And on the front of the card, on the ninth day of the Novena, as I prayed for Chastity, there was a picture of a big red rose. And I looked at her and said, I, this isn't the right thing. You're great, but this isn't the right thing. And I left. Now, in that moment, one can say, well, isn't that great? You got confirmation of your prayer. You got the rose and the Lord heard you. I think something deeper happened in that moment. I had an opportunity where we get these rare glimpses sometimes of what God is doing, where God says, I'm here. I'm right next to you. I'm giving you what you need. Now, make the choice. So it wasn't that suddenly God ripped me out of the situation. God sent me kind of this sign to say, I'm with you, and I'm giving you the grace and the strength that you need. Now act on it. Make a decision to walk away because I'm giving you what you need. It was my first experience with grace and my first experience of what it means to experience continued transformation. You probably hear the word grace a lot. We speak at conferences. We speak from stage. We use it a lot in the mass. But I don't know if you've ever been told what grace is. Maybe some of your Protestant brothers and sisters have told you grace is free and undeserved favor from God, which it totally is. As Catholics, we have one step deeper of an understanding of grace. Grace is, we say, a participation in the divine life of God. It's God's very life that's given to us. So when we say that we receive grace, it's not just like, hey, you get this kind of undeserved favor. We don't earn it. It's a gift. God says, I'm giving you literally my life as grace. And when we're given God's life, it's transformative. Grace radically redefines who we are when we ask for it. And in that moment, I got a glimpse to God saying, I'm pouring out grace upon you. I'm giving you my life so that you have the strength to live a holy life, to live in holiness. A life of discipleship, my friends. It's not possible without grace. We can't do it on our own. It would be impossible for me to say, I'm going to live a chaste life on my own because I have all of it together. I have all the own strength in myself. I have to say, Lord, give me the grace, give me the strength, give me your life so I can do these things. I don't have the courage to stand up for my faith. And you don't either if it's just you. If you're going to go into your school and proclaim the gospel or reach out to a friend or live your faith, if it's just you, you'll fail. But with God's grace, with God's life, we can do anything. In 2 Corinthians, there's a beautiful passage where St. Paul is talking about how he's struggling with something. And God says, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power. Power is made perfect in the weakness. When you're weak, when you can't do it, when you don't have it all together, that's when I really shine. And so, I want to talk a little bit, just in thinking about my experience briefly, about how we can live in God's grace and how we can accept and really realize more that I think some of us have a struggle when we think about how do I fill my life up and how do I live and continue to be transformed. I'd like you to do an experiment, a little science experiment once we're done with the webinar. Just to illustrate a point, you can make a mess of your parents kitchen. It'll be a lot of fun. Get the smallest glass that you own. Just a small, like, you know, tiny little cup, measuring cup. Fill it with water. That's you. The day you were baptized as an infant. That container represents what you understand about the world. It's small. You don't really know a whole lot. You're an infant. And the day you were baptized, God poured his life into you in what we call sanctifying grace. This grace, my friends, is what is going to take you to heaven. And God pours it into you. God gives you this new life. You're a new creation in Christ in that moment. Now, that grace never goes away. Sanctifying grace is with you always. It's a free gift, so you can reject it, but you can't ever, you can't get rid of it. You're stuck with it. Sorry. It's an indelible mark. Even if you say I'm an atheist, it never goes away. It's there. Now, I want you to grab a bigger cup when you go into your kitchen. Something slightly larger. I want you to dump that water into that cup. That's you at second or third grade when you received your first communion. You'll notice that the cup doesn't fill up with the water as much, but we get more sacraments to pour that water in. We get more grace as we ask for it. And our world got a little bit bigger when we were in elementary school. We learned about, maybe bullies. We learned about some sad things. But God, we asked for the grace to fill us up. So many of us wind up feeling empty because we grab a bigger cup from our kitchen now and we pour that water into it. And for some of us, after second grade, we stopped asking for God's grace. We stopped petitioning God for grace. Some of us maybe don't go to mass every Sunday, and so we don't receive grace in the Eucharist. Some of us only go to confession once a year if that and we don't receive grace from that. And so now we have this little bit of water and we say, I feel so empty sometimes. I feel like I don't have a relationship with God sometimes. And it's because we're not asking God to pour grace out on us and we're not responding to the grace he gives. God's always pouring grace out. Even when we don't necessarily are looking for, there's always moments for grace and we have to recognize it and then accept it. Grace is this free gift and we accepted God pours it out and God just doesn't give us like a little bit to fill up that cup. Hold that cup under the sink and run the water as high as you can. That's grace. God floods it out on us when we ask and when we want to receive. When we say I want to receive that grace, I need to receive that grace. Lord, give me the grace. So here's a couple of practical things. If we really believe that, but what I just said is true, that grace is God's very life inside of us, that grace fills us up and makes us whole, that grace is the love that allows us to do all these great things even when we're weak. Then we've got to seek this out. So the first and most ordinary way to go like experience this grace is to get to mass. Go to mass every single Sunday. Hey, if we believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, which he is, and you can get to daily mass, why aren't you going? If your best friend is in town every single day, if you can see Jesus and receive him and receive the life that comes along with that, get to daily mass. The sacrament of reconciliation is a beautiful place of mercy and continued conversion. Huge amounts of grace are poured out into that to go forth and sin no more. If you're wrestling with sin in your life and you're not going to confession, you're missing out on the strength you need to battle that sin because you can't do it alone. So if you've been of the mindset that I'll get over it, I'll find a way through it, you need the grace and the sacrament of reconciliation. We call those things sacramental graces. They're specific to those sacraments, but every day we can wake up asking for grace. We call that actual grace. These are moments where God intervenes in our life in a powerful way and gives us the grace we need. It's the moment you need grace to stand up for your faith. Boom, God gives it to you. It's the moment that you need to remain strong against temptation to protect your chastity. The moment you need to remain strong in temptation against old vices, God flies us with grace. But in all of that, we have to respond. So God is going to give you the grace. It's going to be there. You may not feel it. You may not be like, oh, there's this rush of energy. I've got it. There may not be a sign, but you can choose to respond to it. And that's what we have to do, my brothers and sisters. We have to be ready to respond and to act on the great gifts that God is continuing to pour out upon us. And so I throw those things out as practical ideas. Every morning, pray for grace, frequent the sacraments, but be sure to respond because our life is a moment of conversion that happened always and that leads to transformation. God is working on us continually and He's giving us the grace to do it every single day. Thank you, Joel. And I think, you know, guys, keep typing in your questions. We're going to be glad to be able to get to those in a few minutes here. Now, I want to kind of touch upon something that Father Dave alluded to. He was presenting in this process of conversion. Now, there are times when the Lord, you know, like a sculptor is hacking away huge chunks of sin from our lives and we can immediately see that we've let go of a pattern of behavior, a sinful habit, something that we used to pull us away from God. But I'm often reminded in that, you know, that what Father Dave has shown is that it's the detailed work that we get so frustrated with when it comes to our conversion because we want immediate results. We're not patient with ourselves. We're not patient with the process of conversion. And when we get frustrated, we can easily give up on it. But I'm reminded of the story of Mike Lanslow, how he created the statue of David. He was commissioned to create the statue. And he went to a warehouse where they had many huge pieces of marble set aside for sculptors to choose from. It was kind of like the Walmart of big rocks. And he was looking around and he couldn't find exactly the right rock that he was looking for until he noticed covered in tarp, a rock of considerable size over in the corner of this building. And he asked, what is that? And the men pulled off the tarp and it was a piece of marble that another sculptor had attempted to make something of that had been chiseled away at. He had drilled a hole in a lot of it. But it was a very pure white piece of marble and it captivated Mike Lanslow. And so he asked them to bring it out and stand it up in the middle of the room. And he just spent about three weeks just examining from every angle this piece of marble. People would come in the morning and already be there staring at it. They'd leave at night. He'd still be there staring at this marble. And after weeks of this, he finally said, I'm ready. I'm ready to begin. And so he began working on the statue of David. And when it was all done, he got down to his eyelashes and his eyebrows and the veins on his hands and every detail of every muscle on his body. And it was just an amazing work of art that is still being celebrated today. It's one of these timeless pieces of sculptor. And when he was asked, when Mike Lanslow was asked, how did you even know when you were looking at this damaged, rejected piece of marble, how did you know that it could become something so beautiful, something that somebody rejected? How did it become something so beautiful? And he simply said, I just looked deep into the stone and I saw David and then I just took away everything that wasn't David. And I think, you know, that really speaks to the process of conversion. Well, God has created each one of us in his image and likeness. And while we carry the state of original sin and that wounds our hearts and weakens our ability to follow Christ, we've all been created with such beauty and the Lord sees it deep in the side of us, those things that he wants to bring up, these virtues, these spiritual fruits, these gifts, and he wants to bring them forth. Well, all he really wants to do is to take away all those things that are ungodly. But how do we do that? I struggled for years and years of my own conversion because I could never accept myself. I walked into a confessional when I was 18 years old and walked out a different person. I felt God reach into my soul, remove all the junk that had stained my life for 18 years and throw it so far away I never saw it again. But I was still a wounded Catholic and needed redemption. And when I got out of a confessional and I felt so new and so free, I made every bow to heaven and earth. And I'm going to live for you Jesus, you're going to be my Lord. I'm never going to stray from you. But as the sin started to creep back in my life and as that feeling faded and I realized that I was wrong and powerful as I thought I was, I was still very weak in my walk with the Lord. I became very frustrated by the fact that one moment I could feel such great ardor and desire for God and another I could choose a sense of recklessness. And you know, it took me a long time to understand one basic concept that we need to have in our hearts if we're going to truly be converted mess. How do we reconcile ourselves to our weaknesses? How do we learn to live with the weaknesses that are ours because of our own sin or original sin while at the same time rejecting the sin itself? You know, there's a great saying that a lot of people use when we're talking about dealing with other people. It's like, love the sinner but hate the sin. And yet when we look at ourselves, when it comes to us, you know, like our own treatment of ourselves, we're so willing to beat ourselves up to reject ourselves so quickly because of our sin because we think because we know ourselves so well. Or we think we know ourselves so well that, you know, there's no excuse for me. And then we project these feelings probably not on it. Oh, God must be rejecting me because I've rejected myself so deep. And that's just not the case. You know, when we reject ourselves and despise ourselves for our sin, what we do is we immediately cut ourselves off from God's love. You know, I mean, we take our focus off of that pure love that God asks us that never comes to an end. Like Joel said, this unconditional favor that he looks upon us, this limitless mercy that he always has for us, and we just simply forget that and we get so introspective. And we just look at ourselves in our brokenness and say, that's it. I can't do this. And, you know, and when we learn to, though, however, accept the weaknesses, then I think we're going to be able to accept God's love for us better. And this is going to be key to our conversion is learning how to accept God's love. And when I say accepting our weaknesses, once again, I'm not saying become complacent, but understanding that you are going to have a certain level of brokenness in you until the day you die, that you are going to have sin in your life until the day you die. Why? Because you will always need a Savior. We will always need mercy. You know, one of the passages from Isaiah says, even our righteous deeds are like filthy garments before the Lord. You know, we have to accept the fact that we're going to fall short. But in that falling, what happens is, you know, in our sinfulness, the very thing that Christ came to die for, the very thing that he saw when he chose the cross, is revealed in our own lives, that we're broken and needed a Savior. And when God sees us being honest with God, with him in our prayer, and accepting that, then he can rush to us with his love to heal that, to fix that wound. And then we can begin to progress. As long as we continue to reject ourselves and despise ourselves because of our sin, we're not going to make progress in the spiritual life. And more so, we'll not be able to help anyone on their spiritual journey because if we reject ourselves and we despise ourselves, how can we learn to love and accept other people with their brokenness and sin? So, you know, when I think of conversion, you know, and Father David learned this is absolutely essential, is we are in desperate need of the Spirit of God. And as Joel said, we are needing constant infusions of fresh grace because we can't do this. It's simply beyond our ability to sanctify ourselves. What we need, though, is to stop relying on our human determination and start entering into what I would call godly disciplines. You know, there's only one thing in the universe that's holy, and that's God himself. And if we are going to become holy because we're partaking in the holiness of him, that we're going to attach ourselves to God in such a way that we're going to absorb his holiness through our communion with him. And this is why I think, you know, the fundamental building block of a life of conversion is intimate communion with God, learning just how to be with God and accept his love for us. And if we don't get to know this love of God and sit with it and be transformed with life, and if we don't know that love, how are we going to trust the God of the universe to go to our deepest hurts and pains to heal them? We're always going to be walled off against God because we're trusting his love. We're not going to give him the access to our hearts, the access to our souls that he wants, that we can be healed. And we're transformed by love. We're transformed by this embrace of God. And when we think about what God wants the most from us, it's our hearts, the hearts that we have right now. And our hearts are full of lots of desires. And we're looking to fulfill our hearts in lots of ways. You know, we might desire happiness or companionship or friendship or joy or excitement. We might crave recognition or promotion or, you know, we might want a bigger house or a better paying job. We might want a lot of things. We have all these swirling desires for things in the world, but even with God, our desires can swirl. Like, I want to be holy, but I want to be humble, but I want to be a servant. I want to do this. And all these desires can get strewn up to us and to the point where we forget that the fundamental desire that we need to have is for God himself, just to be with him. And that's what he wants from us, is to be with us. You know, Saint John of the Cross said, the smallest movement of pure love will do more for the church than all the other works put together. And in our lives, the smallest movement that we let God work in our lives will merit us more and do more for our own conversion than all of the mighty pledges and sacrifices and fasts that we might take upon. But what you're going to also realize as you journey in this relationship of love, all of a sudden your whole marriage is going to take a switch and you're all, and it's going to be like, I want to reject sin more. I have this desire. I'm actually getting a hatred for sin because it offends the one who loves me, whose love I know so well. I don't want to be separated from sin. I'm not going to do those things anymore. And out of love, we're going to be converted into a person who lives in union within ourselves and harmony within ourselves. And our desires will line up behind our number one desire, which is just to be with God. And his spirit will be able to, as we make him the interior master, guide all these things to perfection. And then we'll see deeper and deeper transformation. You know, the huge chunks of running power away when God starts, you know, working on the palm of our hands, you know, and doing those, the intricate chiseling and work. You know, we won't reject it. We won't get frustrated with it. We'll see it as another extension of his love for us and to be pure for him. You know, we need to be reconciled to God in all ways, you know. And we need to be reconciled within ourselves to say, look, I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm always going to be a sinner. But God loves me and therefore I will be able to move forward with the Lord. I will be able to walk with the Lord on this journey of holiness because I'm in love with him. And I will be able to choose to overcome the sins of my life through his grace. And because I know he loves me and I want to love him with my whole heart, my whole mind, my whole soul and my whole strength. So don't look at, you know, I mean, I think sometimes we forget, we want to make our journey of holiness the transformation, but what we can do for God and what we're going to do, you know, out of our own courage and determination and, you know, the most meaningful thing to do is to be humble with God and let his spirit penetrate us, be alone with the Lord and be at peace with the God of the universe who doesn't want, he wants nothing more than to stir up his love in us, which will transform even our most broken areas. You know, people choose sin, you know, out of our heart. Some choose sin because they've been rejected, they have never been told anything better. Most people choose sin because they don't want to live empty and they'd rather have a life full of sin than a life full of nothing. But when we fill ourselves in love with God, and this goes back to what Father David was saying about that emptying, that constant emptiness, the constant emptying is so that we can be filled more with God. You know, that's why we empty, that's why we do lent. Last thing, you know, we have a special time so we can empty ourselves to be filled more with God and in that flood throwing, brothers and sisters, I guarantee that you will see the transformation your heart desires. You'll see your life changing ways that will surprise you, that the things like, you know, Father David, every time God opens a new chapter, you know, the diamond of faith, he'll turn it from the light for you, you'll see a new facet twinkle, you'll catch your eye in a new way. Like, wow, I've been looking at this diamond called faithfulness for years, but God just twisted it in the light because love is shining for me in a new way and it's beautiful. That's what it means to live this dynamic life. Don't let anyone ever tell you that it's boring when it comes to this dead end because it wasn't serious about our love for the Lord wanting to grow. It is the mountain for which we'll never reach the peak. We'll just keep going higher and higher with the Lord and we'll see things that we will never have seen before and experience some amazing things. So that's all I wanted to share. You know, we're three sinners, you know, basically up here telling you like, you know, we're walking a path. We're walking a path of holiness that has been led by the Spirit, you know, full of grace because that's the only way we have found that works. You know, once again, I want to invite you, if you have questions for any of us ahead and type those in, we already have a number of questions up there right now. One was from a young lady who wanted to talk, she said, my initial conversion 15 years ago, she said, I'm so discouraged to see how little I've changed since then, what do you recommend? Perhaps maybe the following day you could take a crack at that and speak to her question. Yeah, well, I guess the first thing I would say is the last part of that is I get so discouraged and I don't think that that would be the desire of the Lord to be discouraged. Discouraged men is either the class or the world of the enemy. It's not a gift of the Lord. So when you get discouraged, that's just some, you know, it's not the Spirit convicting, it's the Spirit of the world, the evil one. So it's saying, you're not enough, you're not doing enough, you should be better. All those kinds of things, that's just not where the world works. So first off, I would encourage you not to be the Spirit. The other is, in the beginning, this is a life-in-form transformation. So be patient with yourself. I mean, thank the Lord that the Lord is patient with me. I mean, if he wasn't patient with me, I would be toast, but the Lord is patient with me. So the fact that you're trying, the fact that you're turning your heart to the Lord, that's what God asks us. It's easy for those of us who are giving this webinar or whatever to talk about Holy Spirit and all that. But the reality is, and John just alluded to it, that we all make mistakes as well. That's not to say that we don't make mistakes or we mess up. And we get back up when we keep on going. So don't be discouraged, keep on trying. Last part of the question is, what do you recommend? Well, I recommend you take one step at a time. You just continue to be as faithful as you can. Go before the Lord and just do the best you can. It's been said, the saints is the one who gets up one more time than the bell. And that's all the Lord's asking you. Just keep on trying if you fall, get back up. Now, practically recommended, I think some of the things that Joel talked about, you know, make sure that you're availing yourself. The sacraments, the prayer for the Holy Spirit and the reception of the Holy Spirit is just really, really key. I think oftentimes what we fall into is this idea that I need to work harder or I need to do better or I need to do this. Well, the primary focus that is all about me. So what it needs to be is to surrender. It's not, it sounds cheesy. It's not working harder. It's working smarter. Now, I know that all kinds of business models talk about that. But there's a truth to that, the spiritual act as well, that it is me cooperating with the Holy Spirit. And that's how we're going to be able to grow. So what do I recommend? Sacraments, prayer, all the things we've been talking about, and being open to the Holy Spirit and calling upon the Holy Spirit. I think one of the things that Joel was talking about was this grace. And as he was talking, there's sanctifying grace and there's actual grace. That actual grace and that grace that you need at the moment. So you continue to pray for that Lord that your grace would be actualized in my life for the more patient. I will reiterate, don't get discouraged. That's just not the work of God. So be courageous, keep on trying, know the Lord loves you, know the Lord is for you. He's on your side. He's not against you. One day at a time, you'll be okay. Great. Joel, you want to add anything? I would add simply, I call everything Father Dave said. I think discouragement is not of God. And just to remember that and not to beat yourself up for it and to continue to realize that you're a work in progress and that Jesus is not finished with you yet. Amen. And I would encourage, you know, not just a chance to go forward just to pray and to speak out. But I would really encourage taking time. If you can get to a church before the Blessed Sac, won't we just listen. I had a young man 13 years old, my youth group, many years ago. And we were on retreat. And we were getting ready to have adoration and reconciliation as part of our, of one of our evenings. And as we exposed the Blessed Sacrament and things got going, I was kind of moderating and watching over you, making sure kids were engaged and everything was going smoothly. He came up to me and said, Hey, can you call my mom and tell me to come get me? I said, Well, why would you want to do that? The last one belonged here. All right. Well, time to time, I wouldn't even don't belong here. Everyone is welcome here. It's a crisis. His love is, you don't understand. You don't understand. I can't be here. I'm like, you gotta tell me what you're talking about. He was, well, I don't know how to say this. I'm just going to say it. When I was 11 years old, I started messing around on the internet and I found pornography. And at first I was just curious, like a little kid, but then it became very much more than that to me. I would find myself now after two years, every day, going on the internet and looking up porn, sometimes two hours at a time. He goes out in most nights, it ends with masturbation. I'm so dirty. I'm so broken. There's no way they're working on me. And this is a kid who was just burdened by a loss at age 13 and really was feeling that discouragement. And so I asked them, I said, I don't know what to say to you, so I'm not going to try to say anything. I'm just going to ask you to go over there and sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament and just ask Jesus, just look at the host and the monstrous, realize that that's Jesus and just ask Jesus, what do you want to say to me? So he went over and sat down about 10 feet away from the monstrous on the floor just looking up at it. Hopefully that'll work. I went to the other room and checked on something, came back in and he was gone. It's something. Oh my gosh, he bolted on me. I've lost another one Lord. Why does this keep happening? So I went outside and looked on the porch as he was out there and walked on the back of this Holy Word where he wasn't anywhere. He went back in and he was back in front of the Blessed Sacrament. So at this time, he was bawling, tear streaming down his face. I said to him, I said, what's going on, man? Where'd you go? I was looking for you. He was, well, I did exactly what you told me to do. And I sat down in front of Jesus and I said, Jesus, I feel broken. I feel dirty. I've been disgusting. But what do you want to say to me? And I heard Jesus say to my heart, I love you. I die for you. I'm ready to forgive you if you want my forgiveness. And he immediately got up, went into the confessional, confessed everything and said to me at the end. He goes, this is the first time in two years I felt out of hope at all. First time in two years I felt any kind of hope. When we look at what God can do. This discouragement, Satan does not want us to become holy. He can't destroy God. God wins, but he'll destroy God's image and likeness every chance he gets, which is you, which is me. So in your pursuit of holiness, you're going to get tons of discouragement from anybody that you will want to reject and just take your time to pray and listen to what God has to say. Spend time in his word. Just spend time in silence and let God speak to your heart because in those moments, he will give you the words of everlasting life. He will give you the words to encourage your own heart on your journey in a very particular way. And if we're not doing that on a regular basis, we're not going to have the encouragement from the Lord that we need to continue. So just take the last time to listen to the Lord because when he speaks, it transforms everything. Okay, Father Dave, somebody asked, what is the name of the prayer that the Franciscans do every Thursday? Yeah, I think what they were actually, I might have said Thursday, and then I corrected myself and said Saturday. It's evening prayer on Saturday evening, so it's taking from 2nd Philippians. And it's those in the form of God, Jesus did nothing in the quality of God. So that's the, every Saturday evening prayer, 2nd of Philippians, 2nd of Philippians, 1st of Philippians, 1st of Philippians. So that's the night prayer. It's evening prayer. It's evening prayer. In the Divine office, evening prayer, every Saturday you pray this prayer. Yeah, exactly. But I think what's key about that is it just reminds us that at the heart of this walk is being able to empty ourselves and let we go. So it's not about gathering, retaining, getting more of that, really, yeah, let way to go and that's really key for us in spiritual life. And maybe it goes to Jonathan, if I may just put another question, that is, is that, you know, kind of what's the surest way to holiness or perjury? I mean, in the big picture, I think it's being a faithful Catholic Christian that provides us with the most assured way of being able to inherit the kingdom. So let's say that it's easy, it's the most assured way. So I think that being faithful to the Lord, being faithful to the prayer and sacraments is key. And then being able to answer the question that each one of us have to be able to answer, and that is, well, what are you asking me to do so that I might inherit eternal life? That each one of us has a different story, each one of us has a different haul that the Lord has placed on life. I think one of the dangers we have is that we look around at other people and we say, well, that person looks holy, therefore I must do it like they do it. And that simply isn't the face. Because the Lord wants to be able to meet us where we are. It's going to look different for me than it is for Joel, or for John, or for Ali, or for anybody. It's each one of us, the Lord is asking us to do something. And I actually really resist, and it's something I've been thinking about more about, is this comparison that we often do. I just don't think it's the Lord. So the Lord is inviting you. What's holiness going to look like for you? It's going to look different than it is for me. Is it religious? You guys don't ministry? So, again, I just can't stress enough, be patient with yourself. Because I think that we're so often times so hard on ourselves. Joel, how long do you have anything to add to that? Are you sure it's the way to holiness? Yeah, I think Father Dave really covered it well. One of the things you said Father Dave, though, I kind of reminded me of a question that Caleb asked about discerning vocation. And I mean, it just triggered in my mind thinking about that conversion moment, how to be discernive vocation and getting stuck in this moment where I found myself trying to discern a vocation between marriage and the priesthood. And I was like wrestling with that. And it centered around that question, exactly what you talked about, looking at other people who I thought were holy and asking what are they doing and trying to follow that path. And so in just kind of responding to that, the question, how do we discern our vocation and ask for the grace to do that? One, is that our vocation, our universal vocation is to be holy, that every person is called to be holy. So if you're a high school student, do that first. Try to be holy. If you're a college student, try to be holy. If you're a young adult, if you're an adult, if you're 50, if you're 60, if you're 100, try to be holy. That's the first thing. And then if you're discerning of vocation, not to look at what you think you're supposed to do in the sense that, oh, well, I'm a young Catholic man, he's on fire for my faith, so I should be a priest. Or, all my friends are getting married, so I should get married. In discerning of vocation to the priesthood, religious life, or marriage, the best thing to do rather than getting frustrated is to strive a little holy life every day to seek God's grace and to say, Lord, what do you want from me? How do you want me to be holy today? And if you can live that path every day, you will find yourself suddenly one day like, wow, I think the Lord's calling me to be a priest. And then you discern that more deeply because you go to seminary. And maybe through seminary the Lord is calling you to be a priest. You discern it more deeply by, you know, walking into a religious order and living in that community and discerning it. You discern it by dating somebody more deeply if you want to get married and then through that process you say, well, yep, this is for me. And the Lord's calling me to marriage, religious life, or priesthood. But it begins with a daily choice, living in the grace that God gives and saying, how can I be holy today? Great. Thank you. So let me just put on a comment for me as like, John, I had a similar conversion experience in Confession College. It's been a long time since I had that, and a conversion moment like that. Is there an expiration date on the grace of what's conversion moment? That's a great question. You know, I don't say like, I've never had another confession that rocked my world like that first confession, honestly. Why? Because it was so new. I mean, it was so amazing. It was so powerful. And you know, when you think of, you think of a life where your back is on somebody, okay? That first moment, when you turn back in your face to face with God, that's an initial conversion I can never forget. Where you reorient your life towards God. And then it's the process that Father Dave said, taking one step at a time, closer with Him on this journey of holiness. Sometimes we take one step forward and three steps back. We're facing God. We're with Him. We're moving with Him now. And even if we trip and fall on that, we're moving with Him. So I don't think we ever had anything as powerful in our lives as that first time when we reorient and reorient our entire lives on God. The joy that comes from that, as we get probably, for some of us, for me it was my first glimpse, glimpse of the beatific vision of how beautiful and awesome God was. It was like somebody took a flash and flashed out my soul, an image of God that has been undoubtedly there ever since. I've never doubted God's grace or His faithfulness to me since that moment. Have I always chosen and lived in it? No, but I've always been able to come back and know that God is there and He will not give up on it. In terms of your second part of your question, is there an expiration date on the grace of those conversion moments? And the simple answer is there's no expiration date on conversion, you know, on the grace. I would want to encourage you, though, from one of my favorite passages from the Old Testament is from the book of Zephaniah, no, it'll come to me in a second. I hate when it happens and get molded, where it says, the steadfast love of the Lord. No, it's Lamentations, chapter 3, verse 24. Thank you. And it would come to me. The steadfast love of the Lord never changes. His mercy never comes to an end. It is new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. The beauty of grace is what we don't have to worry about, you know, an experiment because God's always going to give us a fresh dose. He's always going to have fresh mercy, fresh grace for us every day. It's always a new movement with God. You don't have to live off the grace you received for, you know, 15 years ago or 20 years ago or five years ago. That grace was for that moment. There's a new grace for you this evening, you know, which is what you need now to go further in your journey. The grace that you received back then was to keep it moving. There's more that will come to you in a new way now. And God's love never comes to an end. So there's no limit or expiration on how you can receive this grace. God will always be there if you desire Him. He will give you the desire of your heart. I don't know if you find any rejoin, do you want to add anything to that? No, I'll just say one thing and then maybe take another question, John. And that is that while I agree with what you said, but there is something about that initial love, first love, you know, that first love that is just always, there's a closest and there's a beauty about that. But a day nearer is that is that we try to live our whole life on that. How well there's a significant, tremendous, significant change in our life that we need to have these other experiences, other encounters with the Lord that rekindle that. One of the questions that just came in is, what's one piece of advice that you would recommend to renew on zeal? And I think that that's a lot of people's questions. We have this initial conversion. We're all excited and everything's great. And then slowly that begins to fade away. And it's like, okay, well, what now? Well, a couple of things I think that are key is that there is, again, a danger is that we look at other people's life and we see apparently it looks like, well, they have their life is so much more vibrant and they're paid by this, so it's more vibrant to the wider mind. Again, I don't think the comparisons do anybody justice. So a danger is that we compare our zeal to somebody else's and I don't think that's a good idea. With that being said, there are seasons in the spiritual life and there are times in my life that I've gone through really, if we kind of think of the spiritual life as a journey, a walk, that sometimes it's uphill, sometimes it's downhill, sometimes it's flat, sometimes it's hard and it's easy. Part of the spiritual life is just this, yeah, just kind of just put in your time doing what you need to do and be faithful to it. And there's not this great sense of consolation or wonderful, this is amazing. And it's important to understand that you are not doing something wrong if that's what you're experiencing. It's a reality, so that's a part of the spiritual life, just this daily step by step. So I think a lot of people think, oh, I shouldn't go to school, that's a large part of it. But then the other is that you provide opportunities that allow yourself to encounter the world. Pope Francis is saying every time he opens up his mouth is encounter Jesus. So we do whatever we can to be able to encounter Jesus. We do it through adoration. Somebody asked a question, can you receive grace from adoration? Absolutely. Sacraments are not the only place that we receive grace. We receive grace through prayer, through mercy, through kindness, through independence. So all of these opportunities for grace. So I think we'll take a look at it and make sure that we are doing what we need to do so as to be able to encounter Jesus. What I'm not saying is if we just do all these things that we're necessarily going to have these great powerful experiences, because those great powerful experiences of consolation are grace and movements of God. But what we allow ourselves to do is we allow ourselves to be available to it, so that if we receive that blessing or that consolation, we can do that. Finally, and I'll say it again and again and again, don't be discouraged that this is a life long journey of faith. So don't be discouraged that sometimes our zeal is waning you to continue to go before the Lord. That's why I wanted to pray as I make all the times from the Holy Spirit. I can't do this by myself. I'm the Holy Spirit. Good? Great. Do you want anything popping off the screen or anything that you want to add to any of the conversations we're having? I feel like the Holy Spirit's bringing kind of a nice flow to this. So to go on that and to address one of the other questions that we had. Somebody asked about how they can help a friend who feels that their life is kind of filled with bad luck. Like bad things keep happening to this person, but they go to church, they go to reconciliation, they help others, they're doing those things that Father they talked about, they're receiving the sacraments, they're performing works of mercy, they're praying. And they just feel like bad things keep happening to them, even though they're trying so hard to do good. And I have two things to address that, because maybe that's also you. Like you may be feeling like I'm doing these things and asking for grace, but everything just feels like it's always falling apart and it's always so hard. And when do I kind of come out with a win? And it's to say this, living a life of holiness does not translate always into a life of what would be considered worldly prosperity or luck or success. Some very holy, incredible people by the world's estimation are not at all successful. Some incredibly blessed, happy, joyful people are not in the world's estimation lucky or wealthy. Now there are some Christians who you may encounter who believe that, who believe that worldly success or comfort are an indication of God's favor. And that's not always true. Guy can give us consolations or ways that we feel good in the spiritual life, but we may have moments of grace that pour out in what appears to be success. But just because you're having a rough patch or things are hard or your friend is struggling or maybe you're struggling with difficulties in life does not mean that God is not looking favorably upon you. And what we need to do in those moments is to cling even more tightly to the sacraments, pray even more diligently for grace, and we need to seek to be even closer to the Lord. Like the book of Job in the New Testament stands as, you know, kind of the convictus that sometimes bad things are going to happen to good people. But we can have two mentalities with that. I was listening to something this morning that kind of waved this out. We can have a victor mentality or we can have a victim mentality. The victim mentality wakes up in the morning and says, why me? Why me, Lord? Why are these bad things happening to me? Why me? Why me? The victor mentality wakes up in the morning and says, why me? Why are you blessing me so abundantly, Lord? Why do I get another day? Why do I get to live in your blessings? Why do I get to live in your love? Why, even in the midst of trial, do you walk with me as a sinner? And then they both end with the statement, who cares? The victim says, who cares? It's all worthless. Nothing matters. It's all bad things are just going to happen to me no matter how good I am. And the victor says, who cares? God loves me. I'm going to live in that. We are victors, brothers and sisters. Even when life is difficult, because we're all going to have it. Suffering is a reality of the world, but we're victors because of Christ and because of the grace that we have. So I would just encourage your friend that, you know, sometimes there's rough patches for God. It's not a reflection of anything we do for God that makes him love us more. God couldn't possibly love us anymore. He also can possibly love us anyways. So strive for a victor mentality because in Christ, that's what we are. Yeah, somebody else posted a question about spirits of dryness and when it lasts particularly in a long time. How do you persevere through the continual frustration? You know, that's a difficult place to be. I think I'm not alone in saying how everyone else on this panel has experienced the spirits of dryness that just comes our way as part of the spiritual life. You know, I think to reflect upon it, especially during the season of lead, realize that, you know, in the Old Testament we had the people of Israel watering the desert for 40 years, experiencing great thirst, going through times where they didn't get the consolation they wanted, and yet God did in some very particular ways provide miraculous before them. He flashed forward into the very life of Jesus who went to the desert and fasted for 40 days. But there's something that happens in our spirit when we're tested by God and we're allowed to experience spirits of dryness for whatever reason. I think it was saying, Teresa, she talks about, you know, do we truly love God if every time we go before God we get a cookie? You know, I'm paraphrasing though. Or is God trying to reduce in us a love for Him that goes beyond a warm fuzzy that we get when we pray? Like are we going to be people who love God even when it doesn't feel good to love God? And I hate being in spiritual dryness. I get frustrated easily, but I've learned more and more to be patient with that and say, okay, God, what are you trying to teach me in these moments? What do I need to let go of? You know, what do I need to learn? I mean, the reason why it took 40 years to get through a piece of property besides the Rhode Island from people of Israel was God had a lot to teach them. He had to show them his faithfulness in other ways. And when they were ready, they entered into the land of milk and honey. And sometimes we're put in those places to learn things, you know, and maybe it's something obvious that we need to change. Maybe it's something more subtle. And this is why once again, when Jesus went into the desert, he was led by the Spirit. So if we're going to be going into the desert, we find ourselves in the desert, that's when we need to pray even more. Come, Holy Spirit, and guide me through this desert. Show me, is there an oasis here as I go through to find a little refreshment? If not, be my man from heaven to sustain me so I can be faithful on this journey on this privilege of life. Help me not to give up, and grovel and complain against the war, but continue to give him my love even when there's no reward. Now, faith is a wonderful gift, but it needs to be tested in order to be strengthened. And as we go through testing life, as we're challenged to move through these times of dryness, and times of temptation, and these times of weakness, hopefully through our connection to the Holy Spirit, His guides will come up with a deeper understanding of the love of God, His mercy, and be reminded how sweet it is when we're living in the Constellation, the presence of God, in a real tangible way. But we're not we're not pursuers of sensibility where it's always I'm engaged with this God as long as He keeps giving me warm fuzzies when I pray. We're here to love, and you know, Joel and I are married, Father Dave, you live in communities, so you know. Was that? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so you know that that there's always times when the love that you're showing your families coming out of a choice of the will, and it may not be or the love you show the community has come out of a choice of your will, and the fact that you can choose that and overcome yourself is an act of love itself, because love in the end isn't a feeling to use, is the choice to continue to do what's best for the other person, and to will the best for the other person. So, I mean... John, let me just say one more word on that, and because I think it's important and then maybe give us some of the others, but the realities is those, particularly those of you who are married, you know that this is the case, that it's not just a relationship with God that we go through in our enemies, it's any relationship, you know, any relationship that's ongoing and sustained, that there are times of just great, great closeness in times that you don't feel as close. So, that is a part of having a relationship. Now, people have come to me many times and say, you know, Father, I'm just going through this whole dry stomach, pretty sure it's the dark night of the soul. Okay, well tell me how you're praying. Well, I'm really not, because I'm not getting anything out of it. It doesn't work like that, you know, so we need to be faithful, go before the Lord, and just be present and be available to them, and realize that this is a part of that spiritual life, not just part of spiritual life, it's part of life in general, but it's work for it. Let me just say one more, one of the questions was, how do I be a witness to my family and friends, and that's just such a great question. And that one of the things I think that's really key is that you're faithful to yourself, and that you're faithful to the way the Lord is asking you to be, and the way the Lord's asking you. I think a danger sometimes is we run to our friends, particularly after initial conversion, and say, okay, you guys need to change, you need to change everything, you need to get rid of your music, you can't watch that TV show, and you're right, that's what you dress like this. That's not going to serve anything, right, so that you need to be able to be a witness by what the Lord is inviting you to do. And when you say, okay, this is what God wants me to do, it's non-judgmental, they can't debate it, it's non-dogmatic, it's just okay, this is what I think God wants me to do. Anything, we could do a whole webinar, a thing like this, but then the other is patience and love. You know, be patient with your family, be patient with your friends and love them, and those two things go along, right? You meant Julie, you want to add to that? I would only add one other thing, which is maybe tough for all of us, but is confidence. And like, not an arrogant confidence, like I'm right and you're wrong, but just when we live with conviction that isn't shaken, people suddenly take notice of that, you know, and a confidence is I'm confident in what I believe, and I trust that, I really believe it. And you know, if we argue about it or we debate it or you insult it, you know, I'm going to bear that patiently, I'm not going to get frustrated because I'm not to be shaken in our faith. That that sends a strong witness in a world where so much shakes and so much isn't worthy of having any confidence in. That's great. Yeah, the only thing I would add is, you know, I've been on a long experience journey with my brothers and sister, and you know, it took a long time to get there. I used to go home, come home with my family, visit my parents, and I'd have to listen to some snarky remarks from my brothers about, you know, you're the holding monitor, you know, you're your holy John, and you know, and understanding that, you know, in reality, you know, I never, I never figured God out, I don't know, God showed himself to me, he revealed his love to me, and because of that, you know, because of that, I was always able to be very patient with them and never used the truth to try to be love, but really when the door opened up, offer the truth and love of Christ as a refreshing drink in contrast to the hecticness of their lives. And I came to a, I had a couple years ago, um, when my mom passed away, and you know, can't get into it too deeply because there's just too much there, but the bottom line is two months after my mom passed, I went back home to visit my dad, I ended up praying with my brother Chris for over half an hour, in a way that we'd never been spiritually close. I mean, God opened that door, and sometimes God uses tragedies, and sometimes God uses the situations of life to open up people's hearts. The most important thing is never close the door, and always do it in love, because these are the people that you, you love them more than anyone in the world, and yet we can get sort of sensitive and so righteous with our truth that we forget that we're not called to be the mother of truth, we're called to, to woo them for Christ with his love. And if we keep that focus, you know, eventually love wins. Love will have a victory, and then Joseph, be confident in that, be confident in the victory that God provides. Um, we have, let me just take John real quick, and I don't know where I'm close, let me just take one of the questions given about young people, suicide, how do you talk to them about raised version of holiness? Uh, and you know, that's, that's just such a great question, and, and, and whomever wrote that, there's just a sensitivity to your heart that's good, that you desire to reach out to somebody because of someone, and, and some of those, some of those feelings that are there, um, well, I think they're really basic trust, basic very human conditions, confusion, frustration, holiness, those are, those are human conditions, they're human experiences, it's not just, just some people that have, so a couple things. First off, um, the reality is, is that there needs to be, uh, a desire and a commitment for you to walk with that person, that yeah, I, I've met too many people who just kind of come in and say, well God loves you and all this, which is all absolutely true, but, so the person who's in the midst of that hurting, um, that may not resonate for them, in fact it may say, it may actually make more difficult, it's not said, we still don't say that, and preach that, but, um, what we need to be able to do is, is actually help make that love of God real for them, in the way that we make that love of God real for them, it's loving men and watching for them. Now, um, one of the things I would just say, I'm a really practical note, if you are a young person, uh, then you need to get help with, for whomever it is that's having struggles, if they're, they're starting a suicide, but that's, it's not something you can take on by yourself, and, and that's hard, that's hard to go out to, you know, to an adult, to a youth minister, to a parent or a pastor, and seek some help, but you really do that, that you need to be able to reach out and get some help, get some of the else involved in the situation. And then the other is, is what I just alluded to, that, but it's not just talking and telling them about that stuff, all that's important, um, it's really important that you, you walk with them and you help show that to them, by the way you're patient with them, um, by the way you care for them, and show care and concern for them. And, and this would, that's saying, uh, spend some time praying for them, you know, that that's really, really difficult situation. But really, thank you very much for that, that was a really bold, creative question. And it's, you know, that's the only thing I can echo is that, um, not only to, to respond in your life with that kind of movement, that kind of feeling for, to, to think that your only option in life, the only hope that you have for ending your pain, your frustration in life, is to end your life, means that somewhere along the way they were shown, or through somebody's actions, how worthless they really are. And that's why walking with them and just being incarnate price to them on a journey is absolutely essential. You know, there's not a bumper stick or a t-shirt, slogan that we can say that we have a person in a situation that's going to turn it around. So, you know, God bless you if you're dealing with young people in your youth group, uh, you know, as you work with the young people that God has called you to serve. If you're, if you're seeing these kind of young people, everything Father Dave said, just stick with them and show them, show them, show them in every opportunity how lovely they are, be, uh, uh, by God. And, uh, you know, it's, uh, and, and, and, and, and, like I said, those kind of things over time change, continue. Um, you know, we've got about five minutes left. And before we wrap up, um, you know, I just wanted to, uh, kind of maybe, uh, ask, uh, Joel and Father Dave, and like if you have half a minute, you have any final comments, and then if you have anything going on in your ministry, if you got any kind of blogs or, um, or a website that you would like people to check out so you can learn more about your ministry, uh, go ahead and share that. Father Dave, what do you got going on in your last year? Well, let me just, like, like, my parting shot is, um, and I've said this a couple times, I just want to reiterate. It's a spiritual life. It's not a spiritual day. It's a spiritual journey. Um, the prize doesn't go, the scripture tells us, you know, it's the fastest and the strongest, but it goes to the one who's faithful. And there are going to be times that are just really, really great and times that are less and times that are really good both. And that is the spiritual life. But don't be discouraged one step at a time. Uh, when you fall down, get back up, that's why community is so important because sometimes you'll fall down and you need help getting up. And some of the times somebody else will fall down and you'll help them get up. We do this journey together. And it's just, it is the most amazing, remarkable, wonderful, life, uh, life and living your mission for Jesus in the power of His Holy Spirit. So, uh, just persevere, be strong-hearted. The thing I'm working on right now is called, The Wild Goose. It's a video series on the Holy Spirit. It's 14 parts, releases every Thursday. We're almost done, so you can see them all. The website is The Wild Goose. It's loose. It's important that you get that right. So, The Wild Goose is loose.com. And just, it just is really an explanation of the role of the Holy Spirit in our life. So, yeah, there's some of you that are kind of having questions and wondering about God's presence. I think it's a pretty good resource. It's an awesome resource. We'll just end with that. Joel, how about yourself? I think my, my final thing would be just to repeat what I said earlier. That God is not finished with you yet. God's not finished with me yet. We're on the discipleship and following the Lord as continued transformation, continued conversion. Even St. Peter continued to experience transformation and conversion. He was not the same person that He was when Jesus met Him to the moment when Jesus saw Him post-resurrection to the moment that Jesus, that Jesus welcomed St. Peter home when Peter was martyred for our Lord. He, He went through transformation. So, that's the same journey that we have. In that journey, it means there's going to be moments of frustration, moments of dryness, moments of sin, moments when we maybe feel our prayers go unanswered. I shared a story about having a Novena, you know, very directly responded to. I would just emphasize that that's the only time that's ever happened to me. It's a regular experience, you know, that the Lord hears all of our prayers, but that, that He responds to them accordingly. And sometimes the response is non-response right now, but He hears and He journeys with us. It'd be like if your best friend really pastured you for something that you knew wouldn't be good for them right now. You wouldn't give it to them because you love them and you know that there's better things for them. Our Lord is the same way. So, just because we have unanswered prayers, spiritual dryness doesn't mean that Jesus has given up on us or has finished with us. Quite to the contrary, He has not finished with us until the day that He welcomes us home. And so, I throw that out there to you just as a reminder and as encouragement. I work for Life Team, so check us out at LifeTeam.com. We've got a blog. We put up weekly blogs with faith, things for teenagers every week. And then follow us on Instagram, Twitter. My Twitter and Instagram is, you can just search me on Joel Staponic and I'd love to connect with you that way. And then just to emphasize, go to Father Dave's, Wild Goose is Loose Thing. They're awesome. It's an awesome project. So, I'll plug that in a third time. I will echo John's echo of Father Dave's Wild Goose. Okay, let's plug that in. It is a great resource. Real quickly, thank you everyone for being a part of this webinar. It'll be up on our website, studentvillefuel.com in a few days. You go to studentvillefuel.com and you can find blogs, videos, podcasts. All sorts of great content to help you grow your faith. We are constantly adding new stuff. We're going to be featuring through Easter, through Pentecost. We're going to have all of Father Dave's videos posted there for a while, so you can go check them out there if you don't get to them before Easter. But, you know, I don't have a Goose is Loose. It's just studentvillefuel. In addition, we are gearing up for another awesome season of conferences. We are doing 23 youth conferences across the United States, Canada. Five adult conferences and four young adult conferences. And to learn all about that, to follow us on social media, go check us out at studentvilleconferences.com. You know, our mission through the Christian Outreach Office is to go rebuild the church in the spirit of St. Francis. And we do that primarily through providing events where Catholics can gather and be renewed in their faith. I have this. I'm an alumni of studentville.com. We're building the church. We'd love for you to be a part of our conference outreach. Go check us out at studentvilleconferences.com. And, Father Dave, if you would be so kind as to end us with a prayer this evening and a digital blessing of sorts. Amen. All right. Everyone, put your mouse on your forehead. All right. Amen to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we bless you and thank you for the life that you have given to us and for us. Jesus, each one of us is on a journey of faith. Each one of us needs your grace and your conversion. So as to be able to be more faithful to you and encounter you in a daily life, ask your Holy Spirit to bless all those who've been participating in this webinar that they would know your love, your peace, your grace, your conversion. Hold them close to yourself. All right. Others, we draw closer to you on a time of Easter, continue to turn our hearts to you. And I might have got far as close since I knew the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Hey, you know what? Hey, thanks, man. These guys are going to sign off. But if you have any other ideas for webinars that you'd like to see us do, go ahead and type those in there right now. Any ideas? Type them in there real quick. We've got about 30 seconds for you to type in what you'd like us to do for our next topic. And then we're going to sign off. Once again, thank you, Father Dave. Thank you, Joel, for an awesome webinar. Thank you, everybody, for being out there and caring enough about the Lord, your faith. Join us. We look forward to serving you through other webinars and through our resources. And God bless you. During this season of Lent, that would be a great time of transformation and that you will have an awesome, awesome, joyful, joyful Easter. All right. God bless you all. God bless you guys. Thanks, everyone.