 Are we ministers of mercy or are we messengers of the truth? In this age of Pope Francis, this Pope that we never thought we would have that the American Cardinals, I think, never thought that they were going to get, are we ministers of mercy or are we messengers of truth? This probably ruins the talk, but I think the answer is it's pretty much one and the same. I don't think there's any difference at all if we truly are being ministers of mercy or and messengers of the truth. Why did I set it up in the title of this talk like that? Because I think there is healthy discussion right now about what this whole mercy thing means. When Pope Francis gave that famous quote, who am I to judge, I think a lot of us said, while you're the Pope, start there, right? If you're not making judgments, right? At the same time, we've come to, at least I have, and I think many of you have, have come to understand more deeply what he meant by that. We've come to appreciate that, and when we come to try to incarnate that in our own ministry, in our own lives, we realize how deep what he said truly is. There is this healthy discussion or conflict about whether we should be more messengers of the truth or ministers of mercy because we are called the judge, and Pope Francis judges, as I mentioned this morning, he judges us priests a lot, right? He's telling us to get out of the sacristy. He's telling us that we're supposed to smell like the sheep. He's telling us that we have to stop being, like he said this last week, animals. I don't know if you heard that. It was Argentinian priests or something else, right? He had a tough diocese, or I don't know, but because they don't baptize babies of single or unwed mothers or... And it's very easy then to begin to interpret and say, okay, well then, gosh, what am I supposed to let anyone do anything? In our parishes, it gets down to the nitty gritty. I got a call about three weeks ago from a bride I'd never seen before, but she needs to get married in her parish, right? My parish, her parish. And she said, I'm calling just to make sure it's okay with you that my maid of honor is a transvestite. I'm sorry, not transvestite, transgender. Not transvestite, a transgender. And she called first the secretary, and my secretary, who is... We've talked a lot about my secretary. She's wonderful, and she's very... She's such a simple, pure, wonderful, hard, and she called me up and she was heartbroken. She's like, what has my parish, what has my city, what has my world come to? And she was afraid of what I was going to say. She was afraid. She was afraid I was going to say, yes, no problem. That's what she was afraid, I think. And so I went and I recognized her fear, and I went and I spoke with her. And I said, let's test this out. What Pope Francis is calling us to do. Let's test out how to do, how to be ministers of mercy and messengers of truth. And I said, yeah, maybe they're trying to get us. Maybe they're trying to... Who knows? Maybe they're trying to get a news story that this transgender person wasn't able to. And so I called up first the bride to be. And I said, gosh, thanks for calling. I'm so looking forward to meeting you. And I said, so just tell me a little bit about the issue. And she told me that this was her best friend who transitioned to a woman biologically. And she said, I just want to know. And it turns out that she had totally pure intention, this bride. She goes, I just want to know what's allowed. And so we ended up having this amazing conversation. I said, first of all, I don't ask any... I've never asked anybody in a bridal party what their gender is. I don't know if any... Has anybody here asked a bridal party? I said, I don't... I've never done it. I don't know why I would begin doing it. But now you've brought it up to me. And so let's talk about it. I said, there's nothing sacramental... There's no sacramental element of the procession of the bridal party. And in fact, it wasn't the maid of honor, it was one of the bridesmaids. And I said, but at the same time, you have decided to have a Catholic wedding. And you've decided to come and ask God for His blessing and to receive the sacrament of holy matrimony. I said, let's talk about what you want with this. And if you think that she's going to be there sending another message, distracting us, etc., you can imagine how the conversation went. And she came to me, she goes, you know what, I just decided, I haven't asked her yet anyway. I decided that I'm not going to ask her to do this. I had already gone in saying that I was going to allow her to be in the bridal party, him or her, to be in the bridal party. I wasn't going to ask her, I wasn't going to gender. I was going to say, as long as this is not going to be a distraction from what we're celebrating, who am I to judge? Maybe that's a long example. But I think it's leading us to the very specific and detailed and nitty gritty and messy decisions that you and I have to make pastorally. As soon as we fall into the trap, in my opinion, of debating whether I should be mostly a messenger of truth or a minister of mercy, we have lost our way. We talked this morning about what our priority as parish priest should be. I told Jew priests that the gentleman who runs the pasta shop across the street told me that my main mission was to be a savior of souls. And in preparation for this retreat, I felt God very strongly remind me or tell me that that's not my main priority. My main priority is to be in friendship with Jesus, to be in communion with God, and to do that day in and day out, hour by hour, in making the decisions that I have to make. And then, of course, God's going to lead me within that friendship to make sure I save not only save souls, but to save this soul. And that's where this tension and this call and this invitation and this wonderful challenge from Pope Francis is really seen and felt. It's not in the salvation of souls. I am going to live a life in such a way that I am going to be saving souls. No, I am going to be a priest set apart and I'm going to make sure that other people recognize that I'm a set apart to save their souls. No, I am called as a friend of Jesus who has been and called to the priesthood to serve him in this way, to save this soul and this soul who is hurting, who is hurting, who is hurting, who is damaged. And because they're hurting and damaged, they drive me nuts because they have reactions that are not normal because they have likes and preferences and attachments that are not normal. I mean, I have in my church, I have more statues than you can possibly imagine. Okay, and I have an area for statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and there's a competition to see whose statue is bigger. And it's a serious, it's not a, it's not a, it's very serious competition of which statue is placed in front of the other, which one is taller than the other. And then we have processions and we have lots of processions. And if we had procession for a Lady of Guadalupe, why don't we have procession for the Altagracia? And why don't we, you know, and the list goes on. I am called to save because of my friendship with Jesus and his invitation to me to be working with those people who are attached to a three foot six inch statue. Because that is the only, only just option, three foot six, not three foot four or three foot three. Maybe one of the confusing aspects of, for us, for me of whether or not I should be more focused on being a messenger of truth or a minister of mercy is that sometimes I forget that I'm not God. Maybe we could answer this question. Can God have mercy on the unrepentant? It's a theological question. Can God have mercy on the unrepentant? I'm not really sure what the answer is. I would kind of lean towards no in the sense that mercy really flows from love, right? We know, for example, hell is a logical consequence of the fact that God doesn't force his love on anybody. We know this. I'm not going to get into this and probably because if I keep going, I'll make a mistake and you correct me later, right? But I think you know what I'm talking about, generally speaking, right? Well, if love, love flows, excuse me, mercy flows from love. Mercy is not something separate. You know, there's love, you know, there's justice and then there's this mercy thing that comes down and kind of cancels out love and justice. That's not it. Love, mercy flows from love. And if God can't force his love on somebody, he can't force his mercy on somebody. He can't say, welcome into the kingdom of the Father even though you don't want to be here. He doesn't say, I forgive you even though you are persistent in your sin. And as priests and as messengers of the truth, I think sometimes I find myself at least falling into, ah, therefore I don't have to be merciful to the unrepentant. You see where I'm going? And this is where I think we end up having trouble, where we justify our entran- entrangency, where we hide behind whatever it is, our schedule, our busyness, our cassock, our genes, our sunglasses, whatever it is. We all have different things that we hide behind because we don't want to go into the hurtful, painful place of learning to love the unlovable, to give mercy to those who are unrepentant. I don't know how many of you have been in Penn Station? Penn Station in New York, ah, New York, okay? It's the only Penn Station that matters, okay? I think there's one, there might be one, is there one in Philadelphia? Newark? I'm talking the Penn Station, the Penn Station New York City, okay? Okay. Well, Penn Station New York City I have to admit is a disaster, okay? It's not a nice place. Grand Central is a nice place. Penn Station is not a nice place. And, you know, Penn Station has, you know, people, but they're New Yorkers, which is, I find to be refreshing. You know, they have signs that say, you know, I need money for marijuana, you know, and amazingly people give them money, right? Well, I was there one morning, it was about 7.15 in the morning, and it was my day off, and I was waiting for a friend of mine and we were going to go to Long Beach, to the beach. And I was in casual clothes, 7.15 in the morning, my friend was late, and I was waiting in one of these terrible, kind of, deli slash, you know, they sell anything that somebody will buy, and everybody's walking in and out there fast, there's a few tables, and there was a guy there who, you know, who was sort of there, but he came up and he was asking for money. And I'm sitting at one table, there's another guy who was sitting at another table, and this guy comes up, and he goes, hey sir, can I get, no, I'm going to have some money for breakfast. And I said, I said, I'm not going to give you money, money, but I'll buy you some breakfast here, and he goes, oh, I don't buy my breakfast here. And I'm thinking to myself, all right, I'm a Midwestiner, but I'm not that dumb, right? I mean, I've been in the sense that, you know, in the Midwest, most people were asking for money or honest. These New Yorkers, you know, so I said, listen, I'm not going to give you money. I said, but where do you buy your breakfast? I was just curious. And he goes, well, just right around the, down there. And I said, well, what do you get there that you can't get here? Because they'll make anything for you. He goes, well, I get a low-fat brand muffin with whipped cream on top. And so I thought to myself, like, just, I mean, the guy deserves something for that, right? And so I reached in my pocket and hoping to find a couple of dollar bills, and all I had was a $20 bill on me. So I pulled it out, and the guy next to me at the other table almost died, you know, when he saw me doing this. And I looked at him, I said, okay, I'm going to give this to you, but bring back the change. And I gave it to him, he left, and after about five minutes, I could sense from the guy next to me, he was thinking, what an idiot. This guy must be from Michigan or Ohio or Indiana or something. But you know what, ten minutes later, or the total of ten minutes are so passed by, and the guy came back. And in his hand was what looked like a low-fat brand muffin with whipped cream on top. And not only did he have change, but he had a receipt. And he gave it to me, and I wanted to look at the guy next door to me. But instead I said to him, sir, I said, you don't know how much you've blessed me. I said, I'm a Roman Catholic priest, and you really witnessed to me. And he looked at me and he was, what's a Roman Catholic priest? What's a Roman Catholic priest? It's like a minister. And then he looked and he goes, you're a preacher man? And I said, yeah, I'm a preacher man. And he got down on his knees like this, and he lifted his hands up and he said, I have won the Jesus Lottery. The reason why we can't be just messengers of truth is because we're not God. The reasons why we can say with Pope Francis, who am I to judge the heart is because we are not God. The reason why we should err on the side of mercy or lead with mercy, lead with mercy, which doesn't mean we shouldn't speak the truth. But the reason why we should lead with mercy is because we are not God. The reason why we should be nice to our secretaries. The reason why we should be not only nice, but be servants of our associates or different diocese, call them different assistant pastors or vickers. The reason why we should be servants is because we are not God. The reason why you and I can forgive the unrepentant is because we are not God. We don't have to worry about being the ultimate judge. You know, God defines himself not only in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament, the book of Exodus, as a God of mercy. You remember when he tells Moses in the 34th chapter of Exodus that he, the Lord, is a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. I don't know what the person in your parish who doesn't like you, because I've got a bunch in mind who don't like me, but I don't know that any of them, and this is my fault, would say, ah, he is merciful and gracious. He is slow to anger. He is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. But the reason why we're not that with those people whom we don't like and who don't like us is because we are messengers of the truth. And sometimes you have to say it like it is. It sounds like a Donald Trump rally, right? I don't want to distract you, okay? I don't want to create any... I am from New York, that's true. I don't have this error, no. But it's very easy, it's very easy for us, for me, to fall into, hey, look, I'm doing the right thing here. You know, that person needs a little truth. I wouldn't say justice, because then I would say, ah, I probably have to confess that. I would say just the day before I came to the retreat, it was actually about an hour before I, and I was late, heading to the airport, my flight, my original flight, that I ended up getting delayed three hours, and so I had to try to get on an earlier flight, and I'm trying to do last minute meetings with different members of the staff. And I'm walking across the street, and there's a lady who sees me, I'm talking to these two guys, and there's a lady who sees me and who just kind of yelled at somebody else there on the street, and she saw me, and I didn't recognize her, but I'd recognize her, but I didn't know her, she doesn't go to Mass, and she goes, hey, Father! I said, ah, I don't want to talk to her, I definitely don't want to talk to her, but I don't want to talk to anyone right now, and the light hadn't changed, and she goes, wait right there! And really, I wanted to say, who are you to tell me wait right there? That's what I was feeling inside, wait right there! And when you hear that wait right there, okay, this is someone who's coming to complain, and she came over, and it's her New York, you know, tough character, and she said to me, she goes, people have been talking! I go, ah, people have been talking! They say that you're kind of social, like, you kind of like being with people, I'm like, oh, okay, that's not too bad, you know, but I'm not sure what, and she said, and they tell me you even have a drink with people, so I'm like sure, that's a good, and I said, what are you talking about, and she said, I'm not going to tell you exactly, oh no, and it turns out there was a new place that opened up on Arthur Avenue called Top Bus for those of you who are in New York, and when it's a little tiny place, and the owner invited me over when he was opening up to Blasset, and I had a drink with them, somehow this lady heard it, okay, and she goes, so tell me what do you like? Like, do you like, and she went, it turned out she had an unbelievable kind heart, she didn't know how to express it, but she had an unbelievable, here she is, she wanted to know what she could get me, okay, these are people who are right on the edge of, not only on the edge of a lot of stuff, okay, those of you who live in inner cities, you know, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Cleveland, and a lot of other places, you know what I mean, right on the edge of a lot of stuff, but here she had, that was all, that was her way of getting close to me, her way of getting close to me. I'm going to get a little bit maybe personal here and figuring out what it means for us to be ministers of mercy and messengers of truth about maybe, I guess it was three years ago or so, my sister, my youngest sister, I'm the third of seven, my youngest sister told the family in a pretty dramatic way that she was dating other women. She went here, she went to Franciscan University, she graduated 30 now, so she graduated nine years ago, and then she went on to Georgetown Law School and when she was at Georgetown Law School, she started dating other women with the help of a spiritual director there from Georgetown University, Law School, all of which bugged the heck out of me, you know, but that's how I was experiencing in that moment. She was saying this is what God wanted for her, et cetera. I told her at that moment, I said, Anne Marie, you know what, you know that I will love you no matter what, but then we ended up having a lot of discussions of what that meant and about what God's will is for her and what the source of this was and why this, and if she had, if I knew, and I'm thinking, I can't believe I scared her last boyfriend off. I mean, that was a very bad move on my part. But it was out of the blue type thing, right? Out of the blue. She ended up marrying civilly in Washington, D.C., the woman that she started dating, and she came to have a very, very strong attitude towards the rest of the family that she would not go to any family events, that her girlfriend and then eventually civil wife was not allowed to attend. And it's complicated in these situations when, you know, practicing Catholic family, I have five other siblings, and they have little kids. You know, so it's not just, it's not just, well, are you accepting or not, it's, you know, you have a 10-year-old, my 10-year-old nephew sees two women holding hands, and then he's not only asking, he's not just a question of gay or straight, it's, like, what is that, and how they're gonna have babies, and then it's, like, talk about sex and, like, at 10 years old. Right, this is my other brothers and sisters going, we don't want that conversation. And my sister, Emery, was saying, we will not, I will not go to any family event that we are not going as a couple. I will not take my ring off. I will not, okay, this was the attitude that she had. I'm only bringing this up because it's been a tremendous experience for me to try to understand what I'm called to do as a Christian and as a parish priest. Not only in these situations of, I know you heard a lot already today about homosexuality and, but I'm using it as one example, okay, one example for a lot of other pastoral issues. I want to read to you a little bit. I actually wrote about this in my last book, The Way of Serenity, on a chapter that I wrote about mercy before mercy was cool. Okay, and this is a letter that my sister Emery wrote to me after she read the first big interview that Pope Francis had done, okay. It was an email that I received from her that something beautiful and something miraculous, in my opinion, happened in my sister's soul. She wrote this to me. This is the already married civilian in Washington D.C. She says, all of this is to say that my first reading of the Pope's interview is that I felt like I was listening to the voice of Jesus. A Jesus I could believe in. I have had extreme difficulty in opening a Bible over the past number of years. I get knots in my stomach. Yesterday, she wrote, I experienced Jesus through Francis' words. I would have been disappointed and listened to this, and this is the miracle. Between ministers of mercy and messengers of truth, she says, I would have been disappointed if the interview only included the substance of what was highlighted in the news cycle, right, that who am I to judge, et cetera. But it didn't. It was filled with radical empathy, radical love, radical humanity, while not at any point watering down the Pope's understanding of objective truth. The news clippings conveniently left out the parts about moral consequences flowing from the simple, profound, radiant message of the Gospel. I'm thinking, Anne-Marie, I've been telling you these things for all these, you know? Like, right? What was it about Pope Francis' words or attitude? Later on, she told me, Jonathan, please don't ever say that phrase that I hate so much, speak the truth in love, because it's usually used as a way to hide behind the cowardly of speaking the truth because you want to speak the truth without loving one bit. Let's look, brothers, at one example from the Gospel, because Pope Francis is, he's going to be here this year, next year, five years, ten years, and then we'll have somebody else. Let's look at Jesus for a moment. We have 18 minutes, I think. And his relationship to Zacchaeus. He remembers Zacchaeus, the tax collector. He was the worst, of course, in the eyes of the Jews, because he was a Jew himself. He was a traitor to his own. He was from his fellow Jews to give to the Romans. I'm not going to go on into all of this because you guys know it probably better than I do. But let's take a look at it with the perspective or the glasses of mercy for a minute. What do we know about him? The Gospel says that he was rich, which means he was really good at doing what he was doing. Right, so he's probably smart, I guess in some way, street smart at least. He was short, right? He didn't have any friends because he was a traitor. So why did he want the money? What did he spend it on? I pictured him of having like, maybe this is because I'm from the Bronx, like big chains hanging down. Like gold chains. I also picture him as being a little heavy because he's probably living by himself and he's eating good food. I don't know. That's what I pictured him as. A short, shameless, wealthy, curious traitor. Of course, not a pretty picture. But for Jesus, he was pretty. For Jesus, he was his son. We remember Jesus' first words to Zacchaeus, right? Or his first word, remember? His first word when he looked up at him. He was shameless because he didn't mind imagine that guy climbing up a tree and looking down and his chains hanging down and his, right? And Jesus looking up at him and what was his first word? Remember his first, first word? Zacchaeus. I've got a lot of parishioners whose names I don't know. Hate it. But I know the ones that I care about. Or the ones who I care to avoid. I know their names, right? The ones who have harmed me. Or the ones that I can ask a donation from. I know their names. I know their addresses. I know their email addresses. Sometimes I even say yes to going to their houses for dinner. Not very often. But there are a lot of them I don't know their names. And Jesus looked up and he said Zacchaeus. Can you imagine what happened to his heart? The first might have been fright. If he knows my name what else does he know? Maybe. But my guess is that the way Jesus said his name he knew that there was love behind it. It wasn't Zacchaeus. We might be tempted to yell at our associate or something. Really? I probably shouldn't tell that story because this is too close to home. There are too many people here who know. If I say a previous pastor or something I'm not going to say that. He probably said Zacchaeus. Or something like that. Zacchaeus. And all these other people were watching him going. If he's friends with him. And then he said to him, Zacchaeus come down to the synagogue. Remember this? Because I've got a few words I need to tell you. He didn't. He said let's go have dinner. And Zacchaeus was like, he knows what I like to do. I love that. He knows what I like to do. We know the rest of the story. But let's remember what Zacchaeus really did. Zacchaeus the next thing we know is standing up. And it seemed like there was people around. But Zacchaeus didn't care. He said, look Lord. Let's imagine he had a million dollars. Now he says, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor. Now he's got 500,000. And if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount. Where did he get the million dollars? From cheating. Right? Let's say maybe only half of it was cheating. So he's got 500,000 dollars now. He's now got to pay back two million dollars. Zacchaeus was willing to go to the poor house. Zacchaeus was willing to file... No, there was no such thing. Zacchaeus was willing to work his butt off in order to pay back the very people that he cheated. Zacchaeus was willing to sell his gold chains. To probably sell his house. To change his diet. What a conversion. Back to my sister Ann Marie. One of my other sisters named Mary Hope. She's right underneath me. And she's probably the most conservative of the kids. I don't know if she would agree with that. But she went to Magdalen College. She was the only one who didn't go to Franciscan. Magdalen was conservative. And she stayed in New Hampshire. She had six children. She's awesome. But I think their kids are pretty... Not so much anymore. But they were pretty protected. She homeschooled for part of it. And now they're tired. So they send them out. But listen to... This is an... And my sister Ann Marie had decided that... My sister, Mary Hope, had decided that Ann Marie was definitely not allowed to come visit their house with her girlfriend. And listen to this email that I got from my sister, Mary Hope. She says, Jonathan, I think Ann Marie may have or will be forwarding on an email I sent her earlier this week. And as I had mentioned to you a couple weeks ago, my sister's husband and I really were moved by the interview by the Pope in conjunction with Annie's email to you. Because I forwarded to my whole family with her permission. She said, I was on retreat when I saw the interview and took the weekend to really read the interview and reflect on it. Coincidentally, Mike did the same while I was gone. I wanted to explain a little more to you since I didn't explain my whole reasoning to Annie and just made it simple to her that we both decided that we needed to change our relationship with her and her wife at the time, Katie. From my end, it was actually a much larger process than I explained to her. That Saturday I was on retreat. The Gospel was from St. Matthew and it was the calling of Matthew, the very one Francis spoke about. The priest who was doing the retreat was speaking of the significance of eating a meal with a person and how important it is to literally share our lives with those around us, especially the quote, sinners and the hurting. And he was explaining that this was not just a physical thing but being a part of the other's life and how important that was to reaching those who are lost. I've been really struggling, my sister told me in this email with how do you love someone completely, have them a part of your life and not be condoning of their lifestyle, especially as an example to my kids. Our culture makes it so normal to live a gay lifestyle or to live together before you marry or so many other things. That is all around us. I want to make sure it is clear to my children, especially through our example, that this is not a normal way of life according to God's plan and this way of life will not ultimately make you happy. Up until now it has been very clear to Mike and to me that the way we should do this is to let Annie know, remember that, say the truth and love, that we love her, we would love to have her in our lives and we cannot acknowledge their marriage and cannot have, I wrote in the book, Sally and Annie together as a couple with our children around. We kind of both thought it was very simple and we're very at peace with that. We knew not everyone agreed, but we also knew, meaning other members of the family, basically me, but we also knew we needed to do what was right for our family. Then this all happened. When I was reading through Pope Francis' interview, it was so clear to me that I need to be immersed in the relationship with Ann Marie. That was the only way that she was going to experience God's love, which I feel she needs more than anything else. The Pope said that no one is saved alone as an isolated individual, but God, quote, attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships, unquote. Although we didn't choose to have the suffering in our family, it is our web that is going to ultimately make us all reach heaven. If I try to run away from that web, I'm not saying yes to the life God has asked me to live, even if it may be messy, confusing, and hard. He also mentions that the church needs to heal wounds and that you can't try to fix the small issues when you really need to heal the whole person and their wounds. Once we do this, we can talk about everything else. And to do this, we need nearness. Listen to this, what she wrote. This went right to my heart, not about all the other relationships in my parish and in my community. And that lady was, what we need is nearness and proximity. Like all of us, Ann Marie has been hurt and I believe she is still really hurting. And although I don't know, I wrote Sally, I know that she has been hurt as well. He then talks about ministers, but I look at also towards me as well, warming the hearts of the people who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people's night, into the darkness. Oh, no, no, no, you get out of your darkness and then come see me. That hit me. I need to have confidence in my faith with Christ, not to be afraid to be immersed into Annie's life fully. I think that was my fear for me and my family. And lastly Pope Francis speaks about being willing to have tension in our lives. We are never going to know clearly the answers in our lives. We wouldn't be growing in faith if we thought we did. I hate not knowing for sure the right thing to do and what God wants me to do. But I have to accept that God calls each of us slowly and only he knows the direction he's sending us. We just have to respond, et cetera, et cetera. Annie responded to our email so happy. She wants to come up here and spend the day with us and Sally. She is willing just to come and go out for dinner with Mike and me if we aren't comfortable with them being together as a couple with the kids. That never happened before. I will not go out to dinner unless the whole family is present. You see? I don't know what we will do so please pray that we do it the right way, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know where all will go from here but I did want you to know where we are at since I knew Annie was going to share our email with you. Can't wait to see you next week. Ministers of mercy or messengers of truth. Obviously it's... Maybe we can say both and but then that gives us an out as well. Sometimes I'm merciful and sometimes I say the truth. We're called to be Christians. We are called to be followers of Jesus. As pastors, as parish priests, as associates, as seminarians, as deacons, we are called first and foremost to be Christians, which means that we're not God. Yes, we're called to speak the truth and in its fullness but we're called to do it in a way and my invitation to you or my suggestion or my proposition today is that we're called to do it in a way by leading with mercy, leading with mercy so that others can experience the truth as love. Let me say it again. Because we are not God, because we are called first and foremost to be Christians, we are called to communicate and to preach and to live the fullness of the message of the Gospel and to do it by leading with mercy in such a way that each and every one of the souls entrusted to us, which are not just the ones who show up at Mass, that each and every one of the souls entrusted us to us can experience that fullness of the message of the Gospel as love, as love. I don't know exactly how to do it and there's a few people who I'm almost convinced are unlovable but by faith I know that they're not because God loved them first just as he loved you and me and put very imperfect, very imperfect pastors and deacons and seminarians to be servant leaders of our church. God bless you.