 Well, good morning, brothers. Before I get started, I want to do just a little bit of business, simple business. I was supposed to send some pictures, images of books that I set aside that you guys could take a look at there in the bookstore. And I never, I forgot to do that. So I'm going to just show you what they are. I'll do it one time and I won't do it again. So I brought three books along to be, I think you'd find interesting. Ralph Martin's new book. It's called Priest as Prophet. Priestly Participation in the Prophetic Ministry of Jesus. He wrote this with the IPF in Nebraska on formations. It's really quite good. A book I wrote some time ago, when the Spirit comes in power. And then a book that I wrote this past year called Fear God and Give Him Glory. The Fear of the Lord is a precious, precious gift. It's a, Fear God and Give Him Glory comes from Revelation chapter 14, where the angel from mid-heaven is sent out to declare the eternal gospel across the earth. And that's what the angel said. Fear God and Give Him Glory. Worship Him who made the heavens and the earth. So those are available at the bookstore. My one commercial. This morning I woke up brothers thinking, with tremendous gratitude in my heart to the Lord. First of all, it's a privilege to be with you. But the first thought that came to mind this morning for me was what an epic moment we're living in. And what a privilege it is. What a blessing it is from the Lord to be alive now. And to be in the service of the King when literally the whole earth is shaking. I mean the judgments of God are in the land. You hear Isaiah this morning in Isaiah chapter 26 verse 9. He said, when God's judgments are in the land, men learn righteousness. There's that God's judgments are good. He's a loving God. And so the earth is shaking. And the church herself is in a moment of under the divine discipline of the Lord. You know, God disciplines those whom he loves. That's hard, he said, for a while it's painful. But what is he after? He's going to produce in the church the peaceful fruit of righteousness. That's what he's after. And so we see the earth shaking. We see the church, the weaknesses of the church, the sins of the church, the brokenness of the church happening. We all feel that weakness. We're kind of tired. And I feel like, wow, it's just about a perfect setup for the Lord, right? When we recognize that only the Lord, the King who alone has, he's got everything in his hands. The whole show that we're facing is in the palm of the King's hand. He's not nervous in heaven. He's not worried. He's the King. He's the Lord. And as Saint John Paul II said, the unfolding of this battle that we're facing all lies within the hands of divine providence. And that now, he said, it's time for the whole Christian community to be called into in this battle. And the Lord is preparing us precisely for this moment. So it's great to be alive, isn't it? It's great to be entering in this battle with our King, right? And it's got nothing to do with your weakness and your brokenness, my weakness and brokenness. Victory belongs to the... Was that ever lame? Victory belongs to the... The victory belongs to the... To the Lord, amen. So what I want to do... Oh, one last thing before I jump into the context. The other thought I had this morning is, in the midst of all this that I'm describing, here you guys are positioned, situated by God's will to be leading the church. Now, how about that? Yeah, wow, we're in trouble. We're in trouble. No. We boast in our weakness, don't we? We shouldn't be afraid of our own weakness. The amazing thing is, and for the priests in particular, you are living sign... Your prophets. You're living at a time when the world is turning its back on God, when the kings of the earth are saying the whole God myth, the whole grand story of the Christian thing is over. We're moving away from it. Atheism is rising. There's hostility against the church. And you guys are at the center. And your life, you can't escape it. Other people can lay in the weeds if they want. You can't because you're a prophet. Your whole life is, as an old seminary professor said to me, many years ago, yes, I was in the seminary, minor seminary years ago. He said that the celibate is a living sign, a declaration to the whole world, that the eschaton has begun and only the judgment remains. How about that? You guys are looking at me like, what the heck does that mean? You literally, your life makes no sense apart from Christ. Amen? Turn to somebody next to you and say, your life makes no sense apart from Christ. That's absolutely true. You guys are really, he really set you up. Isn't that great? You can't escape the fact, even with a world that's saying, no, there is no God. I'm God. I make up my own reality. I make up my own truth. I determine what's good. I determined what man is, what woman is. All this stuff and all kinds of Catholics, by the way, baptized Catholics are doing what? They're drifting with the culture, aren't they? There is a huge pruning that's going on in the church. It's under the hands of divine providence. What does John 15 say? Jesus said, my father is divine dresser. What does the father do? The father cuts off dead branches and he prunes good ones. He's cutting off some dead branches into church for the sake of those branches and for the sake of the church and her witness. There's a time of extraordinary purification going on. The Lord is so near to us. His work is so deep in us right now. We're living in such an epic prophetic moment, brothers, and you guys are right dead in the center of it. What a gift. Amen. You guys are looking at me like this. Who is this dude? Get him off the stage, you know. It's true. It's true. Now, what I want to do is take up our theme today and try to do a couple of things before my time is up. The passage that was chosen is one of my favorites, and I'm very grateful for it. What I'd like to do is just take a look at Acts 26. Take a little deeper look. Draw out from Paul's experience something we can learn about ourselves. And then what I'd like to do is to see Paul's experience and see our experience in the grace of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and what the Lord has done through the Catholic Charismatic Renewal for the sake of the whole church. What he's done and how that relates to Paul's experience. Then I want to speak directly to the priesthood itself at this moment. And then I want to end with a story. Okay, can you keep me on that track? All right. Man, I wish we were outside on the hill out there, don't you? Sunshine and be much better to be out there, wouldn't it? All right, here we go. Acts 26. And I said, who are you, Lord? This is Paul having fallen down. He's on the ground. He says, and the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you're persecuting, but rise and stand upon your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose to appoint you to serve and to bear witness to the things which you have seen in me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles to whom I send you, to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from Satan to God and that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. So this experience of St. Paul, the grounding of his, you know, the founding, the grounding of his entire ministry begins with the revelation of the glory and the majesty of Jesus. And in that moment, St. Paul receives his assignment from the Lord and his assignment is clear. First of all, Jesus ordered him rightly under his Lordship and said, Paul, you serve me now. You're my servant and I've chosen you to be a witness and I want you to witness to what you've seen, what you've seen in me. I want you to tell everyone what you see. Excuse me. And then he goes on to say, and as I send you, we send him obviously to the Gentile world and he's saying, this is essentially your assignment. I'm sending you to open their eyes because they cannot see. Their minds, their eyes are darkened so that they can turn from darkness to light from Satan to God. That's exactly the assignment that the Lord has given you and given all of us in the body of Christ. We're all sent, but you guys are on the point. We're living at a time of the rise of darkness. We're living at a time when the kingdom of dark, for whatever reason, the enemy somehow has picked this time for an epic strike at the body of Christ. And the rise of darkness, an attempt to take control over more of the social order, more of the culture, to weaken the church. We're in an epic battle and people whose minds have been darkened, as Paul says in many different places, without even realizing it probably, are at the service of the enemy. And you're being sent to bear witness to what you have seen and in bearing witness to what you've seen and what God has shown you is going to give you all that you need to help break through the darkness with the light of what Christ has given you for what purpose. Jesus' end game is so that more and more people who are trapped in darkness can come and be a part of those who are sanctified, who are set apart, who are saved by faith in Christ. That's the big picture. Now, Saint Paul, this grounding experience from Paul, it emerges so many times in the New Testament, its impact, and this vision of Jesus, this experiential knowledge of Christ was the foundation for which Paul lived from. It's what allowed him to say in the midst of that litany of crazy, difficult things that were read about his life yesterday. I mean, if we live through the list of things he's living through, how many times would we be complaining, where's God? God has abandoned me. I don't know what to do. Life is too hard. Instead, like Paul, Paul's not afraid of any of it. Those circumstances don't hold him back. They don't discourage him. They don't cause him to back up, to want to quit, to want to give up, to feel like it's not possible. I can't break through this. He had something greater in him, a revelation of the Lordship and majesty of Jesus. You know, for many years at this conference, Father Francis Martin used to be a regular. How many of you were here back in the days when Father Francis, wasn't he a precious gift to the church? Absolutely amazing, amazing. And I used to, I used to get, you could buy the cassettes, you know, of these conferences. And I used to buy his cassettes every year. And at the end of the summer, my family would go on vacation up in Northern Michigan, and I had little kids. And I used to get up before anybody got up, and I'd sit outside with a cassette recorder, remember those things, those cassette recorders, you know? And I, you know, I clicked that baby at six o'clock in the morning, 6.15, no joke. You know, the sun's starting to come up, and I'm there on the porch, everybody's sleeping, the birds are chirping, and I'm tuning in to Father Francis Martin, and I'll never forget. The kind of things he said. He said, the baptism in the Spirit is a revelation from the Spirit of God to the Spirit of the believer that Jesus Christ is Lord. It's a revelation. He said it's an experiential knowledge that Jesus is Lord. It's not just, you know, words on a paper or data that's important to, you know, to take into consideration. This is why he went on to say, this is why the baptism in the Spirit, friends, is not just a form of renewal in the church. This is the renewal of the essence of the ground, of the core of the center. God is coming to us at this hour, and he's restoring what's at the center of the revelation of Jesus. What's at the center of Christianity, and he's putting in the hearts of people, of men and women, a revelation of the Lordship and majesty. Yeah, maybe it wasn't as big as the one Saint Paul got, but tell you what, it's big enough, because whatever he gave us is enough for the assignment that he's given to each one of us, and it's going to strengthen us and give us the encouragement we need and the courage and the fear of the Lord to stand no matter what comes. Amen? Amen. Thank God for Father Francis. So much there, so much wisdom. Now, Saint Paul, you can see how much this ground, this revelation that he received from the Lord, he referred to it many times, you might say, in, for example, his apostolic prayers. When he prayed for the believers, when he prayed for the communities he was caring for, Ephesians chapter one, you know this, you've preached on it probably many times, the deep prayer of Saint Paul. I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Paul's speaking from experience, he received wisdom in the revelation that he received from the Lord and having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope he has called you to. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe? I mean, brothers, how many priests do you know, how many Catholics do you know that are just so beaten down and discouraged right now, we just feel so powerless? It feels like we can hardly make any advance. Is this, can you guys relate to this or is it just my imagination? Raise your hand, right? A few years ago, there was a priest that came to Saint, to Detroit from Ireland. He came to the seminary and he asked to meet with me and asked me with Ralph Martin, some other people. And he was a teacher at Maneuth at the big seminary there in Ireland. It'd been there for a long time. And the Archbishop had pulled him out to help lead the investigation to the crises that were emerging in terms of the sexual misconduct that happened among priests and others there. He just said, I don't know why he chose me. You know, it's so hard. And then he was, he's an articulate guy so the bishop had him be the PR person once the whole investigation was done to kind of get in front of the cameras and talk about it, which he wasn't looking forward to. He said, then he gave me the assignment to help spearhead re-evangelization of the archdiocese in Dublin. And so I asked him, I said, Father, how are you doing? He goes, man, this is hard. This is really hard. I said, well, how's the esprit de corps of the brothers in Ireland among the priests? And he said to me, Peter, I've never seen anything like it. He said, the level of discouragement. Our country is turning upside down. You know, we're supporting divorce now. We're supporting gay marriage. We're supporting abortion in a way. We disregarded Pope John Paul II's prophetic words to us in 1979. Many of my brothers will not wear their clerics in public, he said, because of the hostility they experience, because of the shame that they feel, and they're in a place and they're afraid, he said, they're afraid. I said, I totally, I totally get that. I can understand that. But one of the fundamental things, brother, as I thought about it more and more, and he and I spoke about it, the only antidote to that is to see not only the greatness of the problem, but the greatness of our King, to have a faith conviction of hope, of confidence, of revelation. The reason Paul is saying, listen to what he's saying, I want to read it again, that you may know what is the hope. He knows hope is tested all the time. And the way we keep that hope, the way that hope stays alive, comes alive, and is victorious in us, is what he's praying for, that God would enlighten your hearts. That God would shed his light into your heart and give you great confidence about his glory majesty and the power that's in us who believe. He said, according to the working of his great might, which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who feels all in all. Paul will tell us in Romans that the hope we have is not disappointed. Why? Because God has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The circumstances of life, the trouble that we experience, it can't be the center of our gaze. It can't be the preoccupation of our mind. What God is doing in us and what he wants to do in us is this permanent grace that's given to us in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He wants to restore our confidence in who he is and his nearness to us and to restore our hope, which is the basis of courage. We know where our life is headed. Now Paul, in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, not only talks about the outpouring of the love of God, but in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he makes it clear about where and how human beings who are caught in darkness or in deep discouragement, how do they come out of it? How do they access it? Chapter 4, 2 Corinthians. Paul's got that beautiful section where basically it's a description about what evangelization is and how the gospel goes forth. And he says, therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God that is the preaching of the gospel, we do not lose heart. How many times, brothers, has this past year have you felt like you're losing heart, right? And I'm bringing it up not to condemn or to... It's part of the battle that we're living in. And the Lord is... The Lord reveals that, brothers, in us because partly it reveals that we're leaning on other things a bit, that we're looking for something that ultimately will not satisfy us and he's stripping away those things. He's allowing us to experience our brokenness and to come to him because he's going to give you what you need. And he's going to give you what you need so you can preach it, so you can give away what you know you got. Right? So for Paul, he says he describes so beautifully here in 2 Corinthians. He says, We have renounced disgraceful and underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or tamper with God's word. I love that. There's a lot of tampering with God's word that's going on in various parts of the church today. That's not a wise thing. But with the open statement of the truth, that's a way to describe evangelization, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Another way to say that is we witness, as Jesus said. We're witnessing to the reality of what we've received. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. There's a very thick veil that's coming down on the minds and hearts of human beings all around the world, even within the church it's present. This devil's strategy is to keep them from seeing the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the likeness of God. So Paul says, this is what I do. He goes on to say, For what I preach is not ourselves, but I preach Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that shines on the face of Christ. The proclamation, Paul is saying, you remember him saying, It's not because of my persuasive wisdom. I proclaim the truth about what I myself have witnessed. And the Holy Spirit, that passage, the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness is the God. Where does that come at? The beginning of Genesis. Let there be light. Paul says, when I preach that word with faith conviction, the God who was there at Genesis at the beginning of all things sheds his light into the human heart and reveals the glory and majesty on the face of Jesus. This is so important, especially for this time. I was talking to Tim Hepburn yesterday. Tim, are you here? Tim from the music ministry. He's in the life insurance business. I asked him, how's business? He goes, man, 2020, it was essentially off the charts. And I said, why? I mean, it was pretty obvious. He goes, people are afraid of dying. One of the battles, and one of the reasons the Lord has permitted this last year to happen, is he's shaking the earth because he wants people to let go of what is shakeable, to let go of their fear of death, the devil's strategies to enslave the human race through the fear of death, the writer of Hebrews tells us. And what got revealed is just how much fear people have of dying. They're afraid in a world where there is no God, I don't care how smart people talk about it, how much they think they got it figured out, they don't. They don't have something that can overcome the darkness that sheds its darkness over the human heart. The dawn from on high has shed upon us and shed light into the human heart. That's where the only light comes from. And Paul is saying, this is the antidote to the fear that grips the human heart and the fear of death and not the fear of God leads people into madness. It leads people into slavery. It leads people into confusion. That's why he's saying, you're the light of the world. And brothers, if our light begins to go dim and our salt goes flat, what did Jesus say about that? He said, if your light goes dim and your salt goes flat, you're no good to me. He said, you're the light of the world. In some ways, brothers, we're all dealing with adjusting to the weakness of the church, the collapsing of dimensions of the church, the rise of darkness in different ways, and we're personally being shaken by it. We're being destabilized by it. That's okay. The Lord wants you to come back to Him and on your knees and honor Him and say, Lord, I need to see more of you. I need to see more of you. I need more of your Holy Spirit. Baptize me again in the Holy Spirit. Give me the anointing I need for this hour. I don't want to live in fear. I don't want to be afraid. I don't want to be discouraged. I want to be a light, and I can't do it on my own. I don't have the strength to do it, but I know that you do. And I'm going to put my trust in you. And greater is He that's in me than He that's in the world. Lord, I've lost sight of that, and I'm living with the fear of men. I'm under discouragement, and I'm really sorry. I want to repent of that, Lord. Yes, I want to bring friends to help me with the struggles. But Lord, between me and you, you're the Lord, and I'm not acting like you're the Lord. My confidence is in other things, and I'm so sorry. I have just this little window of life left. Did you know you're going to be dead soon, brothers? Guys are like, man, this guy is such a buzzkill. Right? Okay, turn to somebody next to you and say you're going to be dead soon. Yeah, look at me in the eye and just tell them you're going to be dead soon. Hey, that's biblical, right? Life is a breath, it's a passing shadow. You're here today and you're gone tomorrow. Soon you're going to be before the judgment seat of Christ. Oh, wow, what a day. What a day you're going to see him face to face with eyes flaming fire. The burning love that's in his heart. The love that he's pouring out in the baptism of the Spirit. The loving judgments that's going out. You know what he does? The Lord's fire, brothers, is first of all that fire of that love that Paul talks about. That's what he wants to cast into human hearts. That's what he wants to do. He wants to dispel the darkness. He wants to bring them alive. And he wants them to burn like his heart burns. That's why John in Revelation saw a vision of Jesus with his eyes flaming fire. That fire in his eyes, the eyes, the window to his soul. It's a window to his heart. That man, Jesus Christ, he burns in a human body for heaven's sakes, brothers. He's a flame with trinitarian love. He's unstoppable. He's the most overwhelming force in the cosmos. He's the Lord of glory. It burns in a human body. That's why he said, that's why Paul said Second Corinthians. You see the glory of God on a human face. This is why people come alive. It dispels the fear of death. I see my destiny on the face of Jesus Christ. I know where my life is going. I don't have to be afraid. He's got me in the palm of his hand. He's the Lord and nothing will separate me from his love. Isn't that amazing? You're starting to believe just a little bit. Yeah. Oh, brothers, you know, wow, what a moment we're living in. What an opportunity in the temptation. I felt it. I didn't want to go outside. I don't want to get canceled. I don't want to have to, you know, show my woke, you know, that I know that I'm woke. I'm woke to the right thing. I'm woke to the King. That's all that really matters. And the Lord wants us to go forth. And I've got a temptation. Now I just want to turn on the TV. I want to watch another Netflix movie. I want another drink. I want to go play another round of golf. All that. I mean, some of those things are fine. But, brothers, how much timidity is in us? How much fear is in us? You're facing something. I'm facing something. You're facing something you never dreamed would happen in your priesthood. The culture is turning against you. Wow. That gets us discouraged. You know what Peter says? Saint Peter said, when that happens to you, when men come against you, when they revile you, when they mistreat you, they falsely judge you. What does he say? Back up, hunker down, get some support, go see a therapist, whatever. You know what he said? Rejoice because the glory of God is upon you. And why are you surprised that the fiery ordeal has come upon you? And why are you surprised that the world acts worldly? Right? I mean, so, Jesus wants to renew you in this week. He wants to cast more fire into your heart. He wants to renew your strength. He wants to heal you. He wants to give you more so that you can give it away. He wants to help burn away your fear. So he wants to help you fear God and not fear men. He doesn't want you to fear your sickness or your weakness or age or anything. And he wants you to be able to see of all the people on the earth, I'm so privileged as a priest, as a deacon, even though I'm going to be home soon before the Lord. I get to, as my whole vocation, to witness to what he's shown me and to tell people in this time of darkness and fear, people are scrambling. I get to go right into the heart of it and bring the light of Christ. Isn't that amazing? Amen. And he wants you to go out swinging. He doesn't want you to fade at the tape. He wants you to run across fully. And he's going to give you what you need to do that. Do you believe it? All right, there's like three guys, okay. But Jesus will take whoever's there. Do you believe it? Amen, amen, amen. Paul is so great. Now I need to shift. So Paul speaks about that. Love of Christ gives us hope. We're sons of God. We're children of God. He also said in Romans, you know, behold the kindness and the severity of God. The fire of God's love will come to bring to birth life and bring people into the love of God. But if people insist on doubling down and turning away from God, eventually God's judgments come. God's judgments are good, as we said earlier. And his fire becomes a fire of judgment to come and take away all that hinders love. Jesus never did anything that isn't loving. God never did anything that isn't pure love. It always drives me crazy when, if I just say one word about judgment, but people always then immediately go, well, you know, the mercy of God, the love of God. I said, I know, I know the judgment of God. Get it straight, Christians. The judgments of God are just the other side of expression of his love and his mercy. And he does it to awaken us and to shake us. You believe that? Yeah. And you can't be afraid to talk about it. You don't thunder down on people. You just point and say, wow, look what's happening. Look what God is doing. Let's pay attention to this and respond to it. Amen? Okay. Now, the baptism in the spirit. Cardinal Conta La Mesa said again recently, you know, underlining the same thing. This really is the fundamental grace of our time. It is the antidote. It is the antidote for the darkness and the battle that we're facing. The enemy's rising. He's asserting his power. He's showing his teeth. And only the Lordship of Jesus and light that comes from Christ can withstand it. And that's why he pours it into our hearts the way he does. And so we should be super confident about what the Lord has given to us and continue to ask the Lord for more and more. I mean, the recent Magisterium, you know, the discernment is there. The discernment has come. What is it? What we're experiencing. Paul VI called it a chance for the church. John Paul II called it a new Pentecost and rediscovering the charismatic dimension of the church. John, Pope Benedict XVI said that it's really the renewal of the fundamental realities of Christianity. Pope Francis called it a current of grace in and for the church. And a movement that is willed by God for this time. Right? I always think of both kinds of currents. You know, there's the current of water kind of just being carried. And then there's the electrical shock of the power of God that can go through us either way, right? So we know God has poured this out and we've received it. But also, brothers, as Paul said, he said, as Jesus said to Paul, what you've seen and what I will show you. Very interesting to me. I hadn't thought a lot about this over the years, but COVID led me to think about this more and more. I don't know if you... Did you guys get a chance to read Father Mike Scanlon's prophecies from 1976 and 1980 that he gave that were just so timely? Weren't they amazing? But here, 1975, this is so interesting. 1975, the young charismatic renewal has its first meeting ever in Rome at St. Peter's. And the Pope comes, Paul VI. And he comes and exercises in his role as Pope, the vicar of Christ. He exercises discernment and he talks about what is this movement? And he explains, you know, he says things about it. And that's one of the places where he said it's a chance for the church. So there's less than a million people in the world that are involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal at that time. Big celebration. It's amazing the Pope came. They're feeling good. Everybody's celebrating in full of joy. And the next day they have mass at the high altar. And after communion, Ralph Martin gets up and gives a prophecy. And he says, because I love you, I'm going to show you what's coming. A time of darkness is coming upon the world. A time of judgment, which will lead to a time of great glory for my church. And a time of evangelization the world has never seen. Father Mike in 1980 gave a very strong prophecy. What began with blessings and gifts, the free outpouring of the mercy of God and the baptism in the Spirit. He said it's going to also lead to a time of purification and judgment. Two elders in this whole movement, holy men hearing God tested. So I'm personally grateful because the Lord not only showed us Himself in a deeper way, but he also showed us what is to come and what to see and what God's plans are. So I'm standing here. I am totally convinced that we literally are in what those brothers were describing prophetically. And it's going to lead to a time of glory for the church, which is going to include persecution. It's going to include testing and trial, but it's going to lead to a time of great evangelization. Amen. All right. I want to just read something from Pope Benedict about priests. He was reflecting in 1998 on the rise of the movements in the church. In particular, and he called them eruptions in the life of the church, eruptions of the Spirit. And then he said some things about the relationship between the institution, holy orders, sacraments, and charismatic dimension, especially in relationship to those who are ordained. So I'm going to just read this to you. He said, the church must constantly check its own institutional structure in order to keep it from taking on too much weight, to prevent it from hardening into an armor that stifles its real spiritual life. He said, let us return now to our question. How do we characterize the relationship between the permanent pattern of the order in the church, orders, and the ever-charismatic eruptions that happen? How do these things go together? Here's what he said. It's important that the spiritual office, the priesthood, itself be understood charismatically. The priest himself should be a pneumatic, a homo spirituale, a man of the Spirit, a man awakened and driven by the Spirit. Is that beautiful? This is what a priest is, a man who is awakened. How are you guys doing out there? Are you awake? I can't see because it's kind of dark out there. Right? Awakened by the Spirit. And then he goes on to say, second thing, where the spiritual office is lived pneumatically and charismatically in this way, there's no institutional hardening. Rather, there is an intrinsic openness to charisms and a sort of nose for the Holy Spirit, and his action emerges. How about that? Let me ask you, how's your sniffer? Do you have a nose, as he's describing, a nose for the Holy Spirit? Like a hunting dog that's on the scent. You know, have you lost your scent? Have you lost your hunger for the scent? Or are you like an old-tired dog that can't get up anymore? Right? Your priesthood, as he said, is meant to be lived charismatically, to be filled with awaken to the Holy Spirit who's alive in you, and you follow his scent, and his scent leads you in your ministry. So you don't have to try to figure out what to do all the time, and figure out how to get people interested. You follow the scent, you receive it, and you go for it. Amen? So I'm going to pray today before I'm done for your nose, all right? That the Lord give you good, clear schnoz, like a good hunting dog, to be able to follow the scent of the Holy Spirit. Well, back in, I would tell you, just want to end with a little story here to kind of pull it together. I grew up in a family, lived in southern Minnesota, a little farming community, a little town called Newalm. Anybody know where that is? Anybody here from Minnesota? All right. I knew there was like an anointing right over there. Grace. All right. So I lived a block from the cathedral, the Catholic schools that were there, on the second youngest of seven kids. We went to church every Sunday. When I was a kid, like most of you, everybody went to church on Sunday for the most part. The town was shut down. It was still Christendom. It was the last gas of Christendom. Everybody kind of paid attention. Now, on the outside, my family looked like we had a lot going for us. Inside, we had problems. We were dysfunctional. Anybody come and have a little dysfunction? No, I won't ask you. Disfunction junction. That's where I lived for a time. My dad, who was a good man, businessman, city councilman, he was an old tank commander in Patton's Third Army, the Battle of the Bulge. He was, he was at, he helped liberate Mothouse and concentration camp. He could speak fluent German. It's a German community that we grew up in. And so after the war, my dad, like many of his friends, actually, because they didn't want, they just wanted to forget what they just experienced and they wanted to move on. Had a lot of pain, didn't know how to deal with it. He had PTSD, probably he'd be diagnosed today, and he developed a drinking problem. So this was with our family for years. And it was, we had all the issues that go with that, right? And so he had gone to treatment a number of times. Nothing ever worked. And then when I was a junior in high school, six other brothers and sisters, and I was the only black sheep in the family. I just was in full-on rebellion all the time, pretty much. I couldn't explain to you why, even when looking back. But I kind of know why now, because I know how these things work in families. But I was certainly drifting from the faith, and some of my older brothers and sisters were doing the same thing. Then one day, one of my sisters calls home, my oldest sister. She lived in Northern Minnesota with her young family. She said, I need to come home and tell you guys something. Make sure that you're going to be home. So I'm home on the weekend, a couple of my sisters and my brothers were lived far away, so they couldn't come. And she's sitting at the table on a Saturday night, my dad was out drinking, and she said, you guys, I'm going to tell you something. She goes, I believe that God wants to heal dad, that Jesus Christ is alive, and he has the power to heal that. Now, we never talk like this in our home. Never. Never had a conversation like that. And my sister says, I said, well, how do you know that? She goes, well, last week at our prayer meeting, first time I ever heard the words prayer meeting, I was a junior in high school. She goes, a prayer meeting in our parish, small little group in a little farmer community in Northern Minnesota. She said, we meet every Wednesday and we pray at the end for people's needs. And we've been praying for dad for about six months. And last week, after we prayed, I was, after we were done, I was going to the car and one of the local farmer came up to her and said, Kathy, my sister's name, and it said, Kathy, while we were praying for your dad, I felt Jesus come and tell me to tell you that he's heard your prayers and that if your family gathers around him and comes back to him and gives your father more explicitly to the Lord together, not just my mom, who prayed the rosary every single day, the Lord's going to bring healing to your dad. And she goes, now I'm getting in the car and another guy comes up and said, basically the same thing. And she goes, that's God's word. God is speaking. So I'm thinking, God spoke to two farmers in Northern Minnesota about us. What? You know? And she had so much conviction and so much faith and so much confidence and she spoke to the name of Jesus. We didn't do that in our home. I mean, just wasn't part of the culture, right? We never had spiritual conversations like this. She goes, I'm serious, you guys, and if we turn to the Lord, he will help us. She said, some of you are just, you know, some of you are just running from God and she looked right at me at the end of the table, you know? I was like 16, 17. Then I go to bed that night. Nothing more I wanted than my dad to be sober. I'm laying in my bed. I didn't know what to do. This is all new to me completely. I got out of my bed and I knelt down for the first time since I was in elementary school and I said, Lord, if you're real, if this is real, please heal dad, you know? And I was laying in bed, fell asleep that night. Two weeks later on a Monday night, my dad comes home. He always drank on Monday nights for some reason. And I had to wait up for him and help him get to bed. So I'm sitting doing homework at the dining room table. That would be a sign of some kind of apocalyptic thing happening in and of itself. And I'm sitting there. My dad comes and he sits down next to me and I didn't look at him and I could, I could, you know, hear him breathing. I could smell the booze on him and he said to me, Peter, and I didn't want to look up at him. And then he reached out. He's an old tank commander. He's a big guy. And he reached out, he grabbed my arm and he squeezed and he's shaking. And he said, son, look at me. And I looked up at him and I saw a tear come down his cheek. I never saw my dad shed a tear in my life. And he said, son, I'm a very sick man and I need help. Please help me. And here I am 17, barely having any faith. And all of a sudden what comes out of my mouth, I go, dad, the Lord's going to help us. The Lord's going to help us. He gets up and walks in quarter to 12 at night, calls our family physician, Doc Ringhofer, and said, Doc, this is Joe Herbeck. I'm an alcoholic. He said, I need help. I'm a sick SOB, he said. He went into treatment, four weeks of treatment. He got up at the end and said, my name is Joe Herbeck. I can't live without Christ at the center of my life. He was sober for the next 20 years, the best years of his life. Then I start coming alive because I saw it. Then one of my sisters invites me to go to a prayer meeting, no, to a mass in my hometown on a Tuesday night. Tuesday night, why would I go to mass on a Tuesday night in the middle of the summer? I go down there and there's about 100 middle-aged women and about five guys in this church, okay? And they're having mass and they're all like, glory to God, you know? And I was the only teenage boy who came in there and I swear when I walked in they all went, you know, one of those kind of deals. So I'm in there, nice time, totally insecure, never raised my hands, felt totally weird. And then at the end there was an announcement that said there's a bus on the seat to Notre Dame. And my sister elbows me and goes, that seat's for you. There's a seat there. I said, what? You know, touch down Jesus? I'm all for it. Let's go. She goes, no, it's a, it's like, it's a meeting like this, but there'll be like 30,000 people. I said, 30,000 middle-aged women in me? No thanks. That doesn't add up for me. You know? Lot to that story, but I end up on that bus. I hear Father Francis Martin that weekend. I heard Ralph Martin that weekend. I heard John Bertolucci that weekend. I heard Mike Scanlon that weekend. And I, the conviction of God came on me. I was repenting. I went to confession. One night for Saturday night I was in a room with a guy who worked for the bishop. And I said, man, I, jeez, oh man, what I see around me here is unbelievable, but you know, I'm afraid to go back because I don't think I can live this. I don't think I have the strength. And I kept talking to the guys like 12, 30, he goes, dude, no one comes to one of these things with an open heart without getting blasted. So just shut up and go to bed. He said. Now that's pastoral care right there, isn't it? So the next morning, I'm begging God at Mass. Lord, whatever you put in Ralph Martin and these guys, I want it because I don't have it. Then I go to communion. Stuff happens after communion. I go to communion and I'm standing there and a guy comes and taps me on the shoulder, looks at my name tag and says, excuse me, Peter, he said, I'm standing back here a few rows back. Can I share something with you? I said, yeah. He goes, when you went to communion, my eyes fell on you and Jesus came for me to tell you the faith and love that you seek, Son, shall be granted to you because Christ loves you and he died for you. And as soon as he said that, bam, the Spirit of God came on me and I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and then life went on and then I ended up in Ann Arbor and then I ended up working with Ralph Martin and now we've done, like, got a prophecy about going to the nations of someone who didn't even know us and we've been, we've done almost 1,000 missions all over the world. And I sat down with my sister. I pulled all my siblings together in the second youngest a month ago in the Twin Cities, Lake Calhoun. Six of us there, my other brother had to zoom him in and we're praying together and remembering the things God has done. My oldest sister who got that word she's got to mention now, we brought her in, she came in and out, it was so beautiful, we laid hands on her, we prayed the rosary, we celebrated God's goodness and I had asked my sister a little while back, I'd forgotten, I said, Kathy, how did that happen to you? What happened to you? She goes, well, we had this little book club in St. Paul and there was a priest. His name was Father Tim Nolan. He was a young priest who worked at the seminary and he would help out at the parish on occasion and he knew someone who was in our book club and he said to them, hey, do you mind if I stop by your book club and share with you some things that the Lord has shown me? They invite him to come, he sits down and he gives his testimony of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. What did he do? He had a revelation of Jesus Christ as Lord. He knew he had it, he knew the Lord was in him and what did he do? He knew he was a servant, called to bear witness and he's so happy, he'll even go to a woman's little book, little Bible study or it wasn't even a Bible study, it was just a little book club and then he said, would you like me to pray with you? And she said, he prayed with the three of us and they got baptized in the Spirit. That current of grace, I would not be here. None of that would have happened. It was a current of grace that came from a priest who was on fire, a priest who believed, a priest who was walking humbly in the Holy Spirit. Who's got an opportunity like you guys have an opportunity? The devil's going to try to steal that from you. He's going to give you 100 reasons why it's not going to work anymore for you because you're disqualified. That's baloney. It's a total lie. It's a total lie. The Lord wants you to walk with him in power, even if your body's wasting away. He wants you to work in power with him until he takes you home to stand before him in the kingdom. Amen? Amen. I'm going to say a simple prayer then they're going to sing a song. Okay? All right. Stand up brothers, you've been sitting long enough. Let's pray with Paul. We're going to pray that apostolic prayer in our heart. Amen? In the words of your son, Paul, Peter, John, they all said the same thing. I pray today, in this day and in this week, Lord that these sons whom you love would experience a fresh revelation of your glory and majesty. Lord, send your holy fire to burn away pain, fear, rejection, discouragement, self condemnation. None of that does the Lord want in your heart, but only you can burn it away, Lord. Brothers, as they lead us in that song, just receive the fire of God. Welcome the Holy Spirit. This is not business as usual. He wants to give you what you need. God bless you.