 Okay, all priests raise your hand all priests raise your hand So can you tell who wasn't at my last workshop? So Whatever All right Should we pray great. Let's pray The name of the father the son the Holy Spirit Just invite you to quiet yourself for a moment as I try to begin all all talks Grace grace moments happen when the presenter is prayed and when the people receiving of prayed So it's not merely the responsibility of me, but we come together And we ask that God would bless us and show us Heavenly Father, we ask your Holy Spirit would be in our midst be present to us That our hearts and our minds would be open to you Make this prayer in your name Jesus. Amen. Amen All right Good so all priests raise your hand prophets Good we're getting the hang of it So so what we're gonna talk a little bit about this afternoon is penance But specifically from kind of the perspective of st. Francis. So this January I released a new film called the sign of contradiction just curious who's seen that film so far great Both of you. That's awesome No, I just was in Detroit last Thursday night and just really had a wonderful time with a screening of the film and one of the lines of st. Francis is perfect Joy is when you go to a friary you knock on the door and they send you away And you have to walk away and that's perfect joy for the friary for the fryer Although I've experienced what is perfect joy recently. I took the film to the friars to our elderly friars and most of them are in their Late 80s early 90s, and we showed the film in the middle of the afternoon So perfect joy is showing a film that you've worked on for two years to a group of brothers and half of them sleep through the whole thing That is perfect joy. Although one of the friars told me don't worry Dave They sleep during lunch, too. It's like alright. That's that's I'd appreciate that So what I did is I did a film called sign of contradiction if you go to the to my Walgus website You can get information about it Which probably have it on the university website, too. We will in a week. Let me put it that way. All right but really so Some of the genesis of this Pope Francis Steps out on the stage and smoke comes up. Oh famous Papa. We have a pope and he comes up and through the interpreter We hear his name is Francesco And myself and the other brothers that I'm with we're like Francis That's like knowing that it was a Jesuit We figured Francis Xavier and then it becomes aware very quickly that it was in fact not Francis Xavier But it was Francis of Assisi before he went out once he was elected somebody said to him Francis remember George remember the poor or a remember the poor And he Chases takes the name Francis. So I begin to ask myself why at this time, you know, it's never happened before 800 years It's never happened before why now? Why might it be that he takes the name Francis? around the same time I've taken a group to Assisi and I take groups to Assisi all the time and What I hear all the time is something similar and it is something to the effect of Francis is so much more than I expected Right, we have this idea of who st. Francis is but he's so much more than that and I suggest whatever that is However, you see Francis that he's more than that Somebody said to me one time Francis is more than a bird bath Yes, yes Yes, he is right And as we were making this film I was we were out to actually in Assisi out to dinner and the waiter who was taking care of us I had asked him. I said, you know, why you in Assisi was from Ukraine And he said I love Francis and he goes through this big thing about how he loves Francis But then at the end of his little explanation He said but I'm but I'm not into Jesus that whole Jesus thing that whole Christ that whole Catholic thing I'm not into that at all Which is really the reason we made the film is if you think you understand who Francis is Exactly, thank you very much But don't know Jesus then we don't know who Francis is I mean what animated Francis and in control father control mace is a part of the film And he says that somebody asked him what time what's more important to you Francis or Jesus and control Mesa says you got to be kidding me Francis is nothing without Jesus So what our desire in the film was to be able to through the lens of Francis to be able to encounter Jesus. Amen And one of the main ways that Francis did this in encountering Jesus by was by living penance So this is supposed to be a workshop, which means I'm supposed to ask you guys questions And you're supposed to answer we're supposed to have dialogue. Amen So when you hear the word penance, what do you hear? I mean, what do you think of when you hear the word penance? Okay, somebody raise your hand come on come on. Yeah, yeah sacrifice all right confession redemption sin Giving up something all right changing Fasting prayer. This is an overachieving group. I might add. Yeah. Yeah, what's that? Reparation great great all of that's true Okay, but we really want to be able to take a look at What this idea of penance meant to Francis and what does it mean that Francis says live penance? And what that might look like for us because one of the things we wrestled with was we're making the film is We don't merely want okay. That was nice somebody go they enjoy it but that it actually impacts and brings about change or brings about Penance in our life And it causes us and invites us to have a different understanding of what what is penance or what is the traditional understanding of penance the beginning of the scriptures Jesus comes on to the scene and the first thing he says is Repent the word he uses met noia met noia the kingdom of God is at hand this idea of met noia is a really really rich word It means honestly all the things you just said really if we were put together all of the things you just said That's kind of what met noia means it means repent and that's the way it's translated in most versions It means the actually the Greek is to change So Jesus is saying change the kingdom of God is at hand It means conversion in fact probably the better understanding or the way we would understand penance would be conversion Jesus saying be converted the kingdom of God is at hand This idea of met noia is actually the main charism of my Franciscan community So Francis started three Franciscan communities. I like to say it took him three times to get it right So he tore it three and we are the third order regular and met noia is this main charism of my particular community It is also the follow-up. I've done a Follow-up video series to the wild goose and then this new series is called met noia Inviting us to look and to reflect about what does it look like for us to be converted? What does it look like for us to be able to experience conversion? So when in the scriptures and in Francis's understanding of penance would it be more of the scriptural understanding and that is one of met noia change conversion to turn To move okay So in in the earliest understanding it was a question of the heart So this idea of met noia was of the heart. So the heart needs to turn or the heart needs to change In the fourth century we begin to see kind of a shift of the understanding of penance penance becomes a Less of an internal reality and more of an external reality and the reality is for most people except for this over achieving group Penance is largely an external experience. You go to confession. You're given a penance You do something and you're done with it, right? It has a beginning and an end that would not have been Francis's understanding of penance Francis would understand penance not as a beginning and end but rather as a way of living It's a way we go about life, but in the fourth century We're moving away from external practice internal practices this conversion of the heart to external practices Penance becomes some of the things you talked about fasting offering up sacrifice hair shirts those things that we understand traditionally as being penitential We also begin to see a change in the nature of confession Whereas before Confessions were much more public if we pay attention to scriptures it says confess your sins in a community So everybody would just kind of stand up and confess their sins Be welcome to do that now if anybody would So obviously what what we find is is that people are less and less likely to do that and now confession becomes more internal is We begin to have the process of confessing to a priest in the intimate personal experiences and because of that The nature of sin and penance becomes largely between a penitent and a priest All right, so there's not this sense of public experience So roughly in the sixth and the seventh century you begin to develop what is this desire to have a deeper understanding of what? Is it to live penance or what is it to have be a part of penance and you begin to have what's called the order of penitence And what the order of penitence were was a group of men and women who were fairly notorious sinners So they committed some sin that the local community would know about murder adultery theft The something like that so it's a fairly public and it was a fairly serious sin So if somebody did a type of sin like that They would have to become part of the order of penance or a penitent and that would be a process in some ways Kind of like our RCIA alright Somebody enters into the order of penitence and you are part of that community for could be a number of years depending on your Sin so you go to confession you go to the priest you'd say okay This is what you have to do you have to be a penitent and that would go for however long was determined So an order of penitence became a group of people and this would be where Francis would have his first encounter with the penitence Francis would begin to experiencing his conversion. He goes off. He wants to be a knight. He goes off to war Gets captured this process. He was in jail for a year. It was a POW for a year Beginning and asked the question what's life about what is a purpose and meaning of life and this begins in one way the beginning of Francis's conversion He encounters in Assisi a group called the penitence of Assisi All right, and these were men and women who are living penance. They were they would dress differently They would be dressed in simple clothing They would live a structure in their life. They would have a structure of prayer They'd have a structure of service and they would live on the outskirts of Assisi Francis would become a part of this group and as a side note this would be where my community comes from Francis starts the first order and this is just by way of clarification Francis starts the first order the order of the friarist minor the brothers of the friarist minor And they're doing preaching. They're going around to the various places He starts a second order with the poor clairs And then they understand fairly quickly that there needs to be a community that is not going to be mendicant That's not always going one place to another but somebody that would stay in the parishes in the schools in the health facilities And that's where my community comes from so what Francis does is he goes back to this order of penitence These group of people these men and women that he had spent time with before he started his Franciscan community, which was really Many ways Francis never had this idea of starting a community, but the church asks it of him So he goes back to the order of penitence and he starts my community So the whole name of my community is Francis confires of the third order regular of st. Francis of penance so that we see our Origins in this relationship with Francis that he had actually before he started the OFM so we like to say a Francis took him three times to get it right and He went back to the brothers and sisters that he had relationship with at the beginning So this idea of penance is something that Francis understood well When he begins his conversion if you take a look at what's called the testament Francis says Then I began to do penance And this was at the beginning of his conversion And again Francis's idea and understanding of conversion was of penance was this this met no way at this conversion. Amen. I believe That the church would do well to begin to adopt once again this idea of penitence is Is is that we live as men and women? Embracing the idea of living a life of penance So one of the things that we've developed from the film is live penance And it's kind of a if you go to the website, you're able to see actually you're able to see all the things that we're gonna talk about This idea of penance being not something that has a beginning and an end But penance is a way that we approach God penance is the way we approach our relationship with our brothers and sisters Penance is the way that we do all that we do is as spiritual beings. Amen. I Was here at the University of number of years ago And there were a couple of students and they were freshmen and I had said to them my hope for you while you're here Is that you experience conversion? And they're like they nod and they say okay, that's fine And they walk out of my office and I would hear later that they were frustrated with me And they were mad at me. It's like what is father-day thing like we're not converted I mean we're converted so they were frustrated with this idea that they would experience conversion But I want to suggest that conversion is necessary for all of us If we ever find ourselves at this place that says I am fully converted We should probably be a little bit worried amen And yet again in the same way of penance we understand this conversion as an event is a singular event We use language like they were converted and that conversion becomes they either became Catholic or some other person would say They were converted and so I want to it needs to be clear in our mind to understand what we're talking about is a process It's a journey We're never finished right this lifelong process of conversion is what the gospel invites each one of us to and we see this in St. Francis amen So there are five characteristics that Francis would speak of in his testament about what does it look like to live penance? And we're gonna take a look at those number one love of God At the heart of everything that Francis did it is all rooted in the reality That God loves and that we love God Francis when we take a look at the scriptures He believes that he's called to be a knight that that's where he's gonna find glory a wonderful life by Power prestige recognition This is what Francis desired more than anything that everybody would cheer when Francis is around So he thought he'd go off to war and he'd come back and everybody would be excited Yay Francis and Francis is the life of the party Excited everybody wants to be around Francis Francis pays for everything whenever there's a party Francis pays for his dad's money Which is convenient, right? So Francis is but then it begins having this conversion and there's when you take a look at his life There are multiple encounters and experiences, but there's one particular experience when he's down In the lower level if you know where the if you who's been to a CZ All right next year. Let's do this in a CZ. Amen. Yay. All right May it be so So Francis is down there and he goes to the liturgy and he hears the scripture If you want to follow me deny yourself pick up your cross follow me sell all that you have and give it to the poor Francis hears this and he says this is what I long for this is what I've been looking for with all of my heart So Francis begins to understand that this is in fact what the Lord is calling him to So for him the beginning of this or this part of this process of this journey was the reality that God was calling him to something The God wasn't just this vague power out there, but the God wanted to be in relationship with him and God was asking Something of him so each one of us needs to be able to reconcile that fundamental reality that we have a God who is Asking something of us that he wants to be in relationship Francis at the very end of his life says God has shown me what his mind to do may he now show you what is yours to Do the question we have to ask ourselves is do we know what God is asking of us? If you were to write on a piece of paper This is what God is asking of me and if you don't have an answer to that we need to find an answer to that amen Living penance at the heart of that answer is loving God Loving God with all that we are and Francis would do this in Obviously understanding that we have a triune God that he would come to understand that God was his father Now we know that my guess is many of us know the story that Francis was ultimately Separated from his earthly father for lots of reasons he'd taken a bunch of his father's property sold it gave it to the poor His dad didn't appreciate that so there's this rift that exists between Francis and his father that as far as we know never got reconciled And there's something Beautiful and something difficult about that I think some people feel like well my family life is such a mess There's no way that God could call me to be a saint right because it's such a mess Well Francis's family life was a mess and yet there's a beautiful image of Francis Maybe not so beautiful stripping naked right and outside of the square the cathedral And he throws his clothes down to his father and put his father's feet And he says you are no longer my earthly father, but I have one father and is a father in heaven And this is a change that takes place of Francis and it's at the heart of loving God And that is a detachment for the things of the world To the degree that we're able to love God. He has to become our everything. Amen So Francis in this image of being naked the the bishop takes his cloak and wraps it around Francis and Francis is the church is now Gonna look over the church is now gonna protect Francis Francis will ultimately be able to say and this is one of the texts that that I find beautiful and also unbelievably challenging Francis says oh God you are enough for me Oh God you are enough for me I find it interesting that Francis didn't say God you're everything But my guess is we probably met people who have everything and it's not enough And we meet people who have nothing and God is in the center of their life and it's enough For Francis God becomes enough a famous Seeing of Francis in the evening one of the friars is outside of his door listening to how Francis prays and all night All he said was my God and my all My God and my all The invitation for us and beginning to live penance is to ask ourselves. Is that our reality? Is God our everything? It was mentioned last night by Chris that I walked the community I walked 500 miles in order to just thank the Lord for being a priest But the very first night the prayer that I made was a really simple prayer and also a very foolish prayer And I said God I give you permission to do whatever you want to make me holy Do not pray like that, right? Because he hears those kind of prayers like when we pray for him to fix something. It's like well You're gonna deal with this a little longer, right? This is at the heart of the Franciscan spiritual life the heart of Francis is that being detached from whatever Keeps me away from Jesus That's a scary prayer Jesus take away allow me to be detached from whatever keeps me away from but this is what Francis's prayers He has an encounter with a father with a father becomes his where God becomes his father But he also has an encounter with Christ for Francis the greatest feast is Christmas amen We should have Christmas every day. Amen really Here's that for Francis he could not imagine that God would take flesh This just was this blows his mind that the Almighty Omnipotent all holy all great God would become a baby we baby cue baby crying baby's not crying anymore, of course not, right? Francis couldn't imagine this So we have the beginning of the crest scenes and nativity scenes It's Francis who started this he goes to a little village about an hour away from a season called Gretzio And he has this image he has this desire to be able if people could see what God has done They would be converted if we could see what God has done So he creates this image with with the animals and the nativity scene and somebody that night had this image of Jesus the baby Jesus being asleep and everybody was trying to wake him up trying to wake him up and Nobody could wake him up So in this image Francis goes and he takes the baby Jesus and the baby awakens this becomes Francis's ministry He is going to awaken in our heart the person of Jesus for Francis Christmas is the feast because it is profoundly Profoundly personal that God would take on flesh that God would as we hear in the Philippians God would empty himself Then become one of us Then we'll talk about this in the last element of penance But this idea of emptying ourselves this Detachment is at the heart of what does it look like for us to live penance amen? So Francis encounters the father in count and Francis encounters the son And then ultimately Francis would say the friar should one the friar should desire one thing alone the spirit of God at work in him So Francis encounters God his father encounters God his son and the person of Jesus and encounters the spirit Which animates which begins to animate and make everything that we're going to talk about alive for us Francis if you look at his story all of the major events in his life are begun and concluded by an encounter with the spirit of God So he's not able to do anything without him. Amen So we ask ourselves just take a moment quiet yourself Who is God for us? What is the image we have of God? What is the image we have of God that's not true in order for us to be able to live a life of penance We do it in relationship with God And there must be this transformation that takes place That our image of God becomes a God who is our father The God who's reconciled the world to us in the person of Jesus and the spirit which animates this and This must become our everything It must be in the center of our life Amen Number two first one love of God number two love of neighbor To live a life of penance So for Francis the group of people that bothered him the most were the lepers Because they represented everything that Francis hated and everything nothing that he wanted so lepers had no power They had no influence. They had no respect. They had no authority The lepers would live in the so you see these kind of up on a hill the lepers would live down in the valley and Francis would never go there Scripture said France or the testament says that Francis was repulsed by the lepers So he's praying one day and he hears the Lord say to him. I can make that which is bitter sweet Okay, I can make that which is bitter sweet And Francis knew exactly what that was So the story of Francis walking through the valley and he's coming upon a leper and everything about him wanted to Go the other direction and he embraces the leper And he encounters Christ in that And he spends the rest of his living days with the lepers Because God made that which was bitter sweet People talk about Francis in his joy in his peace and all of that and they say what was it? I want to suggest that this was at the heart of that Imagine for a moment. There was nothing in your life that was bitter and that all was sweet And do you believe in a God that can make that which is bitter sweet? So part of this love of neighbor that we have to ask ourselves is who is that leper for us? Because everybody has a leper and if you don't You need to pray and figure out who it is if you don't know who it is Because we live in a world that's becoming more and more polarized and the leper is basically those people You know those people and one of the things that I really appreciated about Pope Francis is he's continually Reminding us about those people on the outside and he reminds us that Everybody is invited to Christ. Amen Who's invited? So if everybody is not invited that means some people aren't invited and if some people aren't invited It's possible that I'm not invited Everybody is invited to relationship with Christ and Francis understood this And in that that which was bitter became sweet So who's your leper? I Remember when I was in charge of the seminarians Jesus the gospel was Love your enemy and I preached a little bit about that and and then I found myself thinking about My enemy because I just given this how much like, you know, do I really know what that looks like and I thought it's like well I I don't have any enemies And I began to think more about my enemy my leper And then I came to my mind and my heart was Cecilia Richards and she is the head of Planned Parenthood And I made my mind at that moment that I was gonna pray for her not just pray for her but really pray for her So I stalked her a little bit Found out about her family Found out that she had kids on her address And I start to send her Christmas cards and Easter cards said hi and Father David bonka. You don't know me, but I pray for you And I would say she never respond if she ever got it actually I don't know how they go through her mail She had a couple girls And I prayed I told her one time that I'm praying that her kids are healthy That they do well in school Somewhere in this process of praying for her She moved from being my enemy to a lot like my sister and That my sister's got kids that she wants the best for her kids Well, she became a person for me actually She wasn't an enemy. She wasn't a leper. She was a person a lot like a lot of people that I knew Now I have a whore what she does and what she participates in and the organization that she runs what they stand for But in this praying for her She became real to me You see I love one of things I love about Pope Francis He said that that oftentimes we we build this wall between other people whoever they are And Pope Francis says we need to tear down the wall and he says and when we do that what we see is we see people's faces And we see their stories We realize that they're not terribly different than us This is the challenge and this is a challenge for us, right? Who is that leper for us that person that God is inviting us to live because I believe that that's a Crazy wonderful miracle when God can take this this anger this hatred this frustration We have towards this person or this group of people and make that sweet And yet it's the invitation. It's the challenge for us, right that we are supposed to love the way that he's loved us So who is that that that leper for us? St. Francis would also raise the question that for some the leper is our self It's that there's parts of us. He would say no one is to be called enemy all our benefactors and no one does harm You have no enemy except yourself And then there's the part of us that that we need to invite the Lord to make that sweet You know I was in Detroit recently and somebody said this lady said to me she said father I can't think about something. I did it's 30 years ago. I was 18 years old and I can't stop thinking about that It was bitter. I mean she whenever she thought about her past. It was bitter. It was hardened. It was Lord needs to be able to make that sweet So this leper for us is is not only those people, right? But sometimes it's us one of the things that Pope that st. Francis said there's one of my favorite lines He said what we are before God is what we are in nothing else Right what we are before God is what this this image of us standing before the Lord literally naked Just standing there naked and allowing the Lord to see us and that is who we are and that's not an apology We don't apologize for that right that that we celebrate that the reality is that we stand before God without all these These images are who we think we are what we want people to see us like but we just stand before the Lord and we can Just be there who we are and celebrate that amen So this there's loving of the neighbor and the loving of ourself needs to be able to reconcile the flesh Which is opposed to ourself right so the scriptures speak of the flesh Galatians 5 the fruits of the Spirit compared to the fruits of the flesh the flesh is anger impatience a lust Drunkiness that right to be able to reconcile that and Allow the Lord to root that out of our life. So it's so so is our ability to be able to love ourself Jesus says in the scripture love your neighbor as yourself. We've all heard that before right love your neighbor as yourself The problem is is I think we do that Right we don't love ourself very well. We're critical of ourselves. We're hard on ourselves We don't give ourselves a break. We're not merciful to ourselves. So we love our neighbor as ourself. I Want to suggest that's not exactly what he meant Right right I love Gregory the great said that if we were able to see ourselves the way God seeded us We would be tempted to bow down in worship So this desire or this this ability to love our neighbor to love that leper in that leper is often ourself So to be able to allow the Lord to reveal to us our goodness our beauty and then be able to embrace that amen number one love God say that Number two love our neighbor number three hatred of sin We'll get back to that one So Francis is up in the caves So if you're in a season you would go to the cartridge to these caves that were up in the hill And then Francis is praying up there and he we don't know exactly what this looked like, but he saw his sin And this changed Francis You see for Francis Francis wanted to be in the center of his life And what he realized was that he needed to move away from the center and put the Lord in the center of his life For Francis sin was ignoring God Ignoring the one who wanted to be in the center and putting himself in the center One of our friars was at a doctor's office one time and he was in line and is literally standing Three feet from the receptionist and the receptionist looked at him didn't recognize him didn't say hello Didn't say welcome and just started back to her work looked up at him did not greet him went back to his word He felt profoundly ignored right He came back afterwards and he said I think that's what Francis was talking about with sin is That God is standing in front of us and we're ignoring him It's interesting to be in Rome I've had the opportunity to go to Rome several times and you would think being in Rome is the best place to be a priest And that's not necessarily true. It's a great place to be a friar So when I'm in my habit everybody loves friars all right not necessarily everybody loves priests because particularly in Rome you have 2,000 years of priests not always doing the greatest things At an occasion one time I was dressed in my clerics. I was flying home. So I was dressed with a collar and all that busy coffee counter The guy taking everybody's order this order this order this order skip me this order this went on for 15 minutes, and I'm just all I want is a cup of coffee The guy making the coffee finally recognized what was going on and he said father. What would you like? I said just want a cappuccino said, okay. I Do that to God all the time Right God is in the center in front of me, and I ignore him I don't see him. I don't give him time. I don't recognize him this for Francis was sin Moving God away from the center of our life and putting something else there whatever that is whatever that looks like for you putting something else there But what moved Francis to conversion Was the experience that he had in this cave of a deep understanding of the of the sinfulness of his sinfulness But understanding deeper than that was God's love Francis came out of this cave changed Because he encountered a god who loved him in the midst of his sin But what it called him to what penance calls us to Is a desire to change Right, so I I um Put up a thing on instagram a couple months ago Where it was the encounter between jesus and the in the woman who was caught in the act of adultery and jesus said I do not condemn you right, so I just put it that I said jesus doesn't condemn us Now I appreciate people's uh exuberance, but I had many people who Were frustrated with me because I didn't mention that jesus said go and sin no more I am well aware that jesus said go and sin no more amen But he also what what changed her was that she wasn't condemned Right, so until we experience a god who loves us and doesn't condemn us We don't have the grace to go and sin no more We first encounter a god who doesn't condemn us and this is what changed Francis Was he recognized his sin and realized that god loved him more and because of that Then he desired to root out his sin So we have to pray brothers and sisters for an hatred towards sin Not not because of itself because the reality is everybody here is sinned amen anybody's not sin I thought you were raising your hand Emily you you're just scratching. I see you were just scratching I thought for a second he was going to go up. I said this is great And this is important for us to recognize is that we've all sined Ultimately sin does not keep us out of heaven Right heaven is full of people who have sinned Right every one of them. It's one of the few things that all the saints have in common Is they were all sinners except for the blessed mother always throws a curve qualify that right What keeps us out of heaven is failure to repent for sin Failure to recognize sin Failure to go before the lord and say lord show me my sin So that I don't live in it Because the reality is is if we live in our sin, we're going to die on our sin And if we die in our sin our salvation is in jeopardy So the nature of sin is that god in his mercy reveals us And shows us our sin so that we can be converted So it's the third element this this element of living in penance is to continually go before the lord And ask him to show us our sin amen Number one love god number two love neighbor number three hatred of sin number four participation in the sacraments particularly the Eucharist So again for for st. Francis this this idea that god takes on flesh that he empties himself and he becomes one of us So we would have the nativity scene But the early nativity scenes would have a crib underneath the altar, but the baby Jesus wouldn't be there All right, and the reason being is Francis understood that every time we celebrated mass that christ was going to occupy that crib once again right frances again The the father countel mason speaks in the film that one of the unique elements that frances brings is To invite us to reflect on the humility of god And he said that god would humble himself And become a baby which is remarkable if you think about that god the almighty omnipotent god is now Needy Needy needs to be changed needs to be fed right this this humility that there is in that Francis would go on to say take that same god who becomes one of us and allows himself to be crucified Just the abject humiliation that there is in that strip naked We we put a cover over jesus so that it's more More acceptable to our eyes jesus literally stripped naked Above a group of people nailed to a cross for all of the world to Gough and laugh all right Francis this is unbelievable that god would humble himself And be crucified and then the final for that would be frances that god would humble himself in eucharist That he would come to us in what looks to be bread And that he would become so profoundly vulnerable that i can take this host which has been transformed into the body of jesus And i could do whatever i want to that For frances this is this this is more than he could imagine So to be able to receive that to be able to become that what we eat right to be able to consume that who we worship Actually this morning I wasn't able to be here because uh one of my very good friends and two of my friends Celebrated their 25th anniversary of vows so I was able to preach for their celebration of their anniversary One of the sisters sister fostena did this Um What is the ancestry thing where you figure out what so she found she's like german and italian and all this kind of thing And then it came back the test came back she was one percent jewish and she was like she never thought she was one percent jewish I said oh that's interesting and she says do you know why i'm one percent jewish i said no i don't She goes because i receive eucharist every day Right Right Who might argue a sister right but there's something really beautiful about that right she receives the lord every day And she's just slowly becoming more jewish all right So francis francis understood this this this reception of you jesus the eucharist but then also the reception reception of the sacrament of Confession to be able to go and humble ourselves before another person And to be able to hear those words got the father of mercy this this this reconciliation that takes place so Can consistent frequent participation in the sacraments amen Living penance number one love of god number two love of neighbor number three hatred of sin number four Uh frequent participation in the sacraments and the last that francis would speak of and you'd be what he would call Worthy fruits of penance and these are the things that we might normally think about Fasting For francis obviously and he would later in his life he would actually repent for teaching treating his body so diff so hard That he would think that realized he would come to realize that maybe he was too hard on his body But when we pay attention to the scripture, jesus says if you want to follow me we have to answer that question Okay, yes, I do. Okay. If you want to follow me deny yourself It is constitutive to the gospel Fasting self-denial has got to be a part of our life Again, if you want to follow me. Yes, jesus. I want to follow me deny yourself What does that look like for you? There was a day some of you are old enough to remember this where no catholics ate meat on friday Right, and we were distinguished because of that I'm concerned that there is nothing that distinguishes us from anybody else anymore Right If you want to deny if you want to follow me deny yourself we that is a commandment It wasn't a suggestion and I want to just real briefly There's a connection between our ability to deny ourselves and our ability to pick up our cross If you want to follow me deny yourself and pick up your cross daily, he says If we have a hard time embracing suffering which we do if we have a hard time embracing our cross which we drew Do I want to suggest that part of the reason is because we can't deny ourselves We live in a world that says get as much as you can get and get it while the getting's good So you can go to circle k or 7 11 or sheets or whatever that story is that you have Wawa or whatever and you can buy a soda that's 7500 ounces Right seriously who needs that right you can go to mcdonald's and you can supersize it right we get and get as much as you can get We have to live a life of self-denial and it's a part of the penitential life Yes, some of you know Fasting has been something that's been a part of my life and a part of my spiritual life since I was a kid It was something that we did as a family, but particularly around Easter. I mean around the holy week So one of the things I did I started a number of years ago I called it my birthday fast. So I fast from something or abstain from something from my birthday to my birthday So for one year I give up something The first year I did this was alcohol. It's not a big deal But I like to have a glass of wine every now and then a beer or something like that amen A little bit of scotch every now it's good for the heart amen All right, just putting that out there It was also this this year was also the first time I went to Italy So I'm with the friars and where our mother house is overlooking the roman forum And they come out with cheese and sausages and hard breads and nice glasses and red wine And I said no, thank you. I'm fasting and they said you don't fast from wine, right? My next stop was germany A bratwurst with a diet coke is not is not a good mix, right? Okay, I seriously I don't care what you do But a life of self-denial has got to be a part of the catholic christian life So I invite you to think and reflect about that. What does that look like for you to deny yourself? And the danger is that we only we only look at food. There are lots of ways that we can deny yourself that have nothing to do with food What I'm about to say is crazy talk, but I'm going to go ahead and put it out there You're in the grocery store Get in the longest line I know crazy talk Right stay in the slow lane on the highway Park 30 feet further away Take the stairs What are simple get up 15 minutes early? What are simple little things we can do That can begin to deny ourselves not merely for the self of denying but to be able to say yes to jesus The reason we deny ourselves i'm saying no to this so I can say yes to that and that is jesus amen So if we're going to live a life dependence, there needs to be some sense of self-denial to that There needs to be a reaching out to people less fortunate than ourselves Doesn't matter me how you do it doesn't matter me where you do it But our world has got to be bigger than us right St. Francis would say sanctify yourself and you'll sanctify society That we need to be that yeast that leaven out there in the world To be able to take a look at an area that we can do an in an area that we can have influence in A good buddy minds an attorney up in grand rapids michigan And one of the things he's done for years. I don't know if he still does he's done it for years It's called they have hot dog tuesday They go down to the park and all they do is they give hot dogs and chips to the to the local people that Are less fortunate that are homeless. That's all they do. What does it cost to? By several dozen hot dogs, right? They've done this for years just reaching out to them spending time with them There are people in your community that need us need you to reach out to them It has got to be a part of the christian life living penance is reaching out to those people that are less fortunate than ourselves amen It's prayer That if we're going to be faithful to this life of penance, we need to be able to pray again I don't care how you pray. I don't care what it looks like But if you aren't praying every day if that's not a part of your life How are we being converted? How are we drawing closer to jesus? How are we experiencing change in our life unless we're making ourselves available and present to jesus? So unless and again, it doesn't matter to me what it looks like It doesn't matter how you pray doesn't matter where all that matters to me Is that you're praying if we're going to live this life of penance and a life of conversion? We need to live a life of prayer I grew up with a mom and dad who modeled that for me. I would love to have a dollar my mom's got ms But so she couldn't feel the beads on a small rosary So she used this rosary that you'd like hang up on a wall, right? I'd love to have a dollar for every time I walk into her room And she was sitting on a bed with the rosary draped over her lap praying a rosary right She didn't do it so that I would see her She did it and I saw her What does it look like for you? Does your friend is your family your children your salad whatever do they know that you pray? When you speak do you speak like well? I think the lord wants me to do this Right this gives witness to a world that needs to know that there's something other than them, right center of their life Ultimately this invitation that the lord has is an invitation this relationship of prayer is to worship to lead us to worship We're going to pray for worship tonight If you want to understand somebody Ask them what they worship Right, what do you work? Everybody worships something everybody worships something if you want to understand what's important to a person Find out what they worship What the lord invites us in prayer is to be able to be quiet and you be able to still in encounter and worship him amen This life of the life of penance. I think what the lord is inviting us to so thoughts comments questions reflections. Yeah Would I get the last part? No, and I think that's what takes that that's the process of met noy the process of conversion is that we don't merely do things Out of an exercise, but it becomes how we are it becomes our natural way Relay, I think that's why some of many people call francis the mirror of christ that he became So conformed so that he didn't think about things anymore. It was just the way he behaved the way he acted people That's the purpose of that that it becomes habitual rather than merely an element that we add on to to exercise Yeah, yeah good other thoughts comments questions No Okay, let's pray then and I'll stick around to see if people have sense. Why don't we stand? And we'll go ahead and sing uh the first verse of come holy ghost Come holy ghost Creator blessed And in our hearts Take up Thy rest Come with Thy grace And heavenly To fill the it's thou Ask me it's thou Just invite you to quiet yourself for a moment And to allow yourself to be emptied What is it that that vies to be in the center of your heart right now? Fear Relationships Struggle with parents Sickness So just for a moment whatever that is just recognize it and say jesus i laid before you Lord, we pray that you would be our all That you would be our everything That you would reveal to us Those things that we make more important than you The attitudes The fear Allow you to be Our god and our all Jesus Reveal to us those lepers in our life Those people not like us Those that don't understand Those in their agendas Whoever they are for us Jesus help us to look at other people the way you did Because just with a glance you changed hearts And so oftentimes we look at people with disgust With disdain With judgment Help us to see them as you did Lord root out sin in our life So that you might be glorified That you would reign Lord that our life would produce fruits that That other people recognize and they see that there's something different in us That they recognize and see a fruit of joy and a fruit of peace The fruit of your presence Lord john the 23rd said the surest sign of your presence is joy Bring forth a fruit of joy Lord allow us to stop living for ourselves but with for others who are those people That you invite us to reach out to To serve To care for Just take one moment and what's the one word you take from this meet from this afternoon What is what one word that the lord is saying to you one thing that you're going to hold on to Lord you invite us to live a life of metanoia You invite us to penance the first thing you say in the gospels is metanoia repent change convert turn I pray for the grace of this community to be able to respond to that And you bring forth life in our yes to you Mother mary we ask for your intercession as we pray Hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb jesus Holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners Now and at the hour of our death amen the lord be with you May almighty god bless you the father the son and the holy spirit. Amen. God bless you guys You got it the rest of the afternoon free dinner. I don't know what else is going on just go do something. God bless you guys