 So we're going to talk today about the power of personal witness and really it's the power of your witness and I have a wonderful group of friends and I have a friend they're married couple and they're my age And they have eight children okay, and their daughter number seven of eight is five years old And she is everything that I want to be when I grow up Can I just tell you that right now she lives out loud that girl lives in four dimensions She's just a beautiful beautiful little girl and I absolutely love her I've been telling this story lately to audiences and so the mom was telling me this story and she said You know sister when you've been married for a long time Sometimes in your communication with your spouse. Well, she's like you wouldn't know this because your spouse is perfect But whatever okay, so she said Sometimes sometimes in communication with your spouse you have some things that you could say in certain situations But that probably wouldn't be very helpful. Okay, so she's like you just have to learn like how do you navigate? Conversations that are difficult so she told me the story She said that her husband During Christmas break decided that he wanted to tear down their old place structure in their backyard They affectionately called it the death trap Okay, so he wanted to tear down the place structure in the backyard and he wanted to build his kids a really awesome place structure So my friend was thinking we'll go to Ikea. We'll get like a prefab thing You know, it'll be over in a day or two. Oh, no no no no no her husband was like We're gonna go big or go home He went to Home Depot got raw treated lumber he got brackets He got screws and this was a dad on a mission to make a place structure that would last until 2075 Pretty much. Okay, so he enlisted the two oldest teenage boys who were really excited to do that for Christmas break So he enlisted the two teenage boys and they were out in the backyard building a massive place structure for the younger kids So my friend said day one bit went by fine day two day three Day four it is day five. It's day six now. She hasn't seen her husband in six days. Okay The teenage boys are beyond disgruntled over the fact They just spent six days building a place structure for their little siblings. Okay, and she said and now it's dinner at the end of Day six and she hasn't seen her husband and He's been called into dinner twice already. So this is the third time and she's getting just a little irritated Okay, so she's like I love my husband very much. He's a wonderful man But I just all I need is for him to come into dinner. Okay, like just kids are throwing bread at each other It's like total chaos in our house. We just want him to come to dinner So he knows he's been called to dinner twice. This is three times He knows that he's been outside for six days. Okay, so you can you see what's about to happen? So she said I went outside. We're gonna call him in for dinner for the third maybe fourth time So she's like I took my little girl my little five year old She's like I took my little girl out into the backyard to call him in for the last time She said I know I know usually we've been married a long time. I usually know how these conversations go So she went outside and we opened the back door and she said I saw my husband on the third floor the place structure Okay, we're talking three stories on the three story She's like I saw my husband on the third the third floor this place structure and we walked outside And as soon as they walked outside her husband heard the back door open and he sees them and she can see on his face He's anxious. He's tense. He knows. Okay. I know that I've been called into dinner I know but I'm trying to get this finished So he turns around and he looks at them and he watches his wife and his little girl walk into the backyard And as he does so he turns to them with kind of a look of anxiety on his face He accidentally kicks off a bucket of a hundred screws Off the top the third floor the place structure onto the ground in the dark and my friend said now There's several things I'd like to say to my husband At this point none of which would be helpful at all none of which But she said before she could say a thing Her little five-year-old girl let go of her hand and began running towards her dad And she ran toward her dad who was on the third floor the place structure and she stopped right at the bottom of the place structure. She said oh Dad I'm so sorry that happened She's like we're so grateful that you're building this for us. We can't wait to plan it. We're so happy We cannot wait to plan this place structure. We're so glad you're doing this dad Mommy and I will help you pick up every screw right now So my friend said okay Here we go and they she got her iPhone out and she got the flashlight out and her husband Climbed it down three stories at the place structure and she said as I watched my little girl Speak over the heart of her daddy. I Saw his whole heart transform And she's like the three of us that night knelt in the grass and picked up a hundred screws and Not one harsh word was spoken Because a little girl spoke to her daddy You talk about the power of personal witness the power of love You know, and I think you and I in our life You know, we've heard so many wonderful talks so far and don't we know like don't we know the journey within The journey that must pass like the journey of our lives and the journey of our story So that's what we're gonna talk about today is like the power of this witness That has that there's a power through the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives Because like I said last night the most powerful gospel You will ever preach my dear friends the most powerful gospel you will ever preach is how you live your day-to-day life and Yes, we use words in our gospel and yes, we were our words But our words must resonate with how we live our life Because all of us at times have moments of massive cognitive dissonance Where something is coming out of your mouth and as it's coming out of your mouth The Holy Spirit's like don't say that don't do not say that don't say that and it's coming out of your mouth And as you say you're like And it lands not with a transformation lens with a thud on somebody else's heart And many times you're like I can't believe I just said that Or like where did that come from? Have you ever said something and you're like I have no idea why I just said that or it comes out with like a surprise Or that comes out with an edge on it, and you're like oh my gosh I had no idea that I thought that and your heart reveals something to you and John Paul the second Saint John Paul the second spoke often of God him at Spastas You know he says that Jesus makes man's supreme calling clear He reveals us to ourselves So we you and I find out who we are we our lives only make sense in the light of Christ. That's it So we're gonna talk about your life today, and I'm gonna share with you a bit of my story tomorrow in the keynote tomorrow morning I'll share with you a lot more these tales of my story But I want to offer this to you because when we talk about the power personal witness our behavior our behavior is always Always predicated on our beliefs So how you're living your life many times we focus on you know We've had parable of the weeds in the wheat and Jesus says you know a tree is known by its fruit So we see a whole bunch of fruit growing up here and many times we're focused on the fruit We're focused on other people's fruit also We want to pick off their fruit off their tree Okay, so but we have all this behavior and all this fruit and we're focused on the fruit And sometimes we have to like we go to confession and we take the fruit of our the sin of our broken is to confession And we have to do that But really also ultimately what happens and what we're gonna talk about today is not just the fruit because the fruit is Manifesting is because it has deep roots There's a tree growing there. Okay, so let me I'm gonna ask you in the course of this time a series of three questions Okay, so you can write these down if you want, but these are questions that the Lord asks us and these are questions that The Lord asks you and I and I often ask myself in this it's a great thing and these are from the book of Genesis, okay? So I'm and I will unpack them for you as we continue on our way. Okay, so the first question comes from Genesis chapter 16 verse 8 Where we encounter a very sad situation of the slave girl named Hagar and we heard about this in Daily Mass readings not too long ago So as you know, Sarah and Abram want to have a child want to have children and you see the dysfunction I mean we see the dysfunction throughout the Old Testament after the fall we see the dysfunction We see in our own families. We see it in the Bible So we see what happens at their promised a child, but they become impatient So Sarah gives Abram her husband the maid servant which he is quite happy to receive. Thank you very much And so he is with her and she is pregnant and becomes pregnant And then Hagar the maid shot or the slave girl ends up looking with scorn on Sarai and Sarai is like This is my house. You will not let go scorn on me. Okay, so she treats her horrendously so badly So badly that Hagar is in such sorrow that she runs away And she runs out into the desert and in the desert you die. There's nothing out there I've ever felt like you're in the desert of your life And you're looking around saying where's the Lord And what the Lord does to this slave girl is he sees her like he sees you and I and he sends her a messenger an angel and The angel asks her this first question. He says Where have you come from? Where have you come from and the second question? He asks her is this and where are you going? And the third question so the angel asks her where have you come from and where are you going and the third question that is Asked is actually asked by God the father himself that he asks Adam and Eve in the Genesis chapter 3 verse 9 When Adam and Eve are nowhere to be found and he asks in this where are you? So where have you come from and? Where are you going and? Where are you now? Because that is the witness of your life That is the witness of your life and so when we talk about where have you come from? I would imagine especially if you come to this conference You're probably attracted to this conference for a variety of reasons the defending the faith conference Either you know a lot about your faith and you're always looking to learn more or you don't and you want to learn more Or you want to be around people who are on this journey with you? There's reasons why we come in so I'm sure if I were to ask we're not going to do this But if I were to ask you to give me a theological definition of where you came from you probably could do that Okay, you could probably tell me that you came from God that you're made of the image and likeness of God I'm one of my graduate school professors. He would repeat the first paragraph of the Catechism Over and over and over and over and over again until we started listening to what he was saying, you know And I when you read it in this phone, this is absolutely beautiful But he said this and this is you they talk about where we come from and then where you come from so the first paragraph of the Catechism says this God infinitely perfect and blessed in himself This is so beautiful in a plan of sheer goodness Freely creates man to share in his own blessed life God infinitely perfect and blessed in himself in a plan of sheer goodness Freely creates man to share in his own blessed life And then it says for this reason for this reason in every time and in every place God draws close to me And he invites man to seek him to know him and to love him in return Okay, so let's let's unpack that for a second because this is a direct Revelation of where you come from God infinitely perfect and blessed in himself in a plan of sheer goodness Which means as you know, God's a family the Trinity is a family So we came you and I came from a family and God doesn't create out of need Sometimes in our brokenness we take people into our life out of a need to fill our own hearts God doesn't do that. He does it out of sheer goodness Just sheer goodness. He creates you out of a sheer goodness. Why? Why so you could share in his own beautiful life his own blessed life. We call it the Beatific Vision So God has no no other motive. This is so incredible God has no other motive for creating you right now as you sit here today Your life right now as the Esther says for a time such as this he has no other motive None other than to bring you into his own beautiful life. He wants to bring you into the heart his heart He doesn't desire to manipulate you to strong arm you to guilt trip you He's not trying to tell you something that you don't want to hear or sell you something You don't want to live what God does is he actually creates us and then he woos us You see that throughout the Old Testament over and over and over again when God makes covenants with his people and They keep breaking the covenant and he keeps being faithful and he compares Israel at times to an unfaithful wife And he's like you're unfaithful to me, but I'm not a faithful to you. I love you in the book of Hosea He says I will I will bring her I will allure her I will bring her out into the desert I'm gonna hedge in her way so she can't get away from me. I'm going to allure her I'm going to speak to the deepest desires of her hearts, so she remembers that she's mine And that's what he's doing in your life in my life He's drawing close to you right now right now in Every memory in every moment He's always drawing close And I love the way that set up because God is the divine initiator right God makes the gift He's the initiator and we're all only the our only response to him is just a response That's it. It's a response to his love So you're here today because of a response to his love and he continues to speak to you And he speaks through the church. He speaks through his word. He speaks through the sacraments He speaks through our tradition. He speaks for many different things, but I know very well And I know that you know it too. Oh, he speaks a language just for you We've ever had something happen to you and you know that it's God speaking to you And people like how do you know you're like I just know Like I just know that's God speaking to me It's like we might sound weird to you But I know it's God speaking to me and don't families have languages like that with little nicknames for each other Are things that only make sense in a family Lovers do that people that love each other they have funny little nicknames, you know My mom to this day still calls me munchkin head nobody else in the world can call me munchkin head But that's my mom calls me, you know Because she loves me. I'm her munchkin head. I'll always be her little munchkin head, you know That's the language of love So he's always drawing close to us Which means he's always bringing us on a journey And this is why when we talk about our story, I loved Father Sean's homily today. Can I just say that? He gave 1,300 people permission to sit in their story and to own their own story. I was like amen brother, you know Because on our stories feel like that at times you got this person and got this pretty and just it's very biblical It's got that person and that person and that person, you know So in our journey like what is your story? Because you come from God and he's creating you to draw you into his own beautiful life and you have a personal story as well And you know if you love a good story, whatever story that is for you If you can think of maybe stories from your youth or stories even now movies that you love or stories that you love You know stories have a predictable kind of path. You've got a protagonist. We've got an antagonist You know, we've got some journey. We've got some obstacle Usually the hero has some sort of fatal flaw or some issue or that they have to overcome and It's sometime in the story, you know, you wonder at some point in the story. Are they gonna make it and Have you ever wondered in your life if you're gonna make it And you're like, man, I don't know if I'm gonna make it to this one And why stories resonate so deeply with us is because we're part of a good story We're part of the best story ever. It's called salvation history And every single person this is why Pope Benedict in his inaugural homily as holy father He said we are not some meaningless product of evolution Every person every person is willed is loved and is necessary Right We're not some meaningless product of evolution some casual kind of you know component of just some sort of you know random Union of cells each person is willed each person is loved and Each person is necessary So in your life this journey that you're on like where have you come from? Means that we have chapters like every good story has many chapters to it So if you were to think right now no matter how old you are no matter how old you are If you kind of stop right here, and you kind of think of where you are your story I bet has a lot of chapters to it and Some of the chapters are really beautiful and some of the chapters are really joyful and some of the chapters are really painful and It's many times those painful chapters of our story my dear friends That we first of all don't want to admit to and we push them aside and we say things like well I got over that that doesn't affect me now, right? There's a wonderful saying that I often say if you've ever heard me speak I probably said this because I say it all The time there's a wonderful saying in healing circles. It says this suffering that is not transformed is transmitted Suffering that is not transformed is transmitted And this is a very sobering statement because what this means is every any suffering that you've had in your life That has not been transformed by the Lord transformed by his grace and that happens in many different ways That suffering doesn't just go away Because what we do is children we learn we're very smart as children if you ever try to like study child psychology How how we cope with how we have coping mechanisms how we kind of survive life And many times the things that happen to us the foundational like the beginning parts of our story like Genesis those foundational wounds many times affect us our entire life and We grow up and we call it adulting And we say that we get over it But many times we grow up and we have addictions like I said myself. I'm a recovering alcoholic I had an addiction for many many years many years many years and for many years I was trying to be at deal with the behavior I was trying to modify that behavior and it just wasn't working for me It's because I had a massive massive deep root. The other route was sexual abuse And that was a story that was never told And I thought that when I got older and I got you know, I grew up and I graduated I played division one volleyball. I wanted to work for ESPN. I joked that Aaron Andrews stole my job So I became a nun instead and getting kind of You know, I Thought that the day that I made my vows to the Lord So I've been professed almost 17 years now. Okay, so the day that I made my vows to the Lord I thought all my problems would go away because that's what happens in the sound of music. Okay, so Shockingly enough that didn't happen, you know And I'm just this is honest. I met tell my story lies like the very honest part of my story I was in religious life. I've been in like 20 years now So I've been in I was in a religious life for quite some time probably what is it eight was two eight about eight years I'd made my first vows. I was at this mission and I was like Sometimes not right Like something's wrong If ever come to stages in your life, you're just like something's not right Like your joy has been stolen like you're just not joyful like you're going to the motions You're shown up to life every day. Okay, but something was missing And it was at that moment that I realized that there were parts of my story There were chapters of my story the first of all I had never even I never even want to own or look at There were chapters of my story that had never been read so to speak and All I wanted them to do was go away and it wasn't until through the grace of a lot of a lot of suffering just a Lot of people and a lot of grace in my life where it was only through those stories It was only through having them read not by myself alone But by the Lord and by people who loved me very much It was only through the transformation of those stories that resurrection began to pour forth in my life And it is still happening even as I stand here before you today And I hope it never ends. I hope it never ends So in your journey, do you have stories in your life? That you don't want to own Here's another saying that you will hear in 12-step meetings if you've ever been to a 12-step meeting The saying is this we're only as sick as our secrets We're only as sick as our secrets And many times we're sick we're very sick because we have secrets and marriages have secrets and Families have secrets churches have secrets, right? And isn't that what's happening right now? The secrets of the church are coming out and aren't they horrific But they must come out They have to come out because the bride is sick. She is sick because she has a lot of secrets So the secrets must come out why so the light of Christ can transform her so that his love so his blood can wash her and purify her So that she can be made whole and That is the same way with you and I So where have you come from in your life What are the joyful mysteries? What are the moments that one story that I often tell about my mom is you know my mother and I My mother she and I did not get along for a long time So we had just we hit heads a lot so I often tell mothers mothers or grandmothers if you have you know troubled granddaughters or daughters There's hope don't worry. Okay. That's not the end of the story. Okay, so there is hope But my mom and I one of the reasons why we had such a powerful Transformation our relationship was through one of the deepest sufferings in our life and my dad my sweet father My parents were married. We're actually like 36 years My dad retired early so he could go and do volunteer work for my religious community Okay, so they were to my dad retired early My parents would travel down to our missions and my dad was an electrician and you know He my mom built things and they could fix stuff You know if you give my dad like a gun wrapper and a paper clip you could fix a house with it You know it's one of those guys and so I was in Rome. I was very young I was in Rome just starting my studies as a religious sister and One night I was there at the house in Rome and the phone rang in the middle of the night And you know how just sometimes it just I don't know what that is like when phones ring in the middle of the night It's like never good news And I was upstairs and I heard the phone ring and I can't explain it to you But I just had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach But then a few minutes passed and it went away So I was like maybe that's not for me But then there was a knock on my door And it was my religious superior And she opened my door and I could see her face because her face was illuminated by the street light And she had tears in her eyes And she said sister Miriam your mom and dad are on the phone. I said, okay So I went downstairs and I had no idea what was about to happen to me I had no idea and I picked up the phone and it was my mom and She said, um honey, I have to tell you something And I said, what is it? She's like your dad your dad just has been sick lately They were at a mission They were literally at a mission doing construction work at one of our missions. So they went to this doctor They didn't even know she's like your dad has been sick lately and we took him to the doctor today And I said what happened? And she said your dad was diagnosed with cancer today And I said well what kind of cancer how bad is it and she said your dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer today He has pancreatic cancer And that was fat Tuesday. That was the day before Ash Wednesday And we buried him on Ascension Thursday So I came home and I was 24 years old and I came home and it was just my I have an older brother But you know it kind of lives his own life and so I went home and my mom and I took care of my dad and It was something about taking care if you've ever taken care of somebody who's very ill You know that it makes life very clear very quickly And there was something about that where our family secrets began to come out and Our lives slowly began to transform because there are some things that my dad needed to know before he passed away And so all of our secrets came out And it was in that time where my dad Also made amends to me and he made amends to the family before he passed away And my mother and I were there like the day that he was diagnosed My mom called me on the phone the day that my dad went into eternity to see God face-to-face My mom and I were there again today that day And we stood on each side of his hospital bed as he was laboring to breathe and we prayed the rosary And as we finished the Hail Holy Queen he took three more breaths and he passed away And it was I tell you one of the most beautiful and most sorrowful moments of my entire life And it transformed my mom and I's relationship So my mom now I'll tell you more about my mom tomorrow But I love my mom so much, you know, and so I go and visit my mom for a couple weeks every year And so she lives out on the Oregon coast And so we usually go to the beach for a couple days and I tell the story often that several years ago We were at the beach and you know in the Oregon I'm not sure like when you guys go to the lake here, but in Oregon It's always 55 degrees and raining because it's Oregon like that's what happens there. So Sure enough it is 55 degrees and raining. It's August in Oregon It's and so we wanted to go for a walk on the beach, but we couldn't go for a walk on the beach because it was raining so we went to Daily Mass and we went upstairs and As soon as we got upstairs I opened this huge sliding glass windows this huge picture window and As soon as I opened it you could just hear the waves crashing onto the shore of the beach And you know when rain first moves and you can smell the rain, you know So we're sitting there in front of the window watching the waves and listening to the waves and smelling the rain And we actually we each had these huge cups of coffee, which every Catholic knows is the eighth sacrament So we're sitting there with them All right, so we're sitting there and We had this moment And I had this moment and I know you've had it too And even as I say this I tell the story all the time But even as I say this I remember it as if it happened just today I had this moment and I know you've had it too where you say to yourself I wish time would stop right here And I wish this beauty I wish this intimacy I wish this joy. I wish this moment would never end. I Wish it would never end and it's not a theological term But I call it those are the appetizers to the main entree of heaven When it will never end And do we not have those And I don't know what that is for you if you think of a moment right now I can tell because some of you are smiling If you think of a moment right now where you say to yourself, I wish I wish it would have never ended Those are our stories. That's Christ hearkening to us. It's him drawing close to us But no matter what has happened like where you've come from my dear friends It doesn't disqualify you from any any area of sanctity any area of holiness any area of hope Because sanctity is not just found in beautiful stained glass windows in your lovely churches Sanctity is found here in this room right now It's not despite of your story. Oh God saves you because even though you have this story God saves it God saves you in your story Because he sanctifies all things he's present at all times and there's not one part of your story That's outside of his mercy outside of his healing power outside of his ability to weave and to make beautiful St. Augustine said God would not allow anything to happen to us that he does not plan to bring a greater good out of and I don't know like why does God allow things to happen when you look at yourself like you look at that question of Where have I come from? You know and you might be sitting here today saying sister I just I've got like books that haven't been read forget about chapters I've got like whole books of books that have not been read in my story. Okay, okay That's fine and Christ is waiting there for you whenever you want to read it He's waiting there for you Because there's nothing, you know, I heard somebody say on a documentary one time He was talking about his own journey and he was talking about how my his life had just been obliterated by his addiction And it just was a heart-wrenching story, but he said you know what? He said what I realized after I got finally honest with my life He said even though it was really really hard and nearly destroyed my marriage They ended up rebuilding a marriage is an amazing story But he said I realized at that moment that after all that was uncovered the whole truth came out He said he realized it in his soul. It looked like a Darren like a desert like a barren wasteland But inside was a seed And he said I realized right then and there that if there's a seed that there can be life Because there's nothing so dead that God can't bring something to life out of it nothing Whether that's your marriage whether that's your grandkids whether that's something that happened to you Maybe you've been estranged from your children for many years and you're saying to yourself my kids won't even talk to me There's nothing so dead that God can't bring life out of it So my dear friends we must we must engage our story. So like where have you come from in your life? Because the whole story has to be read right So we look at where we're going so we talk about where we're coming from is kind of like a trajectory this way And we're always on a journey because stories are always on a journey. So you and I are always on a journey So where are you going in life? Where are you headed? What is the trajectory of your life? Where are you stuck? Where's God giving you wondrous grace right now? Where is he bringing life into your right now? Where are you? Where are you headed? Do we know where we're headed? I you know, I live in you know, I live in the great nation of Texas So I live in the southern part of Texas. Okay, so when we secede you join us. Okay, so here we go and I'm totally joking I live in South Texas. So I live in Corpus Christi, which I highway 37 which goes up through San Antonio and up all the way through Texas dead ends and begins in Corpus Christi Okay, so you have to really want to go to Corpus Christi you can't really drive by Corpus Christi It just doesn't happen. Okay, so which means to get to Corpus Christi You have to know how to get to Corpus Christi or like any place else if you want to go to Pittsburgh You want to go to Chicago you have to know how to get there So if you don't know where your destination is how are you gonna get there? Like where am I going somebody once said you know If I don't know if you don't know where you came from it's so great If you don't know where you came from and you don't know where you're going you're going to be easily manipulated If you don't know where you came from and you don't know where you're going you're going to be easily manipulated So we know we came from God and we're on this journey and we have this story right and God is the storyteller He's the one he's the hero of the story and he's bringing redemption to our story And he's bringing meaning to our story and he's bringing illumination to our story and he's also bringing us on a journey which means that a journey goes forward one step at a time and sometimes we fall down and sometimes we lay there for a while just like a beached whale we just lay there for a while and we're not really sure if we want to get up we do but we're not really sure you know I love it in the Gospel of John when Jesus approaches the paralytic man you know who's paralyzed and he asks him a question like do you want to be well he's like bro man been here 38 years you know like seriously at 38 years yeah yeah you know it's interesting do you want to be well that's many of the questions that Jesus would ask me during the story of my life because I wasn't you know I wasn't there were tarts my heart where I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be well and even as an adult as I'm maturing now it's good that we mature because we mature on five different levels okay as human beings when St. Paul talks about us maturing he says we're called to grow into the maturity of Christ so ultimately our maturity is not compared to you and myself and I can look at you if you look at somebody you admire very deeply you'll you will probably admire their areas of maturity like their sac their sacrificial their noble their they have integrity their wise their good they put others before themselves but they're also very careful you know to safeguard that their own sanctity within so you look at somebody like that but we mature what we mature physically emotionally spiritually physically sexually so we're called to be on a journey of maturity which means growth and you think about growth is like a tree so you talk about a tree bearing fruit and you've got a trunk of a tree and then you've got roots of the tree and to have a really mature tree the tree has to have what deep roots and it has to be healthy did you know this this is fascinating did you know like I didn't realize this but it's forest like forest trees have like their own language it's not just in Lord of the Rings they actually have their own language okay so when forests come together when trees come together in a forest their roots actually intertwine a check this is amazing their roots intertwine underneath the soil and the roots go very very very deep did you know that in the forest there are what what scientists call mother trees and mother trees can sense when weaker trees need extra nutrients they will send the excess nutrients of their own tree to the roots of the tree that's sick so to make it strong that's trees y'all you know I'm saying like what trees whoa you talk about maturity maturity in our life and one of the biggest areas when we talk about you know it's very similar into you know when Jesus encounters the disciples on the road to Emmaus is what what I'm asking you now like from Genesis is very similar to what Jesus asked the disciples in the Gospel of Luke because you know the angel says to Hagar where have you come from and where are you going and Jesus what happens in the same journey he comes along the disciples and he asked them a question he says what are you guys discussing what are you discussing as you walk along the way so great because what happens they're in a hot debate over there in a hot debate over what just happened in Jerusalem and they're so they're so closed in on themselves and they're debating so vehemently over what just happened in Jerusalem that Jesus literally appears in their midst and he walks with them and they don't recognize him have you ever been so turned in on yourself and so consumed by something whether even if it's in your own self-righteousness I mean have you ever been in an argument with somebody and it ceases to be about the thing and you just have to be right what you know we just become consumed and we lose all track of like what is good true and beautiful and we become so consumed that Christ comes into our midst and we don't even see him we don't even recognize him so on your journey my dear friends where is Christ leading you on your journey because he's leading you ultimately toward himself but where in the journey is he wishing to bring you life one of the biggest areas of places where you and I are stuck many times are areas of unforgiveness in our life we talk about the our father we're going to talk about that we're going to hear that actually in the gospel we're going to hear about the gospel where you know the disciples go to Jesus and they say to him you know Lord teaches how to pray like John taught his disciples like Jesus had to pray and so Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray and at the heart of that prayer is what forgive us our trespasses that's a very serious thing to say did you know that one of the I do a lot of work in healing ministry and in my own journey my I've been on a really a very very serious journey of healing for 12 years so I know this myself I know it in stories I know it from reading I know it just being around people one of the biggest areas of brokenness one of the biggest areas of staying stuck in resentment and bitterness and hard-heartedness and blaming other people for our problems that one of the biggest areas that we struggle with is areas of unforgiveness here's another great saying in a 12-step meeting resentment is like drinking a little bit of poison every day and hoping the other person dies resentment is like drinking a little bit of poison every day and hoping the other person dies because I tell you this the person that abused me was that one of the deepest wounds one of them not even not even the most one of the deepest wounds in my entire life and I remember I remember saying as a young girl I will never I will never forgive you I will never forgive you which is a very dangerous that's a very dangerous vow to make even if you ever made that vow you can actually in the name of Jesus Christ come out of it and I would highly recommend you do because what that does when we are areas of unforgiveness what we're trying to do is we're trying to protect ourselves so we build these elaborate fortresses around our hearts we talk about where we're going we build these elaborate fortresses around our hearts and it gives us the illusion of self-protection and it's the hard-heartedness of self-righteousness of self-reliance of blaming other people of just you know even sometimes a victim mentality where you know it's like we're always the victim I know because I did it all and underneath it was a little girl who was so broken and so angry and I had no idea what to do with it and that anger doesn't go away for me it turned inward and it became clinical depression and there I am just trying to get through life you know and here I am a religious sister I'm still struggling I'm having all these issues and all these problems you know and I realized I realized at one point by the grace of God that after so many years of living like that after so many years as a young girl struggling with alcoholism and as a young girl struggling with promiscuity and a lot of brokenness clinical depression a lot of anger a lot of bitterness and a lot of perfectionism so I had two competing narratives happening one you know on the outside I thought if I was just skinny enough and pretty enough and funny enough and good enough at volleyball and good enough at school you wouldn't notice because on the inside I hated myself and I thought to myself if you ever knew my story what I can so freely share with you now in such a joy if you'd ever known my story there's no way you want to be around somebody like me and these elaborate self-defense mechanisms and after 20 years of living in a lot more than that like all these years of living in resentment and bitterness and kind of you know blaming other people all this kind of stuff all these self-defense mechanisms after all those years of doing that who is the person that was still sick me and I had a moment I had a moment in my conversion story where I was pondering that the parable of the unforgiving servant right where Jesus tells that story where Peter comes to Jesus he's like you know how often do we have to forgive like seven times like 70 times seven times Jesus like oh Peter let me tell you a story you know so you know the story very well and I won't my parish missions I usually go into the story much more deeply but you know he tells a story of the unforgiving steward who unforgiving servant who owes the master a lifetime of wages and the master knows that the servant owes him a lifetime of wages and it can never pay it back and I love the words because listen to the heart of Christ my dear friends even in the master even in this parable just a story Jesus puts his own heart in the heart of the master the forgiving master where he's as moved with pity moved with kindness move with compassion and mercy he forgives the man his entire debt and what happens that servant gets up and he goes out into the other near the household because you know slaves had households and they had organizations of like hierarchies of slaves and he grabs a fellow slave and it just the visual imagery is beautifully because just choke him it's like season and throttle him saying payback what you owe payback what you owe me and that man owed him six months wages like the comparison is not even applicable to it's not even close to being equal and what happens that servant falls on his knees and he says verbatim verbatim verbatim the other servant had just said to the master but the unforgiving servant is having none of it and he orders him to be sold his family to be sold and the debt to be paid and the other servants in the household are horrified and they go back to the master and they repeat to the master what everything had happened in the master calls in that servant and I paraphrase in here he calls the men and he says what are you doing what are you doing you ask me you beg me to forgive you your entire debt and I did it because you asked me to but this man this fellow servant of yours who owes you a mere fraction of the amount him you cannot forgive and that servant says nothing he doesn't say oh my gosh you're right like oh my gosh I didn't realize that or yes you're right so I'm so sorry he says nothing very interesting and in that moment pondering that story I was well into religious life this is many years ago I was well into religious life many years ago and I had a vision of myself in that parable and I can tell you now that I wasn't the benevolent master I was the unforgiving servant and I had that man that had abused me by the collar of his shirt so to speak and I had my finger in his face and then you pay back what you owe me because you owe me you owe me and what I realized right there I was horrified horrified and I remember in my vision I just I backed away I was just so just I had no idea like you talk about things you had no idea what that were in your heart that was a Holy Spirit and in my heart I just released my grasp on that man I was like I can't do this like I can't do this and I didn't want to go back to my addiction that ship and so like I didn't want like I wanted to be well because I was laboring on a under a fundamental a fundamental misunderstanding of forgiveness because I thought to forgive like we have that silly saying in English it says forgive and forget there's no such thing actually you know what it's in the catechism when it talks about this it says the human intellect it doesn't even have the capacity to forget so to speak but but it says this but with transformation with transformation with the grace of the Holy Spirit that pain can be turned into intercession for the one who has hurt us and I thought you know what if I forgive you if I forgive you I'm just letting you off the hook and you can't be let off the hook because I can tell you right now to this day that man is not sorry and I've confronted him twice and he's not sorry at all and those are points of our story we have to decide where am I going and do I want to be well so let me ask you this are you still asking people to pay you back for something they can't pay you back for my dear friends what was taken from you it they can't pay it back they can't but when we are willing to take a full account of the wounds forgiveness is not just words it's not just like pretending it's not just saying it actually to forgive is a really crucifying experience because you actually have to unveil all of the wound and all the emotions have to come out the whole story has to be told and it goes down into the depths and we know it goes down into the depths is because Christ goes down into the depths because what is he saying on the cross stripped naked he's the bridegroom strip naked for the bride and people are still harassing him they're still spitting on him they're still abusing him and he hangs there and he says father forgive them for they know not what they do so do you have in your journey like do you have areas life that have areas of unforgiveness and you know what forgiveness is different than reconciliation but do you on your end and I tell you this is a sister in Christ somebody on the journey with you do you have areas in your story are there people in your life that you can't even stand to look at or that you're still gossiping about or that whenever Thanksgiving like this certain things happen you like I don't know it was something Aunt Sally said 20 years ago at Thanksgiving and our kids are not playing with her kids anymore thank you very much okay so whoa you know but Christ wants to bring you to freedom and today's maybe today's the day right are there things that are impeding you on your journey because when Jesus says in the gospel of Luke or the gospel of John chapter 10 10 he said it's a thief that comes to steal kill and destroy but I came that you might have life and have it to the full so what in your life what is preventing the fullness of life for you right now is there something in your life is it a relationship is it a secret is it an area of your life where we are laboring under a misunderstanding of who God is because I love this in catechism 239 catechism 239 says this it says by calling God father right the language of faith indicates two main things that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all of his children just so great God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood which emphasizes God's imminence is indwelling the intimacy between create creator and creature but so this experience this language of faith on draws on the human experience of parents who are in way the first representatives of God for man but this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood we ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes he is neither man or woman he is God he also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood although he is their origin and standard no one is father as God is father so as father he's an origin in your life and are you and I have areas of our life that were we're laboring under a misunderstanding of God I know for myself for a long time and you know on our journey like you know we grew up as we grew up Catholic and our family and but our faith our religion was largely fear-based okay so don't do this I was gonna go to hell don't thank you to go to hell I mean there is there such thing as mortal sin yes okay but there was no emphasis on God loves us so here's why we do what we do there's an emphasis on what we're doing but here's why we do it there was not that and I mean many times I had this image of God kind of like as a policeman in the sky you know with a chicken book watching me he's left handed by the way take a book watching me and he is taking note of all of my failures and all of my sins and all of my brokenness and you know as I heard somebody once say I just always had the feeling that God was mildly disgusted with me are there parts of our hearts where and it could be it could come from our stories this is why my dear friends this is why our stories must be made known is are we laboring under a misunderstanding of who God is because see what we learn in the scriptures why we must know the scriptures why we must absorb them not just know them here we must form our intellects but why they must come from here to here is that they form our hearts is because it is God constantly telling a story of who he is who he is it's God the Gospels are the stories of who Christ is who God is that he's coming into your life in my life and he's saying to you I don't want to dominate you I don't want to manipulate you like he comes as a baby he comes as an innocent child he comes naked and vulnerable I was I was on the eight days on the retreat last year and this Jesuit priest was leading me through this meditation on the nativity and he said Jesus he said Jesus comes to earth he comes to us naked and vulnerable because he's showing us how to be human this openness where we're often heart of heart he's not heart of heart and he comes in he reveals himself when he's always healing the sick and he's raising the dead and he's touching people he's just getting right into their lives to remind them of who they are and who he is to them and then he agrees he submits to be crucified on a cross the way that shame is a shameful death only slaves and rebels were crucified so Roman citizens were not crucified St. Paul was beheaded slaves and rebels were crucified in Christ agrees and he's a man like us in all things but sin he's taken on every sin of ours he's taken on every suffering and he is always present because see the beautiful thing is Christ comes into our life and he came into earth 2000 years ago but because God transcends time God is transcended God actually lives outside of time we call it kairos right the eternal now so if you can imagine this when we talk about where we've come from and where we're going and I'm gonna ask you my last question here okay so the power of your witness of where have you come from and where are you going and where are you now you and I live in chronological time so right now it is like 440 okay in an hour from now it'll be 540 tomorrow afternoon it'll be 440 really 24 hours from now and you can turn around you can look back on your day and you can say this happened and this happened and this happened okay so all of us who are here now we're once five years old we were once 10 we were once 20 some of us were once 60 that's okay 78 that's right all right here we go so we're on this spectrum chronological time right so things for we call it chrono so things unfold for us in chronological time but see God doesn't live in chronological time God lives in kairos what we call the eternal now so here's this imagine this for just a second that we are present to God now right now as we are is in this chapel we're present to God now you were also present to God and he is present to you when you were five you were also present to him and he's present to you the day that you leave chronological time and you two enter into kairos every single moment of your life is present to God now which means that every single moment of your life is full of his resplendence which means there's nothing in your life that has ever happened that is outside of his healing power nothing nothing is so dead God can't bring life up what oftentimes mitigates against a witness of Christ like what monstin your Pope was talking about last night one of the things that mitigates it is when our words say something and our lives reveal something different there's a dichotomy between the two and you we know we can always talk about that you know can talk about the right words but like the wrong tone of voice like you know it's very even when you're listening many times you're listening to me you're listening on so many different levels right now what your brain is doing as you're listening so when I first stood up before you you were a first while you were assessing whether I was trustworthy or not did you know that yeah so I read a study many years ago that it's actually condensed now but many years ago I read a study that said that 80% of people's opinion of you 80% of people's opinion of you is made up within the first four minutes that they meet you right 80% of their opinion is made up in the first four minutes now scientists say it's within the first four seconds so immediately when you meet me and I meet you your your brain is firing certain things our eyes are looking at each other mirror neurons are being you know produced all kinds of things are happening you're looking at me you're also like trying to intuit if I'm trustworthy or not because to trust somebody when we talk about trusting the Lord to trust somebody the definition of trust is to rely upon somebody to be dependent upon somebody and so this is why if you and I don't have a proper understanding of who God is why would we trust him if God is like when a French bishop once said you know when he talked about original sin the Satan says to us that God is an average self-serving master that's what Satan's lie is to us he's already spoken it to you a million times today but he's not a good father and he doesn't love you oh really he's so good oh why did that happen to you then oh you prayed that you prayed that your husband wouldn't pass away he passed away you prayed that your kid would get that job he didn't get that job oh really why did God allow that to happen to you it's the same lie over and over and over and over and over again so God is constantly revealing of who he is and he's coming into our lives and he's speaking the truth to us because it's his desire what to draw near to us and when you love somebody you draw near to them and it is your only desire that they would draw near to you as well and do we not have people in our lives I know that I do there are people in my life that I would love to be close to that I try to be I mean like I said I'm very serious on my healing journey of trying to become the woman that God has created me to be and open and receptive and honest and forthright and you know full of integrity and things like that and I try to be a really good friend of my friends and you know sometimes people will come into your life and they will open in like your hearts draw close together but you have people in your life that you just wish that you knew them or you just wish that they would share with you and they just won't and you're like and you can't violate that you cannot manipulate it all you can do is draw close and just have an open heart and just wait and I say to myself man I like you a lot like you're so awesome I would have so want to know you like I would love to be a closer I would love to know you like can you just you know and they're like no and you're like all right I miss you and it is the same thing with us that God draws close to us he draws close to us with no other desire my dear friend than to bring you into his own beautiful life he desires to forgive you to heal you to speak to the deep places he desires to heal your relationships to melt our hardness of heart to heal us of addictions to heal us of our self-righteousness to heal us of all the ways that make us less human because Jesus Christ is a man fully alive and when we allow him to do that people ask me all the time they ask me all the time sister Miriam what is the one thing I can do to make my marriage better what is the one thing I can do to be a better co-worker what is the one thing I can do to be a better parent what's the one thing I can do to be a better grandparent like what's the one thing I can do and I say this to them and I'm saying it to myself as I'm saying it to you and I'm not being platitudinous at any mean by any means and I will always say the best gift the best gift you can give to your spouse to your children to your grandchildren to your co-workers the best gift you can give them is to allow Jesus Christ to come and heal you every day to have a daily encounter with the living Lord Jesus that is the best gift you can give to anybody else because as we allow him to transform us then we're not transmitting our suffering onto them and yes in our brokenness we will say we're sorry and we will have to say we will say I love you we will say thank you we will say please we will do all these things but what happens is that I'm not transmitting on my suffering to them what happens is I'm passing on to them transforming grace and all of us become a little bit more human through that process so my last question to you is from Genesis chapter 3 verse 9 where it is the breezy time of the day and I love that imagery as well where God walks with Adam and even the breezy time of the day and it's the breezy time of the day and they're nowhere to be found and he goes in search of them and I think we have to be very very careful about assigning a tone of voice to God okay so like we talked about even as you're listening to me you're listening to my words but you're also listening to my affect your you're watching my body language there's a whole bunch of things happening here when you're listening to me and so it's the same when God speaks to us there's a whole bunch of things happening and as he comes to Adam and Eve he knows what has happened and he's drawing close to them like he's drawing close to you and me and he comes to them and he asks them this where are you where are you and that's a great question because sometimes I ask God where he is but he doesn't need to be asked where he is I like I need to know where I am and he comes to me he's like my bride where are you my dude I have no idea where I am right now could you come I think I'm off in the weeds somewhere like I have no idea where could you come find me because I need to be found and he comes to us and he says where are you because our temptation like Alcrest I was talking about today when he was talking about this very story I love how the Holy Spirit weaves talks together this very story our first temptation my dear friends is to hide so if I'm talking to you today and you're hearing things and you just want to hide it's okay like that's very normal we're like oh I don't want to look at that okay okay but the Lord comes to them and he says where are you where are you and you see that so often with little children and run a daycare for many years at a Catholic school in Seattle and you say I'm with many with children you know I spent many hours of my life I was there for eight years and I was studying for a master's degree in theology at that time and things like that I've spent many hours of my life many hours of my life people putting Barbie heads back on Barbies okay that I'm not I have a master's degree in putting Barbie heads back on can I just say that so I would go and every day after the bar I like why are people ripping heads off Barbies I have no idea so I would spend I'm putting heads back on the Barbies okay putting all the heads back on put some clothes on I don't what's happening there okay so put all the girls back together looking good girls okay heads on right so I will go over to the registration table and start signing kids in by 330 I see like a bunch of girls like a bunch of girls gather like in a big circle you know something happens and all of a sudden they scatter and there's heads all over the floor we found there's just much of heads and I would find one of the girls be like hey what's what's happening here oh I don't know sister I'm like that's really interesting because I just spent 20 minutes putting all their heads back on so I know that they were head they had heads 20 minutes ago like I know that because I did it you know so can you tell me what happened I have no idea how that happened I just find that hard to believe like I just not believing you right now like you're totally making that up and you're hiding so get over here put their heads back on okay so you know but that is our first temptation is to hide that is our first temptation to hide and please notice that God the father doesn't go to them and he doesn't go to you and me he's not like where are you he's so good to us he comes where are you where are you and in your life today my dear friends wherever you find yourself whatever is happening in your mind right now let me just ask you this because the father is asking of you where are you because I want to meet you where you are wherever that is in your story I want to meet you there and I'm not afraid he's like I'm not afraid I'm already there and I want to meet you there so would you let me would you let me meet you there because that's what he delights to do and when we allow him in these stories when we allow him in these memories he's already there but when we allow him to transform it what happens my dear friends is our life take on a vibrance our lives take on a vibrance like I said to you I'm a nun today one of the reasons I'm a nun today is because the witness of a very holy priest and I had never met anybody in my life that was so sold out for Jesus Christ is that man and he had a story himself he wasn't perfect nobody's perfect but man he loved Jesus Christ and he was funny and down to earth and he would tell me the truth whether I wanted to hear it or not he told me the truth in season I was even he saw me as I was he came to the garden so to speak saying where are you like don't you want more than that what are you doing with your life don't you want more than what you're settling for you are totally settling God loves you and he's calling you to something great what are you doing with your life and I had a distinct I many times when he would look at me I would see Jesus Christ himself looking back at me and there I was 21 years old a girl like he had been a priest a long time and he knew what was up but he pursued me and I remember standing one day looking at him saying it was like giving up like there's a lot of things in my life that I doubted I didn't trust anybody I didn't trust anything and there's a lot of things in life that I was like I don't know if I want anything to do this but I could not deny the power of his witness because for better and for worse and for all the chapters of his story all the transformation man he lived an integrated life and when he lived an integrated life Christ love was radiant from him and I looked at him one day like I told you last night I looked at him one day and I was like I don't know what I don't know what's going on here like he was radiant radiant said I don't know what's going on here but I want that whatever this is I want that and he said that's the love of Christ I said well I want that so let's do it and that was over 20 years ago so in your journey my dear friends this area personal witness it's not a formula you know we when we talk when we must develop you must develop a story that's very true what what Monsignor Pope was saying very true okay of what God is on in our life like where we come from where we're going where we're now but and in that on a much deeper level also bringing the Lord into the roots of our story because like we said he's already there and he's saving you in every chapter of your story so if it's okay with you we got a few minutes left can I just pray with you is that okay all right so maybe just pray with you real quick okay I'm just gonna ask the Lord to speak to you okay because I know that you've been drinking out of a fire hose for like an hour so I'm just gonna ask the Lord to speak to you so I just ask you Lord Jesus right now that for all of us you would bring to mind one part of our story that you wish to speak to I just would invite you not to censor that I just ask you Holy Spirit just Holy Spirit bring to each one of us a part of our story that you wish to speak to maybe it's an area we've been trying to hide or something we don't want to think about it's okay you're safe here it's okay so just ask you Jesus right now that for each one of us would you bring to mind a part of our story that you wish to speak to and as you call that to your mind and to your heart what does it feel like to even think about it maybe it feels heavy maybe it feels joyful I don't know but what does it feel like to even bring that part of your story to mind and as you call to mind that part of your story could you imagine just Christ sitting in front of you he's so kind and could you just imagine him looking at you as you hold that story in your heart this face is one of kindness and concern and compassion and attentiveness and if you'd be willing and only if you're willing would you be willing to kind of in a sense take that story out of your heart and hold it in your hands in front of you just that one thing what's the one thing just kind of hold that maybe it's a relationship maybe it's a memory maybe it's a secret maybe it's a hope or a dream or an ache but would you be willing in your heart in the silence of your heart to kind of hold that memory in front of you in your hands and maybe that feels scary and what does it feel like to hold it in your hands in front of you and look at it maybe outside for the first time and Jesus wants to say something to you about it so Lord Jesus what do you want to say to each one of us right now about that because he loves you because he cares where you came from and where you're going and where you are right now and his desire is to bring you to be fully alive if you'd be willing Jesus would just like to gently take that from you now and place it in his own pierced heart and if you're not ready to surrender it that's okay as much that can be scary but if you'd be willing he would really like to do that for you so could you imagine yourself just maybe opening your hands just a little wider and watching him with his pierced hands the hands of the king or the hands of a healer and he's gonna take that from you and place it in his own heart and if you're willing if you would allow him to he would like to place his divine hands on your heart would you let him place his hand on your heart where it's broken and your heart where it aches or where there's deep joy would you allow him to place his sacred and healing hand on your heart and he's gonna speak to you as he does that so Jesus I just asked that our hearts would be open please place your hand on our hearts and speak to us right now what do you want us to know about who we are and who you are and Lord I pray that the heat from your hands would melt our hearts I pray for a blessing on every single one of us right now Lord I pray that you would give us the courage to face the unread chapters of our story and bring them to life I pray for healing and marriages healing and families Lord I pray for hearts to be open and turn toward you I pray for new life to be poured out upon each one of us right now and I pray for the oil of gladness and deep courage and joy to be poured out upon us and what I pray is that you call us to be your witnesses of your goodness of your mercy of your fidelity that you would write your story in every chapter of ours that we would always find our home in you give us the grace to say yes to you just one more step today and we thank you Lord and we praise you in Jesus name amen my dear friends you are deeply deeply loved and God is writing his beauty in your story so all you have to do is just open your heart and say yes just one step at a time thank you so much for being here God bless you