 I was praying last night and then again just as we were praying right here, what we're doing here I think, I know that I need, I know that we need, I would suggest that the church needs. That as I look around and I still get to travel quite a bit, I meet with a lot of people, a lot of priests, more than anything, we just need to know that the Lord is, you know, that he's in relationship with us, that he empowers us. My concern is sometimes I think we get caught up in, I don't know, the debates and the arguments, we're actually going to talk a little bit about this. The intellectual part of our faith, which is important, we're going to send here to university, it's obviously important and essential, but it's also something we can hide behind because it's safer. I was struck by the hymn that we were singing at the beginning here that we run to the Father that we're not going to hide. And in a danger I think oftentimes as we who are in ministry of the church, we are deacons and priests, we hide behind things and we can hide behind our ministry, we combine behind who we are as priests or hide behind a particular doctrine or in, and I think the Lord wants us to be able to move away through that and come to that. So I'm very grateful for that. Amen. Okay, St. Francis of Assisi says, if I should happen, I'm going to go ahead and do this. Stop laughing. Literally, all right, I'm much older than 40, but the morning I turned 40, all right. Mid-morning, I was kind of out of headache. I said, I think I'm going to take some aspirin. I looked at the bottle, I couldn't see how many aspirins. I said, like I had one good morning and then after 40 it really is downhill, all right. So if I should happen at the same time to come upon any, any saint coming from heaven and some little poor priest, I would first show honor to the priest and hurry more quickly to kiss his hands. For I would say to the saint, hey, St. Lawrence, wait, his hands may handle the word of life and possess the Eucharist, which is more such as the love of St. Francis for the Eucharist. The Christ who emptied himself and gave himself for us, I alluded on Monday night that for, for Francis the greatest feast is Christmas. He just couldn't imagine a God who would take flesh, you know. So there's a beautiful image in Gretcio. If you've not been to Gretcio, it's where Francis began the nativity scene. This image, an individual in the congregation, had that Jesus was asleep. Francis believed that if we could actually see what the Lord had done, that it would impact us. So he does the nativity. And this evening they were praying and this person had this image of Jesus asleep and everybody was trying to wake him and Francis would go and he would take the Christ child and the Christ child would awaken when Francis took him. His ministry used to awaken, right to awaken in the hearts of believers who Jesus is. Francis would be in a cave up north in Nisezi and he would be there and he'd be quiet and he would be wrestling with his brokenness and his sinfulness. Francis would say, and it wasn't just hyper verbally, he would say that he was the greatest of sinners. And what he couldn't imagine is that this God would love him in the midst of his brokenness and in the midst of his sinfulness. The God would eventually come and to take on flesh, enter into the messiness of his world, the messiness that was the human existence and the human condition and that God would enter that. So for Francis, though he was in the form of God, Jesus didn't deem equality with God, something regressed, rather he emptied himself. He empties himself and takes on flesh and Francis just couldn't imagine this. That the Almighty omnipotent, a holy one, would take flesh and look like you. Literally, well some of you, you know who you are. Father Contra LeMace of the Papal Preacher would say that one of the greatest gifts that the Franciscan theologian has given to the church is the image of God being humble, the humility of God. It's not something we talk about. I mean, it's the Almighty omnipotent, a holy, all-powerful, omnipresent God becomes humble. He empties himself and takes the form of a slave being born in the likeness of men, likeness of us. Francis just had a really hard time reconciling that, that God would be so humble. If that wasn't enough that that same God would, again, pour himself out, offer himself on the cross. So Francis would celebrate multiple lengths every year, as if one isn't quite enough, right? Again, this invitation for him to focus and to reflect and to pray and discern on the cross. Francis would be walking along and he would see two sticks on the road that were in the shape of a cross and Francis would stop and worship. He would use the Tau Cross as the image for the early friars. He would sign his name with the edge of the Tau Cross. Again, it's the humility of God. He just, you couldn't imagine, first off, a God that would take flesh. That was, that was pretty remarkable, but that same God would take upon himself the sins of us all and this Almighty, all-holy, all-powerful God would allow himself to be humble, to literally be humiliated, to be stripped naked, right? To be placed on the cross for everybody, for just people walking by to gawk, into mock, into make fun of. I mean, that in itself reveals something to us about who God is. I've said multiple times, if I was God, if you have nothing to be grateful for, be grateful that I'm not, amen? Seriously, I would suck at being God. Well, actually, from my perspective, I would love it. Nobody else would love it. My patience, not so much. Like, I mean, I'd be probably fairly precious, sometimes 70, but that's it, right? You just couldn't imagine a God who would go to the cross. Again, who would humble himself in that manner, who would allow himself to be humiliated. I'm sure last night as we were praying this, this image of Hebrews that the author of Hebrews presents about Jesus who's able to identify with us because of his weakness, right? It's not an image that we reflect on. We largely see weakness as something to be overcome, but what I think Jesus reveals to us is weakness should be embraced. We equate weakness with sinfulness, and those two things are profoundly different. The part of the human condition is being weak. It just is. And Jesus takes on weakness. He becomes limited. He becomes humiliated. And again, for Francis, this was just unimaginable. And maybe finally, the icing on the cake for Francis is that the same God who pours himself out and takes on flesh and allows himself to even further be poured out and goes to the cross and is crucified for us, that that same God will once again pour himself out to us in the Eucharist. And this was the final straw for Francis. I mean, talk about humility, that God would humble himself and take what appears to be, looks like bread, and he manifests himself in that most holy Eucharist. This is why Francis said, even if it's the worst sinner in the village, we honor the priest because the priest, the Lord uses through the Holy Spirit, the priest, to transform bread and wine into his body, newest blood, such as the humility of God. And we've all been in experiences, I'm sure, that we've been with individuals, parishioners, people that just don't quite get it. I remember I was doing a retreat. I was on net, so I wasn't not ordained. I was a kid. This teenager comes in to receive the Eucharist and he was walking back to his pew and he was acting like it was a quarter and he was flipping it in his hand. It was not my finest moment. Francis would say, a wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity. Oh, sublime humility. Oh, humble sublimity. The Lord of the universe, God, Son of God, so humbles himself for our salvation. He hides himself under an ordinary piece of bread. Brothers, look at the humility of God and pour out your heart before him. Brothers, look at the humility of God and pour out your heart before him. If the Lord pours out his heart for us, how can we not pour out our heart for him? And this is what we celebrate in the Mass, and this is the church is inviting us to take a look at over these next many years, the Eucharist and Jesus' presence in the Eucharist and in the mass and the celebration of the mass and adoration. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God becomes present to us in the community gathered and the priests and the Word, of course, and all of that, but in the Eucharist in a preeminent way. My concern is that we live in a church right now that the Eucharist is becoming the battleground, literally. Which side are you on? What kind of music do you like? What are you going to wear? What language are you going to speak? What way are you going to face? It becomes this, it's a huge, I think it's actually fairly significant and impactful and devious attack of the evil one. That place that we're supposed to be most divided, brothers, we are oftentimes becoming most, and we're supposed to be most united, becoming most divided. Louis de Montfort says the corruption of that which is best is worst. So if we can corrupt the way we see the unity and the beauty of Christ and we forget what's taking place there, we begin to fight over these things. And I've had a couple of experiences to be able to be in places where the Eucharist isn't celebrated very often and there's something really profound about that. I shared with the group at the Power and Purpose Conference and experience in Africa and being able to give communion in Africa, but I've also had a number of times been able to go to China and work with the Underground Church. And it'd be with a group of men and women who don't get to celebrate the Eucharist very often. I remember one time we had a Eucharistic adoration which is very commonplace for us. It is not commonplace for them. And I had a procession of the Blessed Sacrament which we do all the time on campus at the Holy Hours and at our conferences. Again, this is something that we are very, very familiar and common to me. They'd never had an experience like this before. And I would say that again, from our Western perspective and from what took place was, I don't know, I was going to use the word scandalous. That maybe is too strong of a word, but it was chaos. I mean, people were gathering around and they were starting to pull on my vestments and wanting to touch the monstrance and to touch the Eucharist. And I'm sure that there were liturgists that are here. It's like, what are you doing? You can't do that. You can't. And just kind of going crazy because it just looks so chaotic. And I will say that it was kind of, it wasn't frightening. It was just overwhelming because there was so many people and they were just kind of gathering around. I felt like I was a halfback trying to make it through the goal line, right? And there's all these people. And finally, and it's, you know, whether in China or the United States, this nun comes up and says, step back. And she just kind of takes control and all of you are like, yeah, you can, you can, you can, it doesn't matter what language you are, nuns are none. But there was something really, really beautiful and powerful. Again, to our sensibilities, it was like, you can't touch that. You can't touch the monster. You shouldn't be doing that. And it's, and my concern oftentimes is right that at times we fall into that what, rather than seeing the profound beauty that was taking place at this, we get lost on some other ancillary argument. Is it appropriate that people are gathering around and grabbing the clothes of the priests? Probably not. Was it gorgeous and beautiful and moving and powerful and convert? Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, Chris said last night, this, this oasis. I mean, for this population in the middle of rural China, who had never experienced anything like that, I mean, just the world needs the Eucharist. The world needs the mass. This, this continual opportunity that we have to be able to enter into this sacrifice, to this celebration of the Eucharist and the mass. There, there's never been a time that the world hasn't needed, but I want to suggest maybe now more than ever, the healing power of the mass. So maybe just to take a look at a couple of ways and just reflection and prayer, where I think the Eucharist and the mass and the Lord pouring himself out is, is needed today. These are self evident. I always, I'm always kind of, when I'm preaching and talking to you guys, it's like, it just happens to be my turn, any one of you, right? But number one, every time we go to mass, celebrate mass, the Eucharist, we're reminded that there's something greater than ourselves. And that's profoundly important in the world today. In a world that believes that, that the human person is the center of everything. In the families that are putting children in the center of everything, that the Eucharist reminds us that we are not the center of the universe. The Eucharist reminds us that we are not the most important thing in the world. I mean, even the fact that we gather, let's say on Sunday morning, what we're saying is that on Sunday morning, there's something more important than soccer or football or whatever, that something is more important than time. I was reading an article recently, it was called the heresy of the weekend. What it was talking about is the lack, roughly 24% of Catholics go to mass every Sunday, right? This sense that there's something more important in the weekend than going to mass. It's heretical. I was on a flight recently up to Toronto, Canada. And it's always, it's always interesting flying. So when I fly, I generally wear my clerics, sometimes wear my habit. Most of the times I wear my clerics for lots of reasons, but one of the reasons is I actually want to be identified as a priest, right? I want people to be able to see them a priest. It's also interesting sitting on a plane watching people come down and you know, they're looking at the seats wondering where they're going to see it sit, right? And they're looking and they're counting and when they realize that they're going to be sitting next to the priest, right? Some people are, there's two different reactions, there's a person that's like, oh crap, this is going to be the longest flight ever, right? And they don't realize how tired I am. Like I'm literally going to be asleep in five minutes, so don't worry, all right? Or the person, I'm not sure which is worse, the person who gets to sit back next to me and say, it's a sign, you know, so for the next hour and a half, it's like, oh my gosh. And it's interesting, actually twice on this trip in Toronto, two people said, I was in my habit in Toronto, a lady comes up to me and she says, are you a real one? I'm not sure what to make about that. But this guy on the plane sitting next to me, I was doing my divine office and he says to me, oh, you're a real one, same thing, you're a real one, it's like, as opposed to a fake one, right? So we begin to talk and use Catholic and he says, but you know something, I just, I'm not able to go to mass, I'm just so busy. I mean, what does that say? What does that say? He says the weekends, he said, I work hard all week and the weekends are just so busy. The fact that you go to mass, the fact that we take time, stop and celebrate mass, says that there's something more important than us. And I would say those of us who are priests, and I would hope that everybody celebrates mass every day. And the deacons that you participate in mass, I would love every day. It's somewhat some of you, it may not be possible. Like my team knows that I'm going to celebrate mass every day when we're traveling with human development, whoever it is, they know that mass is going to be a part of my day. Doesn't matter. I mean, we always hear this, we always make time for priorities. So if you don't have time, particularly I'll speak to priests at the moment, if you don't have time to pray mass every day, it's not a priority for you. And I want to suggest that it ought to be. I mean, how can we hear the words of St. Francis? Again, he hides himself under ordinary bread. Brothers look at the humility of God, who's poured his heart out before him. How can we not do that for him? So this ability to be able to celebrate mass every day and for the deacons to consider the possibility of going to mass every day. Just that very act says that it's the most important thing. I remember one time I was praying and this is just kind of gives you an insight into my mind. I was praying and I was Tarzan, which is just a great image for you to reflect on, if you have nothing else to reflect on. I was wearing the little leather thing that Tarzan was wearing. I'm sorry that I put that in your mind. Yeah. Let's just, let's just Lord, just Romans 12 says that the Lord renews our mind. So Lord, you just renew the mind, right? But this image I had was of Tarzan going from vine to vine. So he's holding on one and he goes and he grabs the next one and just as soon as he grabs that, he lets go of this one and then he turns and that's the Eucharist for me. It's that thing that I'm going to hold on to until I can get the next one until I can get the next one until it's, it's, I can't imagine it not being a part of my day. Right. It's been interesting. My mother, who has gone to mass every day for decades, decades until she's not able to anymore. And she shares that one of the most difficult thing for her is that have you met people who mourn not being able to go to mass and not being able to receive the Lord in the Eucharist? How can we not? And again, particularly in our world that says it's so busy and so crazy that to be able to take a time and just stop and enter into this Eucharist, enter into this offering to the Lord, that we make that the center of our lives. And then in this, and I thought it was just so beautiful actually, John Paul, what you shared about you and your daughter and just one of the blessings of having kids is you've got a story the rest of your life, you know, so kids just make great stories. But this Eucharist is a reminder. It's the offering, the perfect offering to the Father. And more than ever, we need, I believe, to restore fatherhood, the role of fatherhood and who the Father is and who the Heavenly Father is. The new series that I'm working on right now, we did Well-Goose, Met Noia, and the new series that we're doing is we're calling it My Father's Father. My father passed away last year, I talked about that. But the last thing my dad said to me in one of the conversations we had was, we're talking about Jesus and being in heaven. And my dad said, and he's going to present me to the Father, right? I mean, this is what the Eucharist is. It's this entering into the eternal offering to the Father. That's why I chose the Prayer of Reconciliation, the Canon today. I love it when it says, saints among saints in the halls of heaven. I mean, that's just a beautiful image, saints among saints in the halls of heaven. That all of our life's brothers, the people that we're ministering to is to lead them to a place that one day they're going to be presented by Jesus to the Father. And that this is ultimately what we're doing in the Eucharist. Is that this offering, and that when we do this, we come to understand more fully who we are. That every time we come to the Eucharist, we're reminded that at the heart of the Eucharist, it's a presentation, it's an offering, it's a pouring out of Jesus to his Father. And that's ultimately where we identify ourselves. We've already talked a little bit about our sense of identity. Now, part of this series, we're able to interview Father Jacques Philippe. I don't know if you've read anything from Father Jacques Philippe. He's a French. Appreciate. Fantastic. Yeah. One of the things that he says when we were talking about the struggle that we have in an identity in the United States, you know, basically we live in a world now that says whatever you want to identify as you can identify that, right? Whatever that is, little furries and animals, it just, it's just nuts. Okay. There was a little kid, 11 year old kid in Massachusetts who wore a shirt to school that said there are two genders. And he's been suspended. And you say you can't wear that, although you can wear anything you want with any gay pride, lesbian, transgender, anything you want, but you can't wear something like that. Right. But what the mask reminds us of, brothers, is this fundamental relationship, the relationship between a father and his children. And first, John, it says, yet that is what we are children, yet that is what we are children of God. This is what identity, who we are. And Father Jacques Philippe says is that, is that our identity is received. It's not figured out. It's, it's received that, that the father gives to us our identity so that I am first and foremost, I am a son that that that is what identifies me. That is what identifies me. We had a kid who applied to university as a freshman last year. And she was talking, sharing with me some of the applications that she did at other colleges. And they were asking, you know, are you male, female with this whole list of choices of what you could identify as. And she scratched them all out and she wrote, I'm a daughter of God. Right. That's what identifies her, right. What identifies her. That this idea of this offering that the son again offers himself, pours himself out to the father as son. This is who I am. And the reality, brothers, is, is that the reflection about God as father is profoundly vulnerable. And in some, in some circumstances, very difficult because their father has not been present in their life for one reason or another. And this is where the spirit of God in the Eucharist helps us come to understand what does it mean to be father? And what does it mean to be son or daughter? And just as much as we need the transformation of our image of father, we need a transformation of our images sons. And my suspicion is that those of you here confession could say the same thing. I've had a number of people over the years talk about how bad their father was. Anyone ever hear anything like that? Amen. Right. Rarely do I hear people say, I wasn't a very good son. Right. The Jesus wants to reveal to us, what does it look like to be son, to be obedient, to be loving, to be kind, to be generous, to be compassionate. All of this, this, this mystery that we call the Eucharist is, is the revelation of these realities. Amen. What else takes place in the Eucharist that would be good for the world to hear? That we have sinned. When I was talking with Deacon Ralph, and I'm still not sure why he keeps on raising his hands about the confederate this morning, I said, I want to make sure that we pray the confederate. We live in a world that doesn't believe in sin. That, that's antiquated. And we begin the mass with the understanding, the recognition of our sinfulness. The world needs to know this. And yet my concern is, you know, to ask those of you who are able to preach, if you ever just preached on the confederate. I mean, listen to, a danger we go is we just say the prayers because it's what we do. But listen to what we're saying. I confess to Almighty God. That's how we start. And to you, my brothers and sisters, right, that we literally stand up, but we just go through the motions. Are we really doing it? That's why sometimes it bugs me when they say, okay, let's take a moment for our sins. I confess. Let's give ourselves a minute to let the spirit of God show us our sin. And really recognize and preach from this. I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts, my words, and what I've done and what I haven't done through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore, I ask the blessed Mary, ever virgin and all the angels and saints and to you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God. One time at the end of the computer, I said, did you do that? They said, do we do what you just said, pray for me to the Lord our God. That we live in a world in an age that is totally disregarded any sense of sin and brokenness and accountability or anything like that. And we begin every liturgy with them, with the recognition that we have sinned and that ultimately that God is, may Almighty God, have mercy on you, forgive you of your sins. I think I had a student one time walked out of the mass and he asked me, we just had mass and I said, he'd asked me, can I go to confession? So we talked for a minute, I said, do you understand that every time you come to the Eucharist, there's the possibility, as long as you're not mortal sin, that your sins are forgiven, that the nature of the liturgy is the forgiveness of any sin. It's a part of the right, it's part of what we believe. And yet most, that's not fair, a certain percentage of the individuals who are coming to mass, it's never honestly even thought about. If they're honest, it's not thought about. And I think that we need to be able to take an opportunity first off in our own lives, that when I go to the, it's just not them who's making this prayer, it's me. And that we as a priest get to stand up before them and say, I've sinned. And on one level, that's something that's very liberating. And it's also something that's very frightening. But I would say that one of the blessings, if you will, danger to use the word of the scandal in the church is that in one way, it's humiliated us, right? That God uses these earthen broken vessels, some who have done horrible things. And again, Francis would say, even if you've done the most horrible thing, you're still a priest. And there's nothing that can ever change that. So, so that we as priests stand up and the people know more now than they ever know that they are earthen vessels, that they are not totally unlike me. I remember one time I was at a conference and in this, this guy was saying to me, he was, you know, you know, Father, you're wonderful, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, no, I'm not that different than you. And it was interesting, he said, Father, I want to believe that you are. Right? So this is something that we have to wrestle with it, that yes, the Lord has called us to be priests. Yes, he's called us to be deacons. He's called us to minister the gospel, which is wonderful and beautiful. And the people of God expect and desire and a hope that there's something different about us. But we also know that we're broken and we're weak. And we need to be able to take the opportunity within the context of Eucharist, first off, that we experience the forgiveness and the mercy of God. But we also express that to the people because we live in a world that doesn't recognize brokenness or sinfulness who wants to do anything they can do to not think about it or reflect on it or be convicted by it. And every time we celebrate the Mass, it reminds us about our sinfulness, but deeper still the mercy of God and the forgiveness. And then it's not just that this forgiveness and this mercy, but it's the community gathered. There's something beautiful about the community gathering. And we pray that I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, to you, that I have sinned. We just go through the words. There's something beautiful about the sign of peace that we offer to each other. It's not just a good morning. It's not just looking around saying good morning, good morning. The sign of peace, there's something about the body coming together and reconciling and offering each other peace. And one of the trips that I took to China, a woman who was with me was from an Eastern Bloc country. And she shared a story with me that in her small village when communism was at its height, many of the people that were in the Communist Party that were actually causing such suffering for the people in this village were Catholic. And it's one particular story she told of her mother and her father that were walking and a Communist official came up and started harassing her mother, father, and just beat the father, beat her father, just mercilessly just beat him. In the fall of communism years later, they always knew, she said, we always knew this man was a Communist and we could never forget what he had done to my father. She shared a story that one particular day they were in mass and this Communist official was in the back of mass and he was attending mass because he was a Catholic. It was a sign of the peace and she said at this time my mother was quite elderly and she kind of shimmies her way out of the pew and walks down the aisle and confronts this individual and offers him peace and forgives every time we celebrate the Eucharist. There's the possibility of forgiveness and mercy and reconciliation, the nature, it's ordered towards that. I think the world needs that. Amen? The fourth is the liturgy is inviting us to a greater prophetic stance. I read one time it said the prophetic is the conscience of a community. How does the liturgy, how does the mass peak our conscience? Well, one is that it's a celebration in the midst of trial. It's a celebration. I remember one time I was talking about the celebration of the Eucharist and somebody came up to me and they were frustrated that I was using the word celebration. They said, don't you know that it's a solemn? I said, yes, I know. Again, it doesn't matter what we say there's, and this is fundamental to you, it doesn't matter what we say about the Eucharist, the world people will say you shouldn't say that. Our member at seminary, they taught us that when you're talking about mystery, it doesn't mean that you can't say anything. It just means you can't say everything. But I think out of fear of, as was mentioned this morning by Ralph, or maybe it wasn't Ralph, I don't know where it was, the fear of man rather than fear of God. We're afraid to say anything. But I just think about the celebration of the mass that in the midst of just stress and anxiety that we can come to mass and we can celebrate a God who loves us, a celebrated God who's risen from the dead, and all things celebrate. Last couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to go to a couple of funerals. It's funny, one of them was, I was on vacation and it was like, ah, this is really how I want to spend a day of my vacation, right? So I was very blessed to be able to go to the funeral. And Father Joe, who I was traveling with, on the way back, he said, his experience and true, you never regret going to a funeral. It's never like, ah, crap, I shouldn't have done that, right? There's something about the solemnity and the celebration of life and the celebration of the Lord's love and the familiarity of the Eucharist in the midst of our struggle and our trial that's beautiful, that the mass is Thanksgiving. It's that we live in a world that is, I think there's something prophetic about us saying thank you, you know, this eternal Thanksgiving. That's one of the things I love about the Eucharist, just to reflect on that, that each one of us would be in the situation where we want to say thank you to the Lord, but it's not just enough. So this eternal thank you that we enter into the thank you, the Son to the Father. Remember one time I was in Baltimore and we're in little Italy, I was with my niece and my nephew, my brother and his wife, and the two nephews that were doing coffee at the end. I mean, two nieces were just tired of sitting around at the restaurant. So they said, can we go for a walk? So I went for a walk and there was this, about a block away, this huge limousine. And my two nieces were maybe a quarter of a block, eighth of a block in front of me, just a few steps in front of me. But they were looking at this big limousine. It's like, ooh, and ah, and how cool it is and this and the other. Well, the driver comes and he says to the two little girls, do you guys want to go for a ride? It's like, you freak, like I go walk up and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he goes, no, no, no, I was going to take the three of you for a ride. He said that the guy who rented this is just went in for dinner. It's going to be a long time. So my little nieces are like, I said, yeah, it's fine with me, right? So this guy was so sweet. He said, I started to open the door. He said, no, no, no, let me take care of it. So he opens the door, these two little girls, like one was three and one was five. And she opens up the door and they get to go in and they're just, gee, he just takes care of them, drives around a block a couple of times and finding my little brother calls. He goes, where are you? Like, I'm outside the hotel. I said, you're not going to believe where we are, right? So we pull up to this in this, I mean, it's this massive limousine and we pull up to the restaurant where my brother was and the door opens up and these two little girls pop out and everyone's like, like, who are they? Some movie stars are right. But the driver, the driver was, he was Greek. And he said to the, my nieces were very sweet and they were saying, thank you, thank you, thank you. And he said to her, I said, do you know how to say thank you in Greek? And they said, no. And he said, Eucharist. And he says, Eucharist. She was Uncle Dave. Smart girl. Uncle Dave, that sounds like mass. It does sound like mass, doesn't it? This thank you. It's been said that a saint is the one who says thank you and they know who it is they need to thank. If you go to the Washington Monument in Washington or the Jefferson Monument in D.C., go to the monument and your folks is looking at the statue. You look off kind of to your left and in the back. It says, I fear for our country at the thought of a God who is just and cannot withhold his justice forever. We live in a world that doesn't even know who they need to thank for the sunrise. I mean, how empty that is that you, you go to the Grand Canyon and you look at the beauty. It's like, who do you thank? The Eucharist reminds us who it is that we thank. The Eucharist reminds us that there are some things that are objectively true. Not because not because I believe it, but because it's true. And this demands a response. I mean, the world that is everything is fundamentally relative now, whatever you want to, I mean, literally crazy, crazy things that we are having conversations about multiple genders and it just, it's just nuts. I was talking with some, what's it going to be like 25 years from now? I mean, what, and it's the whole question is humanism. What does it mean to be human, right? That the Eucharist reminds us that some things are objectively true. And it demands a response that we can't go to the Eucharist and not respond in some capacity. And I want to suggest that this response that the Lord invites us to is love, that the sacrificial nature of the mass that, yes, it's a celebration. Yes, it's a Thanksgiving. And yes, it's a sacrifice that we enter into. A sacrifice of love that a God who pours himself out fully for us. So the Eucharist reminds us in a world that's so profoundly confused about the nature of love, especially in this month. I mean, you're seeing everywhere love is love. All love is equal. Love is the same. It's fundamentally not true. I hope it's not true. I hope it's right. I hope that God loves me differently than I love you, right? I hope that it can't be true that all love cannot be equal. It all can't be the same. And the Eucharist reminds us what is love. No greater love than this is than lay down one's life or one's friend. The Eucharist helps us to find and understand prophetically the nature of love that is sacrificial, that is always for the other, that pours itself out, that surrenders himself, that is obedient even to the point of death. Every time we come to the Eucharist, we are reminded of this type of love and the world needs to hear about this type of love. But it's not just that. I mean, again, we live in a world in a culture that says love is love and love is the most important thing. And it's funny, sometimes I feel nervous about preaching about love, right? I mean, I've had people say to me, yeah, you just talk all about that love, right? The book that I did on freedom, a kid comes up to me and says, the end of it, I talk about God's love. And they said, that's it. And I said, what do you mean? Well, your whole book is leading up to God loves us. I said, that's all I got, right? Again, Kantil Amesa would say that if you were to spoil all the scriptures to three words, it would be God's love. But we have a segment of the culture that is really that God is love, God is love, God is absolutely. And he also says, and if you love me, you'll keep my commandments, right? If you love me. And then he goes on to say in my commandments are not burdensome. The mass prophetically speaks to this, the relationship between love and commandments. It demands a response that we brothers live in a manner of which we were called in a world that is no longer just immoral, it's amoral. The mass, the scriptures, the Eucharist reminds us that there are fundamental realities that are true. And finally, the mass brings us into the divine life of God and calls us to bring this to others. The Eucharist cannot be just another thing that Catholics do. We have food shelters, pantries, bingo, Eucharist and fish fries. That's pretty much what we do, right? It can't just be another it is the thing that we do. It is ultimately the most beautiful and profound work of the Holy Spirit. That by the power of the work of the Holy Spirit, the words of the priests, the prayers of the church, this bread and wine is transformed and we brothers are transformed. Saint Augustine reminds us if we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive. Pope Benedict was giving a homily on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 2011. He says, everything goes through the logic of the humble grain of wheat that is broken to form the logic of faith that moves mountains from the gentle power of God. For this reason, the sacrifice of the Eucharist is given to the world. It's not just given to me as a priest. Even when I'm celebrating it by myself, it is given for the world and the world needs this Eucharist. The Eucharist is given to the world to give every person the possibility of salvation. For God wants to continue to renew humanity through history and the cosmos, through the chain of transformation of which the Eucharist is the sacrament. To better explain the effects of the Eucharist, Pope Benedict is going on, he says, I quote from Saint Augustine. He says, I am the food of the strong, grow and you shall feed on me, but you will not convert me into yourself, the bodily food, but you will be changed into me. Brothers, we need to remember that in the Eucharist, in God's saving grace, in the work and operations of Jesus, in the movement to the Holy Spirit, we are being divinized. We are. Jesus didn't come just to fix things and make things better, just to bring life. He came to make us like him and that every time we come to the Eucharist, we are supposed to, it's not just the bread and wine that's being changed. Brothers, you are supposed to be changed and this should be seen. It should be recognized. People should be able to say, if you're going to mass consistently, that there's something about you that's changing, you're becoming more patient, more calm, more joyful, more loving, more forgiving. The whole reason that Jesus humbles himself in the Eucharist is to bring about the transformation that takes place in us and the life of the church when we receive it. We are supposed to become holy as he is holy. One cannot receive the Eucharist without being changed by it. St. Francis would say, humble yourselves that you may be exalted by him. Hold back nothing for yourselves that he who gives totally for you may receive you totally. I think this is the challenge and the gift that we have in the Eucharist is to receive him, to be transformed by him, to be changed by him and go out into a world that desperately needs to see and experience that. This last fall, I received a letter from Pope Benedict the 16th. That's what the kids like to call a flex if you didn't pick that up. We were doing a conference on Benedict and on the Second Vatican Council and he would say, Vatican II, he would write in the letter, Vatican II would be helpful in the struggle for a right understanding of the church in the world in our time. He would say, the need to reformulate the questions and the nature of the mission of the church has gradually become apparent. In this way, the positive power of the Second Vatican Council is emerging. He would go on to say that in reality the new Council proved not only to be meaningful but necessary. He would say, I sincerely hope that the University that the symposium at Francis University of Stoomville will be helpful in the struggle for a right understanding of the church in the world in our time. When we take a look at what's going on in our world, in our church, in the struggles, the answer is always Jesus and the answer is always found in the Eucharist. That the Lord is going to use the Eucharist to save us, to save me, to save the world, to save the church and we brothers need to surrender ourselves to that, to humble ourselves before that as he has humbled himself before us. Amen? Do me a favor, just take a breath and quiet yourself. And what is the Lord saying to you? Come Lord Jesus. Jesus, you poured out yourself for us. You took on flesh, you became man, you continually poured yourself out to the people you ministered to, you preached to, you healed, continue to pour yourself out to us in the Eucharist. Jesus, it's not just the bread and wine that's transformed and changed, but you want to change my heart. You want to heal me, restore me, reveal your father to me, reveal my sonship, you want to reconcile, transform us, your ministers, make us holy by the grace of the Eucharist and the sacrament. Bring about the effects and the changes that you desire so that we might lead others to you, so that we might build your kingdom, Lord, so that you would sanctify the world that desperately hungers and thirsts for you. And we are your instruments, your vehicles. Come Lord Jesus. And always we ask the intercession of our Blessed Mother as we pray together. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with the 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.