 Blessed Mother Teresa was still a young nun. She felt called to serve God in a special way. She was a member of the Loretto nuns, which were a teaching order of nuns. And she felt called, impelled by the Holy Spirit, to start the missionaries of charity. But her superior said no. And then she asked the bishop, and the bishop said, what is the superior said? They said no. So, well, the answer is no. But she was persistent. And in one of her letters to the archbishop of Calcutta, she wrote, I have been and am very happy being a Loretto nun, to leave that which I love and expose myself to new labors and sufferings which will be great. So she knew what she was getting into, sufferings that will be great. To be the laughing stock of so many. To cling to and choose deliberately the hard things of life. To loneliness and disgrace and uncertainty. And all because Jesus wants it. Because something is calling me to leave all, to live his life and to do his work. Loretto is speaking to us about making a complete gift of ourselves where the seeds of suffering are nourished in the rich soil of loving obedience to the will of God. And where the Blessed Virgin Mary is the embodiment and the perfect example of that very truth. And I want to share with you some reflections from the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and connect them to the very heart of suffering. The first one is the Annunciation. The angel Gabriel. Now why did God say Gabriel? Because we heard today in the first reading, Gabriel. Now who is Gabriel? Gabriel's name means what? Anybody know? Right, he's the messenger, right? But his name means the strength of God. Now he tells us there are seven angels that serve before God, archangels, only three of them are named. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Raphael means God's remedy. Michael is who is like God. Gabriel is God's strength. So Gabriel announces the greatest greeting in the history of salvation. Kairei, Kecharitomine, hail full of grace. Or literally, it means hail, one who has always been full of grace. Or hail who has been perfectly and completely graced by God. That's great news! But what's Mary's reaction in Luke 1.29? But she was greatly troubled at the same. And considered in her mind what sort of greeting this may be. But then Gabriel, God's strength, says, don't be afraid for you have found favor with God. See, she was greatly troubled because for us, sometimes suffering brings fear and anxiety. Ten years ago, and I can't believe it's been ten years already, my best friend whom I've known since I was nine years old, we were in grade school together, high school together, we were in boy scouts together, we were more like brothers really than friends. He was the best man at my wedding. I was the best man at his wedding. Ten years ago, he came back, he was a computer consultant. He came back from an overseas trip to Germany and thought he had pneumonia. He called me and said, I'm not feeling too good, I said man, you gotta go get that checked out. Which he did. And it turns out he did not have pneumonia. Rather he was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of small cell lung cancer. He was diagnosed, he received a diagnosis on a Saturday. He went to Sloan Kettering Institute in New York City for a cancer treatment plan the following Thursday. He died the next morning. I will never forget. I was sitting outside of the rectory of my spiritual director. That morning, that Friday morning was my normal time for spiritual direction. I was finishing up a breakfast sandwich waiting for eight o'clock so I can go in to see father. I get a call from one of my other close friends. He said, hey, this is Walt, I have bad news for you. And I'm thinking maybe one of his parents died and he told me that Craig died. I said, what do you mean that Craig died? I just talked to him. I don't know what to tell you Harold, he's dead and I felt completely empty inside. The same seven of us who were groomsmen at his wedding were now pole bearers in the same church he was married in. He left behind a wife and two small children. One of them was less than a year old. I kept saying to myself, how is Elysia and his children going to get past this? How is she supposed to raise those children by herself? Trust God at a time like this. Now, I'll tell you something. I am a man who loves to pray, okay? I was a Benedictine back in Newark, New Jersey. I love the liturgy of the hours. I love Eucharistic adoration. I love the rosary. I love the chapel of divine mercy. I love it all. But during that time, I felt dead inside. I was just saying the words because when I put my hands in the hands of the bishop and ordination, I promised to pray the liturgy of the hours every day on behalf of the entire church. And I did that, but I felt nothing. I was angry with God because I didn't ... See, here's what the theology tells you. Well, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that God doesn't allow evil unless a greater good could come out of it. What greater good is going to come out of that when it happens to you? So what do you do? How do you even begin to get past something like that? This is why the Blessed Virgin Mary, her example, is such a powerful witness to us. One of the prayers that really moved me, though, because one of the things I did, I went to adoration. I did not stop doing that. I go to adoration every week for an hour, not for me, for my wife and children. Because it's only an adoration where I continue to be the man that my wife needs me to be, the father my children needs me to be, and the deacon that the church calls me to be, that hour is for them. And the psalm that touched me the most during that time was Psalm 88. Psalm 88 is traditionally the prayer that Jesus prayed on Holy Thursday night when he was in prison before the scourging and the crucifixion the next day. Part of the psalm says, and this is how I felt, and we've all been there. There's not one of us who have not felt this intense kind of suffering at some point in our lives. You have laid me in the depths of the tomb in places that are dark in the depths. Your anger weighs down upon me. I am drowned beneath your waves. You have taken away my friends. My eyes are sunken with grief. Lord, why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face? I have borne your trials. I am numb, friend and neighbor you have taken away. My one companion is darkness. I'll never forget how I felt during that time. And when I went to adoration, I said, God, you got to give me something because I can't keep feeling like this. And as I looked at Jesus, body and blood, soul, divinity, and Eucharist, the thing that just kept coming to my heart was Psalm 59, verse 18, all my strength it is you to whom I turn. For you, oh God, are my stronghold, the God who shows me love. And Gabriel says to the Blessed Mother, do not be afraid. You are found favor with God. Don't be afraid to love. Why? Because Jesus tells us that loving brings fear. But love casts out all fear. Where did this fear come from? Beginning in Genesis 3, chapter 10, after the fall, this beautiful image of God strolling through the garden in the cool of the day, looking for the man and the woman that he created in his own image and likeness. And he can't find them. And when he said, where are you? Adam says, we heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, fear, casting out love, the decision to choose my will over God's will casts out love. How did God choose to restore love? Genesis 3, 15, often called the proto-Evangelium, or the first Gospel. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. The Lord here is speaking of the Blessed Virgin Mary and not Eve. Just think about it. The only people around at the time are Adam, Eve, and a snake, mentioned so far. Adam, Eve, and a snake. So when God is handing out this punishment, who is he talking to here in Genesis 3, 15? The snake. But the punishment involves both the snake and the woman. He says, I'll put enmity between you and the woman. But he's only speaking to the snake. Think about this for a second. I have twins. Anybody else that has a set of twins? Okay. Anybody with kids can relate to this. I was up in my office doing some work. The twins were downstairs playing. All of a sudden, I hear, crash, downstairs. I see the lamp by the television set knocked over and broken, and I see a ball laying on the floor. They know they're not supposed to play ball in the house, so I said, who did it? And what did they do? Here is talking to the snake, and the punishment involves the snake and the woman. Why is God only talking to the snake? Simply this. The woman is not, is the same Feast of Cana, where she says they have no wine, or literally the wine failed, and Jesus says, what's that between you and me in our business? Woman. He says, woman, what is this, that sounds disrespectful, and when you think about it like, say my son, Benjamin, Benjamin, go clean your room, and he says to my wife, what is this between you and woman? What is this between you and me? Oh, no son. When he says, woman, he's not speaking to her disrespect, that is, but he's speaking to her by her nature. That's why when Gabriel greets her, he doesn't say hail Mary, although we say the hail Mary. He says, hail Kyrie Kechari Tomine. He's speaking of her nature, not her human given name. So when Jesus speaks of the woman, he's speaking of the woman from Genesis 3.15. At the foot of the cross, Jesus says, woman, here is your son. In Revelation 12, chapter 1, Revelation 12, verse 1, the woman with the stars around her head and the moon under her feet, that's the woman in Genesis 3.15, the Blessed Virgin Mary. How else can we be sure that it's her? I will put enmity, which means complete and perfect opposition, between your seed and her seed. Hold on a second. Who in the relationship provides the seed? The man. But it says here, her seed. Now we know that can't be Eve. Why? If you look in Genesis 3 and in Genesis 5, like verse 1, it says, Adam knew his wife Eve and the word for knowing is Yaudah in Hebrew, which means knowing by He experienced his wife and he had Cain, Abel, Seth, and all the rest of them. So the seed came from Adam. But clearly it says here, her seed. Possible, the woman is the only one that can provide the nature, the human nature. The only woman that did that was who? Blessed Virgin Mary. So God here, he sends love into the world through the blessed Virgin Mary to restore what was lost in the garden. Now we, obviously we're not created like Mary without original sin, but we do have sanctifying grace, which is the grace we receive in the sacrament of baptism, the grace that we need to get to heaven, which is strengthened by sacramental grace, most especially Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation. If we freely cooperate with those graces and allow God to work through us, to respond to the call to be holy, to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect, and the word there in Greek is taumim, which means mature and fully grown, or in the Hebrew, which means complete and whole. If we cooperate with what God is trying to do with us, we can only do that beautifully, perfectly. If we keep focused on how the Blessed Virgin Mary responded to the graces in her life, in her example of saying yes, even though she wasn't completely sure what God was going to do, think about it. So she asked a qualifying question, how can this be since I do not, it says, do not have a husband, but literally the Greek says I do not know man. In other words, she was a virgin. How is that possible? He says, well, of course, Gabriel clears everything up. The Holy Spirit is going to overshadow you. Oh yeah, she's 13 or 14, that makes a total sense, the Holy Spirit is going, okay, I got it now, what? She didn't know exactly what that meant, but she trusted. Now it says the power of the Holy Spirit will overshadow. See, God gave her power for a purpose. The Holy Spirit overshadowed her, she was filled with the Holy Spirit. God filled her with her power for a purpose. What's this conference called again, I'm sorry, power and purpose. We are also filled, because remember, every time we receive the Eucharist, in a sense we become pregnant with Jesus, just like Mary was. As long as that Eucharist stays within us before it breaks down, we are, in a sense, pregnant with Jesus. We are filled with God. We receive his power for a purpose, and sometimes fear and suffering not gets in the way of what God is trying to do, but is a vehicle that God uses for his glory. But you can only understand that with the eyes of faith, faith that is given to us by the Blessed Virgin Mary's beautiful example. Now, trust is one way that we put faith into action. Trusting, like for example, I fly 150,000 miles a year. I'm on planes a lot, and I have to have faith that the airplane, which is a big piece of metal, flying at six miles in the air at 500 miles an hour, is going to get me safely to where I need to go. But sometimes what happens, fear, like when that plane starts shaking, like we're not on the ground, there's no potholes up here, why is the plane shaking like that? And fear starts to creep in. Look, I remember one of the times I was really scared on the plane, I was flying, I think I was flying back from Florida, and I'm from Oregon, so we're going over the Rocky Mountains. Everything was going, you know, they were serving the meals and everything. Everything was going fine. A guy sitting next to me, I was sitting on the aisle, he was sitting here at his laptop, everything was cool. And all of a sudden, the plane felt like a hit a wall. Boom! And everybody was like, what was that? But the time we were trying to figure out what was going on, the plane tilted to the left and started to dive. I've never experienced anything like this in my life. I grabbed the seat in front of me, the dude's laptop slid down. I grabbed it, so I'm holding onto his laptop with my left arm. I'm grabbing the seat with my right arm. People are screaming, the cart tipped over, drinks were flying, and I'm like, it was just going off like 25 seconds. And I'm like, trying to grab my rosary, I can't grab my rosary because I'm like, and I'm like, you know, and I said, the plane rights itself. And we're like, I never heard this before, the flight attendants were going through every person, is anybody hurt? Is anybody hurt? They're going from person to person to person. The pilot finally gets on and says that we hit what's called a mountain wave. He said we were supposed to fly under it because we heard this was up ahead. We asked for permission to fly low, but we didn't get low enough so we still hit it. And I thought, and I kid you not, for the rest of the flight, everybody was dead silent. The guy next to me, he said, when I gave him his laptop back, he goes, I noticed that you didn't look scared. I said, brother, if this plane goes down, I know where I'm going. The Blessed Virgin served on Earth as a loving mother of the Redeemer and the Lord's humble handmaid. She conceived, brought forth, and nourished Christ. In a truly unique and special way, by her obedience, Mary cooperated in the Savior's work of restoring divine life to our souls. Mary's next response, the Magnificat, when she goes to see her kinswoman Elizabeth, my soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. See, prayer in the midst of suffering is an effort and a response on our part. Because what is prayer in its very essence? What is prayer really? It's talking with God, heart to heart. Now think about those of you who are married. Could you get to know your spouse when you were first dating? Could you get to know them deeply, personally, and intimately without talking to them? Yeah, I don't think so. So how are we supposed to get to know God deeply, personally, and intimately without talking to him? That's what prayer is, at its very essence, sharing with God heart to heart. The problem is, how do we do that during those times that we feel that God is not hearing or answering our prayers? Sometimes the only prayer you can pray is, God, thy will be done. Because remember Jesus himself, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was so scared that he was sweating blood. He was like saying, OK, Father, if there's another way we could do this, let me know right now. But not as I will, but as thy will. Not what I want, Lord. Sometimes people think, well, Jesus wanted to be on that cross. He couldn't wait to get on that cross. What? No. He was scared. He knew what was, but he knew he had to fulfill the Father's will in perfect obedience. Even in the midst of the suffering, he knew that he was following God's will. The point that drives all this home for me is the presentation. My mother and I were very close. Just four of us, I'm the oldest, I have two brothers and a sister. My father, growing up in our house, now I'm the first baptized Catholic in my family. My father was pagan, no faith. My mother was Methodist, and she converted to Catholicism in Barbados. That's where I'm from. And I am the first baptized Catholic in the history of our family. When we moved to the United States to New Jersey, that's where I'm from, Jersey originally, I was three years old, and my father did not come with us. When my father finally came, I did not know what a healthy family looked like. My father loved three things, womenizing, alcohol, and cigarettes. That's what he loved. He certainly did not love us. Now, my father has 17 other children, besides the four of us, that we know of. And number 17 just made themselves known to us on Facebook during this past lent a couple of months ago. Now, if any of you have a situation with alcohol in your house, I only have to begin to tell you what life is like there, all the embarrassing moments. And of course, my parents got divorced. I actually don't know how my mother stayed married to my father as long as she did. I think she wanted to at least have some semblance of what a family looked like. So I am a child of divorce. And I get asked by young people a lot, was it like being a child of divorce? Why did they ask me that? Because they see the suffering that's going on in their own family, and they think my parents are going to end up like this, so I want to know what it's like. And I tell them, marriage is a beautiful thing, but it's also the cross. And divorce is when the parents put the cross down and the kids pick it up. So I am no stranger to suffering in my life. So because of that situation, the four of us were very, very close to my mom. When I was in the monastery, the reason I left was because my mother had a massive heart attack, almost died. I'm the oldest. In fact, my siblings named me Mr. Responsible. Because when we were kids and my father was out drinking, having all his affairs, I was the one who was responsible at home. My mother was a nurse. She worked in the CCU, Cardiac Care Unit, for years on the grave shift. She would drive us to school in the morning, come back, sleep, get up, make dinner for us, pick us up from school. Then she'd hang out with us for a while. Did she go to bed? Then I was in charge at 12 years old. I had to make sure that everybody's homework was done, that back in those days before answering machines that I had to take the message of somebody called. I had to make sure my mom didn't sleep through her alarm clock so that she would get the work on time. So I took on a lot of responsibility as a 12 and 13-year-old that my father should have done. So because of those experiences, we were very close. But after I left the monastery to take care of my mom, I was out for three months. I was taking care of my mom, making sure my sister was still in high school. I had to make sure she ate and got to school. And I went to a wedding of some college friends of mine. And at that wedding, I met this woman from this strange enchanted land of Oregon and didn't go back to the monastery. But that began a 20-year decline in health for my mother. Fast forwarding, she eventually left New Jersey, went to live near my sister, who was attending Auburn University, and was living with my sister in Montgomery, Alabama. Then she was living in a convalescent home. She had an accident there and broke her leg. We felt she was not getting the care that she needed. So they decided, why don't you come out there and live with you out in Oregon? That's a great idea. My mom lived with us the last three years of her life. I took her to Mass with me on Sundays. And she was permanently disabled, so she was on oxygen 24-7. She was in a wheelchair. I take her to Mass. And she had her spot front, right in the front, on the left side. And that was her. In fact, it got to the point in my parish where if someone else was sitting there and said, get up. That's Adika's mother's seat. Get up. And every time I got up to read the gospel, my mom and I had this thing. I'd be standing there and I'd look down. And she'd look up at me. And make a little mother-son contact before I read the gospel. That was our little thing that we had. Nine years ago, I was, as I started beginning to travel more, actually not knowing. Six years ago, six years ago. I was leaving to go speak at a men's conference in McAllen, Texas, that I was flying to EWTN to shoot my, I think it was my third television series. I have six now. And just like I always do, I kissed my mom goodbye, told her I loved her, see you when I get back, all that kind of stuff. So I left on Friday, flew to Texas, flew to EWTN on Sunday. I'm having dinner with my producer and his wife. And we're talking about the shoot the next day. After we ordered dinner, my phone rang. It was an emergency room doctor at Immanuel Hospital saying that my mother was in heart failure. She was in a coma. And they did not think she was gonna survive. So right as the doctor called, my wife called, talked to my wife, I did call my brothers and my sister. And when they brought dinner out, my phone rang again. And the doctor said that my mother died. Now, my mother was one of the most God-loving, prayerful people that she ever wanted me. She would always say things like, I want you to preach in my funeral, son. Okay, mommy, yes. Son, I went, mommy, I'm gonna preach your funeral, okay. But a couple weeks before she died, I didn't understand this. When I would come home from work and I'd walk into the room and visit and see her, she'd start saying to me, son, unless the seed falls and dies, it can't bear fruit. Mommy, stop saying that. Son, unless the seed falls and dies, it cannot bear fruit. Mommy, stop talking like that. What are you, stop that. It was disturbing me. So the folks at EW-10 were great. Obviously we didn't eat. We got up from the table. They called the airlines to rearrange my flight. They were just so great. And Father Mitch Paco was my scripture professor in graduate school and I was a research assistant for him, so we became friends. He knew my mother. So Father Mitch had heard my mother died. He called me, I went down to his house and we talked for hours until early in the morning. He really helped me get through that first part of the grieving process. The next morning I deacon at Mass, Father Wade Manises was the priest. He offered Mass for my mother and I flew home. And all the preparations that had already been made, my mom was always such a good planner. Everything, I just made one call, the funeral home to care of everything. So we planned the Mass, my siblings flew out and so I actually have to preach at her funeral now. And I was holding it together pretty well until we got to the gospel. I walked up to the ambo just like I, oh and just out of sheer habit, I looked down. And instead of my mother had her arose sitting at her seat at the place where she always sat. And I looked down at the chair and I looked over at the casket. And I realized I will never see my mother sitting there again. And I literally slumped over in the ambo and started crying uncontrollably. My brother, who was a year younger to me, who was also born in Barbados, he came up and he put his arm around me. He said, hey man, we need you. When we were kids, you were always there for us. We need you to be strong for us now. So I nodded my head and he went back to his seat and I said a quick Hail Mary. I read the gospel, preached the homily and buried my mother. Every time I'd walk into her room, I'd cry. Every single time. It still smelled like her. It felt like she'd be back any minute. All her stuff was still there. It's very, very difficult until the reading came along in the cycle of the presentation. And it was like I heard that gospel for the first time. Said this child is destined for the fall and the rise of many and for a sign to be spoken against and a sword shall pierce your own soul so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid there. Wait a minute, wait a minute. The Blessed Virgin Mary understands what I'm going through right now. Because it's not just a matter of losing somebody that you love. I lost somebody that I was part of. I came out of my mother. Jesus came out of his mother. Mary knows what it's like to lose someone like that. So in that moment I said to myself, what if I laid my broken and bruised heart and laid it within the pierced soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary? The union of the two hearts. My heart and hers. And when I started to do that, it started to take my relationship with God with the Blessed Virgin Mary to a whole different place. And then I finally understood what my mother said. Unless the seed falls and dies, it cannot bear fruit. The death of my mother elevated my relationship to the Blessed Virgin Mary to a whole new place. Why? Because now I had two mamas in heaven. When you love someone with all your heart, with the depth of your soul, with your whole being, when you love someone with a love that is selfless and pure, you are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the other. And this is exactly what God has done through the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has given us the gift of himself in and through his word, Jesus Christ. Someone who we can understand and relate to so that we can have life in him. And how did that life come to us through the Blessed Virgin Mary? Through the heart of love. The next little reflection, the finding in the temple. The reason why I like the finding in the temple is because this shows the humanness of Mary. Now imagine what it'd be like if you are at JFK and you're getting ready to go on a family trip and you turn around and one of your kids is missing. Where would you begin to look in New York City? This is what it was like when they realized that Jesus, I mean it probably went something like this, they're walking along, because remember they traveled in family caravans. So it wasn't unusual, they did this every year. It was, they did it every year. Jesus was 12 now, they did it every year. And Jesus was probably with some cousins or some relatives and stuff like that. So they didn't think anything of it, they did it to the trip. Mary's like, you see Jesus? And Joseph is like, I thought he was with you. I thought he was with you, he's Jesus. And they enter those terrifying moments where their child is gone and they don't know where the child is. And when they finally find him in the temple, what does Mary say? Oh, blessings to the Lord. Thank you for letting us find you. Did you have a good time during those three days? Were you all right? No, Mary says, son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously. It's just almost like say, why did you do this to us? That's a normal mom reaction. Not long ago, my parish is in the hood. I'm the only black deacon in the archdiocese so they put me in an inner city parish. Makes sense, makes sense. So sometimes we have disruptions during mass. We have homeless people, sometimes mentally ill people will come into church and start praying loud. And in fact, somebody said once, oh, they must be charismatic. But oh, no, no, no, no. And one time after mass, I was greeting people after mass and someone said, deacon, I think someone broke into your car. And sure enough, I go out there, windows broken out, it's our minivan. Windows broken out, glass on the ground. And I was working in law enforcement at the time. I didn't have my, so I couldn't clear the car. So I had to call for Portland police to come and they checked to make sure the person wasn't still in there and all that. And my kids were scared. And I asked myself, what would I say to that person if I ran into the person who broke into my car and scared my family? Now I know what I would want to do, but the bigger question is what does God call me to do? But what happened to me pales in comparison to so many who have suffered? How do you pray for the person who raped you? How do you pray for the person who got you hooked on drugs or alcohol or pornography? How do you pray for the person who molested you as a child? How do you pray for the person who drove drunk and killed your spouse? The anger and the hatred that we feel burns like a fire in our hearts. And we want more than anything for the person who hurt us and our family to suffer greatly even to the point of death. Yet in the midst of unimaginable suffering and pain Jesus calls us to do the seemingly impossible. He says that we must forgive. He gives us no other options and makes no exceptions. This is such an important point that Jesus put it in the our Father. Forgive us our trespasses. We forgive those who trespass against us. That means that God will only forgive us to the extent that we forgive others. There's a point in suffering when we're looking for healing and forgiveness. We always forget one step. This is a hard step. It usually comes right at the end of forgiveness. We forget this. Now I'll give you an example. Because of what happened in my house with my father, all four of us, three boys and my sister reacted differently to what was going on. My brother, the one who was a year younger than me was very much like my father. He has three different children from three different women never been married, got in trouble in jail because of drugs. My other brother became very angry. Very angry person. And my brother was, that brother was gonna get married. And I knew it was a mistake because he had not dealt with the anger. So I sat down with him, brother to brother, in a loving way by ourselves apart from it. Nobody knew. And I said, hey Drew, I wanna talk to you. He goes, yeah. He goes, I don't think this is a good idea for you to get married. Because I don't think you've dealt with the anger because of the stuff at home. I mean, we've all had been affected by this, but you're so angry, this is something that's gonna carry into your marriage. I think you really need to deal with that first before you get married. And he looked at me and said, oh, Mr. EWTN. Let me tell you something, brother. I know you. I'm not one of your fans. Don't talk to me like, I said, Drew, I'm not trying, I'm just trying, I'm speaking heart to heart, brother to brother here, man. I said, I'm telling you, all of us bring baggage into a marriage. That kind of volatile anger that you have is not good. I mean, you're gonna end up having serious problems. I'm just trying to be loving. Oh, he got mad. He got angry, didn't get invited to the wedding. He got married outside the church on a beach somewhere and stopped talking to me. Few years later, his wife divorced him. And we were still not speaking to each other. So my sister, who was the reconciler, I was down at EWTN and whenever I go down there, my sister still lives in Alabama. So I always try and go see my sister and she goes, oh, yeah, when you get here, we'll go to dinner. Okay, great, we'll go to dinner. So we get there, I see my niece and my nephew, we all go out to dinner and sitting in the restaurant is my brother. Now, she told my brother, hey, this would be a great day for you to come and see. Oh, your niece and nephew miss you so much. They always, you say, where's Uncle Andrew? Where's Uncle Andrew and they other? So she, on the false pretenses, got us together. Now, things did not start off well. He was basically talking to her and I was talking to her and we weren't talking to each other. So finally, I remember the words of Jesus and the Holy Spirit convicted me and I said, you know, I said, Drew, I'm sorry. If there's anything that I've said or that I've done, even going back to when we were kids, if I've done anything to hurt you, if I've done anything to make you angry, if I've done anything to separate this relationship between I said, I'm sorry and I'm asking for your forgiveness. Why is that so important? I was right. You know what the human thing is? What, the society, the human way of thinking? Let me rub it in your face a little bit now. Remember that conversation we had and I, but what does the Word of God tell us? What does Paul tell us in Romans? Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that you may know what is God's will, what is good and pleasing and perfect in the sight of God. I, in that moment, had to put on the mind of Christ and I asked my brother to forgive me, to forgive me for how he did not accept what I was trying to help him. I asked for forgiveness. My brother looked at me like, not because he was like, he don't know if it was for real. And he saw it was serious. He said, okay, I forgive you. Just like that. Now what that did though, even though it was still awkward even, that started a process. Cause let me, why is it so important with regard to suffering? The mind and the heart of that pure soul with the blessed Virgin Mary. What pours out of her heart? Grace. And that grace gives you the ability to do things not as the world would have them, but as God would have them. Cause everything Mary does always points us back to who? To Jesus. So laying my heart was in the pure soul the blessed and the mother gave me the grace to be able to ask my brother for forgiveness. That act of humility, what is humility by the way? It's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. The grace to be able to do that, that started a process. That humbling myself. Cause what happened? So my brother has completely stopped going to church, completely. I get emails from him. What about this in the Bible? What about this in the Bible? And I lovingly and patiently answer his question. What about this? So finally, he emailed me. Hey, I went to Mass. What happened? They changed the words. I said, Drew, it's okay. They did a revision of the Mass. It's actually much more scriptural now. Don't panic, I said in the thing, I said don't panic it. So now, this past November, this past November, I was in Florida where my brother lives and we went to Mass for the first time together in years. So we're sitting next to each other. I said, hey man, what was the last time we went to Mass together? I don't know. It's been too long. My brother's back in the church today. Why? Not because of me. Because my mother said, unless the seed falls and dies, it cannot bear fruit. Dying to myself, dying to my pride, even in the midst of this tension and suffering between my brother and my family. Dying to that so that Christ can live. So that my brother didn't see his big brother. He saw Jesus. And that's what led him back into the church. A couple more short reflections. Mary at the foot of the cross. You know, all of us go through what I call Psalm 22 moments. You all know Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which Jesus prays from the cross. First of all, let's explain what's going on. Why Jesus is praying that Psalm. See, some people will say, we'll see the Father abandoned Jesus and see, so Jesus is praying that. Jesus is praying that Psalm. First of all, it's a Psalm of fulfillment. The rest of the Psalm, the Psalm for a second. Keep reading Psalm 22. They tear holes in my hands and my feet and lay me in the dust of death. I can count every one of my bones. These people stare at me and gloat. They throw dice for my clothes. That's all in Psalm 22. So Jesus reciting that Psalm, number one, to let the people know that it's being fulfilled, being fulfilled in their presence. He's reminding them. Second, Jesus, of course, my God, why have you forsaken me? Of course, Jesus, God never abandoned his son. But in his human nature, Jesus was allowed to experience that same emptiness, that same isolation, that same desolation. We've all felt when we're going through something really difficult and we feel that God is not there. In his human nature, Jesus was allowed to experience that. Why? So that he could redeem it. So that he Catholics. There is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. There is no resurrection without crucifixion. And Lord knows most of life is the cross. There's another part of that Psalm though, starting at verse 10. Psalm 22 says, yes, it was you who took me from the womb, entrusted me to my mother's breast. To you I was committed from my birth, from my mother's womb, you have been my God. And while Jesus hanging there praying that Psalm, who's standing there at the foot of his cross? His mother. Mary heard the words. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine as a mother what Mary was experiencing watching her son hanging there, beaten half to death, brutalized and now dying on the cross. And he's saying to you I was committed from my birth, from my mother's womb. And she's standing right there. It's almost like he's saying, mommy, help me. See, think about this for a second. Guys, remember when your kids were small? Now, when we had the twins, we had a four year old, two year old, and newborn twins, okay? There were days I would come home from work and my wife would say, get them out of here. One of those days. So I'd take the kids and we'd go, so let's give mommy some alone time. Come on, kids. And I'd take them to the park or something like that. You know, I'd take them someplace and you know, we'd have a good time. And one of the kids would fall down. Not bad, it's getting a little near something. They start crying out and I'd run over. Don't worry, dad is here. Daddy's here. And I reached out and picked up my child. Don't worry. They look at me, who they yelling for? See, when you live inside of somebody for nine months, that is a relationship that we will never fully understand or appreciate ever because by the very nature of how God created a woman, even if she never has a child, she becomes a nun. By the very nature of how God created a woman, she cooperates with the Holy Spirit, like Mary did, only a way that a woman could. In her saying yes to the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is who? Domino and vivificantem, the Lord and giver of, by the very nature, women are life givers and life bearers, life givers and life bearers. So I can't imagine the relationship that you have with your children as moms, standing there watching your son die. And he's crying out from my mother's womb, you have been my God. And she's, I can imagine standing, let me help him, let me help him. Hmm. Now interesting, Mary, no, her last words are what? Her last recorded words spoken in scripture are what? Do whatever he tells you. Again, her last words direct us to Jesus. Now during the crucifixion, she says nothing. Mary listened, Mary listened. Mary was a faithful witness to the fact that even in the darkest hour of our lives, God's love knows no end. Even in the hardships of everyday life, God's love knows no bounds. Even in our suffering and death, God's love holds nothing back. On the cross he gave everything. And he says if we are to truly be his disciples, we must deny ourselves, take up his cross and what? Put it down when he gets heavy? Follow him. Because where is he leading us to? Heaven. So the cross, amen, the cross gets heavy. Amen, it gets heavy. And we feel like giving up. We feel like putting it down. And that's why we have to help each other in the body of Christ. Because even Jesus needed help carrying his cross. We are not in this alone. Brothers, as we have the Blessed Virgin Mary and her prayers to help us. So to conclude, says that Mary kept all of these things, Luke tells us, pondering them in her heart. Suffering, especially suffering during the last moments of life, has a special place in God's divine plan. It's a sharing in Christ's passion and a union with the sacrifice he offered in obedience to the will of God. What is obedience to God, by the way? Obediere in Latin means to listen. It's listening to the voice of God and allowing that voice to change your life. That's what obedience is. Listening to the voice of God and allowing that voice to change your life. Because God wants to change your life. Some of us are stuck. We're stuck. We're stuck. And we can't move forward. Because we think we've got all of this figured out and we don't. It's like God is standing there. I wanna fill you. I wanna give you everything, but he can't unless he gives us permission. We have to say yes like the Blessed Virgin Mary did and accept everything that God wants to give us, even the suffering. Because the real cross of prayer is to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of every single situation in our lives. The real cross of prayer is to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of every single situation in our lives. We pray from the heart because we love. We pray because we want to deepen and strengthen our relationship with God. We pray because prayer moves us from knowing about God to knowing God. Mary's example shows us a fidelity to God's will. Though sometimes we have to take our hands off the steering wheel and let God drive. I have a hard enough time letting my wife drive. Nevermind letting the Holy Spirit drive. We have to empty ourselves of sin so that God can fill us with his love. We have to die to the ways of this world, to the thinking of this world so that Christ can truly live in us. This means being counter-cultural. Jesus told the truth and they killed him. What do you think is gonna happen to you when you start living the truth of your faith? I'm gonna talk more about this in my talk tomorrow. But I'll give you one example now. I'm gonna say I fly a lot. I'm on planes a lot. I was on a plane a couple of years ago. And I always, now permanent deacons in the United States simply don't wear clerics when we travel. We dress in regular clothes. But I always wear my crucifix. And by my way, this is my mother's miraculous medal. People ask me when my mom came into the church when she was 16 years old in the 1930s. When she came into the Catholic Church she received this miraculous medal. She never took it off. I don't remember a time literally in my life where I didn't see my mother wear this miraculous medal. And when she died, that's the only thing I wanted. Why? Because just as Mary is always close to her son, this reminds me that I'm always close to my mother. I was waiting patiently while the lady was putting her luggage up in the bin. And she turns and looks at me. She goes, that offends me. First I thought, cause I was black. I'm like, what? What you talking about, you know? And I said, what? She said, that. I said, this? She said, yes. I said, oh, then don't look. Christ did not die so his teachers could be changed by the culture. Christ died so that his love and his truth can change the world. So my brothers and sisters in Christ in the midst of suffering, I ask you to lay your heart within the pure soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And when you're in the midst of that suffering you can't think of anything else to say, pray this. Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I trust you. Jesus, I give my life to you. Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I trust you. Jesus, I give my life to you. Amen. All right. Thank you. God bless you.