 So let's go ahead and let's pray this morning. I'm excited to share with you this message today about holiness and God discipling a nation. And the talk could really be divided up into snapshots, really. I so appreciated what Scott had to say last night about holiness, what it's not and what it is. And I would like to build on that and to take some snapshots of the progressive growth of holiness in salvation history, but as God is discipling a nation. So let's pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, we love you and we thank you so much for all that you have given us. We thank you for who you are and you are totally other. You are kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, you are holy. And Lord, we desire you with all of our heart and we know that you thirst for us, that we would thirst for you and that we would become like you in every way. And we thank you, Lord, for the process that you have us in right now and where everybody's at in the stages of their life. Continue, Lord, to encourage them and to draw them with your grace. In Jesus' name, amen. Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. What I'd like to do is I'd like to start back in the Old Testament and kind of look at the foundation of discipleship slash holiness. I really appreciated what Scott had to say last night about what holiness is not because if you don't understand what holiness is, then you could spend your life going after what it's not and acting like it's holy or pursuing something that you think is holy but it's merely a facade and that you missed what was really holy. You missed the Lord. You missed that relationship and that intimacy with the Lord. One of the greatest stories in the Bible, of course, is the Exodus from Egypt. And when Israel has been in Egypt for 400 years, they have picked up an awful lot of strange habits. They have picked up the ways of the Egyptians. And yet God had made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He made a covenant with Abraham and he remembered that covenant. And after the people cried out, they cried out to the Lord, the Lord sent Moses and Moses delivered them with the Lord on eagle's wings from bondage. And there they were. They took three months to go from bondage down to Mount Sinai three months and there they were at Sinai for one year. They stayed at Mount Sinai for one year. Now the scripture tells us that they could have gone up and taken the promised land which was the first of the three promises to Abraham, land, royal dynasty and worldwide blessing but they didn't go up and take the land because they weren't ready. They weren't ready to take the land. The Lord wanted to do something in their life. And so he brought them down to Mount Sinai and it was there at Sinai that God began to fashion and form a people. And so there were three major things at Sinai. He gave them his word, the Torah. He gave them the tabernacle of course and he gave them this new priesthood, Levites. And everything that he gave to them was to reveal himself to them and that they would become like him. Now when I talk about imitating God or becoming like him understand that I'm not talking about a mere imitation. You did this, I'll do that but it's much deeper than that obviously but for many people the beginning steps of holiness is understanding what it looks like in God. God is holy and what does God do? And so here you have all of these people who have been embodied for 400 years and God is going to do a number on them. He is going to teach them. He's gonna reveal himself to them. And in order to do that God comes among them. He tabernacles among them. His presence is among them and he gives them his word. And he says to them in that book that I know if you take your Bible and you hold it up on the sideways like that, that area that's so worn out, Leviticus. That's where this begins. That's where this begins where God says, he says many times, many, many times. He says in Leviticus 11.44, 11.45, 19.2, 27, 20.26 and 21.6. He says, be holy as I am holy. Be holy as I am holy. Be holy as I am holy. Now he says this a number of times, six times and it is in those messages, be holy that I am holy, that they have this call to relationship with the Lord. But you know as well as I do that just because God says be holy as I am holy doesn't mean that you're gonna put the Bible down and say, yeah, I'm gonna do that. In fact, I'm gonna do it this weekend. I'm gonna be holy as he is holy this weekend. The truth is that many of us don't know what to do with that. We don't know how to respond to that. I need help, Lord. I don't know how to be holy as you are holy and the first step is well, you need to get to know me. You need to get to know me. If you're gonna be holy as I am holy, you're gonna have to get to know me and that is why God chose to dwell among them. He was different than the later gods of the Greeks and the Romans who were above the clouds and oftentimes took advantage of the people. Yahweh, the God of Israel, comes among his people to reveal himself in words and deeds and he gives them a way, the liturgy, to come into his presence and he gives them his word to instruct them. And so that is such a beautiful thing that in the wilderness now at Mount Sinai God says, I brought you out here to show you that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And so for a year, they were in training. For a year, they were learning who is God? What does he do? How does he think and so forth? What does it mean to truly be holy? And so we see that the foundation, one of the foundations of discipleship is imitation. It's imitation and when you look at a baby, a newborn baby, a newborn baby doesn't know all the theological details about becoming like mom and dad. What do they do? Even as little infants, the mother smiles and the baby smiles, the mother sticks her tongue out and the little baby sticks her tongue out, they learn to imitate. And so God says, be holy as I am holy. And he says something else there in the desert, in the wilderness there. He says, do not obey the commands of the people that you came from nor the people that you're going into, but obey my word. And then he also says that you need to learn to discern between the clean and the unclean, the holy and the unholy. And so God has them on this track to become like him, to become holy. And it's really interesting because even in the tabernacle, there seems to be this beginnings of a transformation of becoming somebody else, becoming the people of God, becoming more like God. And so even in the basin, you know, they have all the furniture of the tabernacle and even in the basin that was made for the priests to wash their hands before the sacrifice, they made that basin in Exodus 38, 8 out of the mirrors of the ladies. They took the mirrors, how many of you ladies have a mirror? Four? They took their mirrors and what's a mirror for? No doubt they got them from Egypt, but a mirror is a piece of brass, it's finely polished and you look at yourself in that mirror and you would reflect yourself, you would see yourself. And God had the ladies hand in their mirrors and that was made into a basin. And it was kind of like an ancient selfie, you know? And I wonder today, if they were to take, instead of mirrors, they would take your smartphone, to take your smartphone and make it into the basin where now you're not so interested in your reflection in your image, but you are interested in God and becoming like God. So we have over and over in the Old Testament this idea that we are to become like God. And so we see in the Old Testament, what is God like? Well, if you wanna look at it carefully, you would see that in Genesis, God is a creator. And we also see that we have the rest in the Sabbath. He arranges weddings. He feeds the hungry. He visits the sick. He respects the elderly. He comforts the bereaved. He buries the dead. And so when we observe God in the Old Testament, we see what he's doing and he's asking us to be like him, to be like him. So God gave Israel the key and the goal of his transformation blueprint by repeating this phrase over and over and over. And then you come to the New Testament. And it's really interesting because you go from the Old Testament where God dwelt among his people and said, obey my word, I will be with you. And then we come to the New Testament where the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, is not just with us, but he is in us. He is in us. And we are changed by the Eucharist. We are changed by his presence. But listen to what it says in the New Testament. We know in the Old Testament that God said, be holy as I am holy. And they were called to imitate God, to treat others the way God treats others. We talked about the Jubilee last night. And then Jesus comes on the scene. And it's really interesting because Jesus says, listen to this from John chapter five, says, truly, truly I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord. The son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing. For whatever he does, that the son does likewise. For the father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these, will he show him that you may marvel. For as the father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the son gives life to whom he will. And so Jesus continues with this. And he says, I don't do anything other than what I'm seeing the father doing. And I don't say anything other than what I'm hearing him say. And so the focus seems to be on the father. And we are called to be holy as God is holy. And so Jesus now is calling us to himself and we can walk with Jesus and he is in us and he will transform us. So you hear things, for example, like we forgive. Why do we forgive? We forgive because he forgave, right? How do we treat our enemies? The way Jesus would treat his enemies. Now, I wanna come back to this because holiness is more than imitating. I wanna come back to this because what we'll see is that when we get to the sacraments, we get to the Eucharist, it's one thing to follow Jesus, it's one thing to walk with Jesus, but it's another thing to have him inside of us transforming us by the Eucharist, by the blood of the Lamb. So I wanna come back to that in just a moment, but I wanna keep moving on. We have in the Old Testament, we have be holy as I am holy and Israel is trying to imitate God. In the New Testament, Jesus says, I don't do anything other than what I see my father doing and say what I hear my father saying. And then after that, we have Paul. And what does Paul say? Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse one, he says, follow me as I follow Christ. Follow me as I follow Christ. So the reason I'm sharing this with you is because not everybody is on the same page as far as well, what do I do? How do I start in this life of holiness? And for many who are just beginning in your baby steps with the Lord, it is following, like Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. Let me show you how to walk this walk in everyday life, in what we say, in what we do, in what we think about and how we deal with ourselves and how we deal with conflict. Because holiness isn't just a static mode of being, but it's active. It participates. It's relational. And that holiness is relational and it gets back to our relationship with that which is holy, which is God. And so if we want to walk in holiness, then we need to be engaged in what Paul was engaged in, what Jesus of course was engaged in and in fact engaged with Jesus. Philippians two, let this mind be in you that was in Christ. The apostle continues the imitation paradigm by saying follow me as I follow Christ and he expands the imitation vocabulary established by Jesus by encouraging the young church to imitate Christ, to imitate Christ in their relationship with one another. How does he do that? Well, Paul writes to the Ephesians and what does he say? He says, husbands, love your wife as Christ loves the church. So how do I walk in holiness as a husband? Love my wife the way Christ loves the church. He said to the Romans in chapter 15 and verse seven, welcome one another therefore, how as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Ephesians five and verse two, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us in regard to selfishness Paul said to the Philippians in regard to selfishness, conceit and humility, walk with the mind of Christ. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus. A new commandment I give you to love one another. So the end of all of this is intimacy with God and the ultimate goal for us is divinization. It is to become not just like God for but us to be in complete union with Christ where we are transformed, our thinking, our actions, our emotions, our decision making, everything is changed. But just like in the Old Testament it cannot happen without relationship and that's why when Jesus came on the scene he didn't just hold classes. He didn't just hold classes. He didn't do what I do and that is just put together studies. He said to 12 men, he said something that every rabbi said which was in Hebrew, lech achrei, come follow me. Lech achrei, come follow me. Now what does that mean? When a rabbi says come follow me it means what? It means that you now are gonna become the disciple of that rabbi. You're gonna become a disciple of the rabbi. He says take my yoke upon you and learn from me. All of this is part of holiness. Take my yoke upon you. What's a yoke? A yoke is a worldview. A yoke is my worldview. And so Jesus is saying I want you to see all of life through my eyes. I want you to participate in life with my yoke. And so when he called the 12 disciples he knew that if they were gonna be transformed, if they were going to become holy, as God is holy, then they would have to be in close proximity. And so he gathers them to himself and he teaches them and they travel with him. And so they must be in close proximity so that he can encourage them, correct them, educate them, warn them, rebuke them, whatever it might be, they need to be in that relationship. So you can see that it'd be very difficult to grow in holiness if you were doing it just over Zoom. I signed up for Holiness 101. I meet once a week. It's not going to work anymore than it would have worked back in the desert in the Old Testament. This is a 24-7 thing. It is a complete giving of ourselves to Jesus from the moment we get up to the moment we go to sleep. Now, there is a level that goes beyond merely following. In fact, if you see the language in the Gospels, you'll see that they followed Jesus. They followed Jesus. But when you get to Paul's epistles, I believe it's only one time he says follow, the rest of the time it's he walks with, he's walking with Jesus because Jesus is inside. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are transformed in our thinking, in our actions. And the fuel for this is the sacraments. It's the sacraments. But one aspect of this intimacy with Christ whereby we are changed is the area of suffering. And I know that Dr. Berksma is gonna be giving a complete talk about suffering, but I wanna mention just a couple things about this when it comes to the transformation of our lives to really know the heart of God, to know the love of God, but not just to know it up here, but to experience it in our life. Jesus, I wanna know what it's like to be you. I want you so bad. I love you. You know, it's almost like parents say to their little babies, I could just eat you up. You know, and that's the way I feel about the Lord. So I'm saying, I could just eat you up. And you know what we get to do? Just that. We get to eat them up. We get to eat, we get to participate. And that's an expression of the deep craving. How many of you have that today? Do you have that desire? Deserve something in you that just wants more and more of God? I'm the same way. Well, suffering is one of those areas as a disciple. We certainly are learning from Jesus. And we learn the word of God. We learn through the sacraments. We learn through the liturgy. We are in relationship with God in the liturgy. But in suffering, there is a union with Christ that is mind boggling. It's mind boggling. And it's one of the most misunderstood things because oftentimes people, when they think about their own life, their goal of their life is happiness. They wanna be happy. And suffering, there's a disconnect. How could I possibly be happy when I'm suffering? Because happiness is when I get my way. Happiness is when I am fed. My needs are met. I'm given credit for something. It makes me happy. I'm in my wheelhouse. But not all of life is like that, is it? The problem is you gotta wake up in the morning and real life hits you in the face. And there are days that are less than ideal in our life, to be sure. And we encounter suffering. Now, one of the greatest sources of learning about suffering in union with Christ is Pope John Paul II. Saint Pope John Paul II. And he writes in Salvifici Dolores. He writes about the meaning of human suffering. And he has so many good things to say in there. He says that there are two types of suffering or two kinds of suffering. There is physical suffering. And all of us have gone through that physical suffering, right? We've gone through physical suffering. But then there is another kind of suffering that he calls moral suffering. And the moral suffering is what? It is the suffering of the heart. You have lost a loved one. Your son passed away. Your spouse left you. You hurt inside. And most people would say I would rather have a broken leg than a broken heart any day, wouldn't you? So we have those two kinds of suffering. And then he says, but we have two types of suffering. We have temporal suffering. 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years on earth. We have temporal suffering. But then he has another category of suffering called definitive suffering. And definitive suffering is suffering forever without God, without love, in darkness, it's hell forever and ever and ever. And Jesus came and he employed physical suffering and the moral suffering and gave his life up completely for us so that we would not experience that definitive suffering. That's love. That's holiness. That is what holiness is. The cross as ugly as it looks to people when they view it and repulsive to some people. That is holiness. That is God loving us. And so the question is for us as modern day disciples, how in the world does our suffering mean anything? And what does it have to do with holiness anyway? What does it have to do with becoming more like Jesus? Because holiness and becoming like Jesus is not just book work and it's not just attending church and attending events but it's what's happening inside of us in the transformation that takes place as we yield our will to his and give ourselves completely to him so that we are divinized, we become Jesus in this world. So what about suffering? Well, Paul said a lot about suffering. So did Peter, said an awful lot about suffering. I'll share a couple of quotes with you here in just a moment. But here's the deal. If you cannot find meaning for your suffering, if you cannot attach meaning to your suffering, then you can go into despair. But if you can attach meaning to your suffering, you can go through anything. You can go through anything. If there is meaning attached to it, you can go through it. Now, Paul said something very strange and I've got to be honest with you. When I was a pastor before coming back to the Catholic church for 12 years, there was one verse that really confounded me and it didn't seem to make sense to me, certainly in the scope of holiness or becoming like God in this world. And that was Colossians 1.24. In Colossians 1.24, Paul said, he says, I rejoice in my suffering for your sake. Now, right there, I didn't quite get that. I rejoice in my suffering for your sake and I fill up in my body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Now, what could possibly be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? I thought about that long and hard. I even entertained the idea that there was some kind of literary mistake. Maybe that was just the letter and it brought all kinds of new meaning. Maybe it wasn't intended, but it was and there's no mistake. And so I rejoice in my suffering for your sake and I fill up in my body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. What could be lacking? Did Jesus rise from the dead, sit next to the Father and suddenly say, Oeve, I only got 98%, I don't know how that happened. I missed 2%, it didn't make a mistake the whole time on earth. I have no idea. Of course he didn't, right? Of course he didn't. So what did he mean by that to fill up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ? And what does that have to do with holiness? St. Augustine answered that question. St. John Paul II answered that question. St. Augustine said, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ? The sufferings of the mystical body of Christ. That's what's lacking. Your participation, your involvement, your sacrifice, because it's in sacrifice that we truly understand holiness in sacrifice and love and covenant faithfulness. And so St. Augustine said, what is lacking is the suffering of the mystical body of Christ, the church, that's you. Okay, well that's part of it, but St. John Paul II, he also said in his writings, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ? He said, well, nothing but, and this is so powerful. If you get this, this can change your life and draw you into a deeper level of holiness in relationship with the Lord that you can do anywhere, anytime, any place if you get this. John Paul II said, nothing, but that you may know the love of Christ, that you may know the love of Christ, that you may know the holiness of God. He has made room, he has made room in his suffering for you to participate. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, Lord. I've always learned that I didn't need to suffer because you did on the cross and if you did, then I don't. And he's saying to us in the gospel and in Paul's writings, no, I did and you get to too. And you get to imitate me. You get to do what I do and it's in the doing of what I'm doing in loving and sacrifice that you're going to become like me. Well, I don't know if I want to become like you. I want to become like you up here but I don't want to become like you down here if that's the cost. I've only got 70 years. I can't live my life like that. Am I talking a little bit too close to your heart here? And so he wants us to fully realize this and so let me say it again. John Paul II said, nothing is lacking but that you might come to know the love of God, taste the love of God, experience the love of God not just on the page but really come to know the love of God. He is actually giving you an opportunity to suffer, to offer up your suffering, moral suffering, physical suffering, temporal suffering. He's offering you the opportunity to get to know him even more and there's no magical formulation to it. It is by an act of my will, I offer up myself in union with you, your suffering and that's where transformation takes place. Listen to this, what John Paul II said, amazing. He said, this suffering is an extremely important aspect. There's an extremely important aspect of suffering. It is profoundly rooted in the entire revelation of the old and above all the new covenant. Did you hear that? This aspect of suffering, it is profoundly rooted in the Old Testament and above all the New Testament, suffering must serve for conversion. No conversion, no suffering, no conversion. Conversion comes by way of suffering, that is for the rebuilding of goodness in the subject. He also said in the cross of Christ, not only is the redemption accomplished through suffering but also human suffering itself has been redeemed and he said, it is suffering, listen to this, this is pretty powerful, he said it is suffering more than anything else, more than anything else, it is suffering which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls. There is no way to arrive at holiness without suffering. There isn't a way, there is not a way to do it. He also said the springs of divine power gush forth precisely in the midst of human weakness, those who share in the sufferings of Christ preserved in their own sufferings a very special particle of the infinite treasure of the world's redemption and can share this treasure with others. And so I can participate in the sufferings of Christ, I can come to a place where I know him more intimately, I become like him in the cross, I become like him and I can actually share the treasure of this redemptive suffering with others, my children, my parents, my friends, my pastor, and so what I have gained in being united with Christ can be shared when I come to that place of walking in holiness, I can share. But I wanna share this with you, it's something very, very powerful and this is, I mentioned to you earlier about these snapshots, we have the Old Testament, some things we can learn about imitating God with Jesus as a disciple, Paul talks about it. We talk about suffering as a way of understanding holiness and participating in holiness, but you and I now as Christians are not gathering around a tabernacle in the wilderness but we're gathering around a liturgy that is celebrated in heaven and on earth, the lamb supper and we are partaking of drink and food that is transformative and the Eucharist becomes the most transformative thing on earth for us to partake of, you know what I mean? There is nothing greater, no greater source of grace than the Eucharist. Now this coming year there's going to be a Eucharistic revival around the country and with the Eucharistic revival there should be a holiness revival that God's people should become holy in every sense of what's being talked about at this conference, but the Eucharist, the blood of Jesus is the key, the blood of Jesus. Let me tell you a story, Neil Diamond, I don't know if you've ever heard of him, he's a singer. Neil Diamond was playing in Northern Canada in Ontario in the late 60s and after his concert he was interviewed by a local newspaper and as he was talking to this lady who is a reporter, he answered her questions and then he asked her a question, he said is your family from Ontario and she said no, my parents were missionaries and we moved here when I was young and he said what is it like up here in North, these small towns, what is it like to live up here? And she said it's lonely and there's a difference in the numbers of available men and available women. There are only so many available women but there's a lot of men up here and she began to tell how her parents would go on the reservations in Ontario and as I said there seemed to be more men than women and she said when it came to weekends and holidays, when people all got together, the men would get their date and go into town but there were left a lot of men behind and they didn't have anybody to be with and they were alone and they were depressed in the long, dark nights of winter and so the men who didn't have a lady, she told Neil, would go down to the general store and buy a bottle of cracklin' rose wine and they would buy this bottle called cracklin' rose wine and they would say that they would have to, that would have to be their woman for the weekend and they called their women cracklin' rosy and you know the song, oh cracklin' rosy, get on board, you know that song? We're gonna ride till there ain't no more to go takin' it slow and Lord don't you know will have me a time with a poor man's lady hitchin' on a twilight train ain't nothin' here that I care to take along maybe a song to sing when I want no need to say please to no man for a happy tune oh I love my rosy child you got the way to make me happy you and me, we go in style cracklin' rose, you're a store-bought woman but you make me sing like a guitar humming I'm not gonna sing the rest, but my, when I heard Neil tell that story on an interview it really got me to thinking about all the people who are broken in their lives and on the weekend when they don't have someone to love and they don't have someone to hold and someone to give themselves to they will settle for cracklin' rose and they will cuddle up to a bottle and that wine will become their sustenance that wine will become their hope that wine will transform them into a hero for a few hours it's a store-bought woman, cracklin' rose Psalm 104 says you cause the grass to grow for the cattle and plants for people to use to bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the human heart oil to make the face shine and bread to strengthen the human heart our culture is filled with wounded people who are searching for healing, wholeness and purpose they are searching for holiness holiness is what they are ultimately searching for and we as Catholics, as the people of God we understand that we are not satisfied with cracklin' rose but we have the wine that becomes the blood of Christ and the blood of Christ fuels us, changes us it gives us everything that our heart desires, everything we need people, we need people to attend this revival that's gonna take place next year the Eucharistic revival because people are hungry and thirsting for holiness the Holy Spirit opens our hearts before God so that deeper and more specific healing can occur I wanna read something to you as we're getting ready to wind this up Dr. James Keating in his book, Configured to Christ he talks about holiness and he talks about how an encounter is necessary that we must have an encounter with the Lord listen to what he says, he says and I'm thinking of the guy that went out and got a store-bought woman cracklin' rosy sin, sin pathologically clings only to the endless boredom of repetitive daily features of the interior life constant rehearsal of our sinfulness continued recollection of personal inadequacies denigrating thoughts about the imperfections of our neighbors resentment toward the mundane horrarium of each day bathing in negative thoughts and moods existing in cynicism and all mannerisms of interior desires bent on the disorder greed, lust, envy, pride, sloth, anger and gluttony all of these desires weigh us down from within and become the signature upon the letter which is our face the blood of Christ courses through us to heal the mind of its errors and ideologies unless we have simply reduced worship and its content to an ideology itself that we have entered the biblical realm of the hardness of heart if spiritual healing is to occur an encounter must occur we can read about it, we can hear about it we can listen to other people describe it but unless we encounter it, the healing will not occur we must be seized with the presence of God in this presence, in this presence perhaps dramatic at first, perhaps not we appropriate meaning, love and healing at ever expanding levels of integration throughout our life now listen to this, the Eucharist is the encounter the Eucharist is the encounter with he who does not will anything but mercy and healing such an encounter is by its nature ordered toward the healing of interior suffering and at times of physical cure we cannot be in union with Christ at the Eucharist without receiving the effects of his virtue his power to heal, mend and restore we are attracted to so much in these short days of living but the attraction to the Eucharist is the one desire that sets all other attractions within proper proportionality without the desire to have Christ's mysteries lived over again in us by way of the Eucharist the passing age will have more effect upon our interior life than eternity opened up for us in the Paschal Mystery if your life is made up of watching network news at night in the next day sharing with everyone the bad things that are happening the difficult situation that we are in we're gonna miss the boat now more than ever we are not joining the world's dialogue we are separate and we are one with Christ and I just gotta share with you from my heart, from my heart it is the Eucharist that we need and I'm running into more and more people who are in dialogue with the world they have left the gospel and the sacraments to the wayside and the saints and they have picked up new saints and the question isn't what did Saint Augustine say or what did Saint John Paul the Sayer what did Paul say but it's what did Tucker say what did Hannity say what did Laura say do you hear what Don Lemon said and this becomes our conversation and this is what Dr. Keating is talking about is that you're gonna miss the encounter and that encounter is with Jesus the Eucharist, the blood of the Lamb listen to this great prayer you know at St. Ignatius of Loyola Anna McCristi listen to what he says in light of crackling rosy soul of Christ sanctify me body of Christ save me blood of Christ inebriate me water from the side of Christ wash me passion of Christ strengthen me oh good Jesus hear me within thy thoughts hide me separated from thee let me never be from the malignant enemy defend me at the hour of death call me at close and close to thee bid me that with thy saints I may be praising thee for ever and ever amen the inebriation for which we pray is that of which the poets and mystics have written when they said that they were drunk with the love of Christ inebriated with God set reeling with the thought of God's glory and of God's love for them Psalm 47 says Lord you have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and wine abound so I want to leave you with encouragement that with all that is going on in the world today and all the political discussions that are taking place and all of the things that are happening socially we need to turn our eyes to Jesus we need to look to Jesus and pursue Jesus and we need to pray that will be inebriated by Jesus and the Eucharist amen God has called us to holiness Father Son in the Holy Spirit