 for God loves a cheerful giver. Since my ordination, I have developed a great devotion to the brave men and women that sacrificed their lives in Mexico during the Cristero movement. And one particular saint that some of you may not know of or may not have heard of is St. David Galvan. The story of St. David is an interesting one. He was a very smart young man, entered the seminary early at the age of 14, then was a little bit of a troublemaker, decided to take some time off afterwards. When he took some time off, he was in a cantina and he had a girlfriend and this Frenchman went up to his girlfriend and started making moves on her. So he took a bottle and cracked it over his head. I mean, these are the types of saints we're talking about, right? And believe it or not, he decided to, or rather God called him and try the seminary again, but the seminary was weary to accept him. The seminary was like, well, we don't know if we should accept this guy, right? So they put him on probation and he did well. He thrived, he thrived. As a matter of fact, when he got ordained, they asked him to come back and be a professor at the seminary. Now, the interesting thing about St. David Galvan is that he died in the line of service, obviously. He died doing what God had asked him to do and there was a shootout in front of his church where he was and he told the priest who was assigned with him, he said, hey, let's go help those who are injured. Let's go and minister to those people and the priest being a good diocesan priest said, it's my day off. True story, true story. He said, it's my day off and this was the line St. David Galvan answered and I will say it in the original Spanish. He said, no por obligación, si no por amor. No por obligación, si no por amor. Do not do it because it is an obligation. Do it out of love. And how many times, my brothers and sisters, do we do things, do we do things for the Lord, for the kingdom because we have to or because it's a must? How many times do we even maybe pray or celebrate the liturgy because we're assigned or it's a must and is there love there? No por obligación, si no por amor. I don't know if you've had the opportunity of reading or hearing the homily that Pope Francis gave several years ago, actually April 2014 to be exact. Our Holy Father Pope Francis spoke directly to us to his priests saying, priestly joy is a priceless treasure. Let me repeat that one more time. Priestly joy is a priceless treasure, not only for the priest himself, but for the entire faithful people of God. He goes on to say, anointed with the oil of gladness, with the oil of? Not the oil of sadness. Brothers, some of you look like you are celebrating a constant funeral. Our Holy Father says this all the time, joy to be witnesses of that joy. Anointed with the oil of gladness, so as to anoint others with the oil of gladness. Priestly joy has its source in the Father's love. And the Lord wishes that the joy of this love be ours and to be complete, amen. My brothers, my brother deacons, this also applies to you, just substitute the word priest for deacon seminarians, put in future priest. It applies to all of us who are here and it applies to each and every single one of us who is in ministry. The source is the Father's love and the Lord wishes that the joy of this love be ours. My brother deacon Ralph yesterday alluded to this during the holy hour. And how many times do we think, well, not me? Or yeah, that can happen to someone else. If we look around my brothers and sisters seriously, do we really believe that God has the power to transform? Do we really believe that God has the power to change? We preach good. We preach well, right? Well, some of us, right? It's a crisis that we have in our church. But we need to preach as if lives depended on it, amen? We need to preach with fire in the belly, amen? Just can't be like, well, Jesus loves you. It's okay. I mean, are we convicted of that love? Do we really believe what we say? Or are we just going through the routine? Are we going through the motions? Have I really been changed? Have I been really transformed through an encounter with the living God? I can honestly attest to that four years ago when I came on my first retreat here, I had that encounter with the love of the Father for the very first time, I would say. And it was powerful. It was life-changing. And then I gave permission to the Holy Spirit to rock my world, and oh, he did. Trust me, you. My sisters and brothers in Christ, our Holy Father, in giving us these words, talking about our anointing with the oil of gladness, we're called to share that with others, not keep it to ourselves. Listen to these words, brothers, let me finish what I started with, his homily here. He says this, I like to reflect on joy by contemplating our lady for Mary, the mother of the living gospel, is a wellspring of joy for God's little ones. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the priest is very little indeed. Listen to this. And again, deacons and seminarians substitute it. The priest is the poorest of men unless Jesus enriches him by his poverty. The most useless of servants unless Jesus calls him his friend. The most ignorant of men unless Jesus patiently teaches him as he did Peter and the fray list of Christians unless the good shepherd strengthens him in the midst of the flock. No one is more little than a priest left to his own devices. Let me repeat that one more time. No one is more little than a priest left to his own devices. And isn't that a great danger for us brothers? A tremendous danger. Oh, my brother, Matt was talking about it. He's blessed because his wife is his gateway into heaven. Amen? We know that, but you have someone to answer to. And I've had this conversation with great lay brothers that keep me honest, that keep me true. They say, you know, they have a great day in ministry. You know, they were working with young people, whatever it may be, and then they come home and the wife is waiting for them and said, you forgot to take out the garbage. Who do we have? Who do we answer to brothers? Now, as religious, you may say, well, I have my brothers who live with me in community and at home, and that's good. But do we keep each other really in check or do we just let things slide? Diocesan priests, how do we have fellowship with each other? It's one of the weapons, no? That they were talking about that we have. Left to our own devices, it's dangerous, very dangerous. And how many brothers do we know that isolate themselves? Isolate themselves from the people. Isolate themselves from other brother priests. You rarely get to see them. They're in and out of their rooms, hiding behind facades and other things which I won't even get into. And so, our prayer of protection against every snare of the evil one is the prayer of our mother. I am a priest because he has regarded my littleness. And in that littleness, we find our joy. Joy in our littleness. Brothers, we are poor. We are useless. We are ignorant. We are frail. We are little when we do not rely solely on him. When we rely on ourselves, we fall into trouble. So how can we rely more on him? Our Lord gives us three demands today. In the Gospel, he says it quite clearly. When you give alms, when you pray, when you fast, I know that this is your typical Ash Wednesday homily here, right? This is when it comes up usually. We talk about this with the people of God, but do we apply this to ourselves? When I give alms, how am I doing with that? How am I doing with what I own? How am I doing with what I have? The religious don't have to worry about that as much. They don't have as much, but nonetheless, they can also be attached to things. How am I praying when you pray? This is critical. Matt was mentioning this. Critical, this is our lifeline. To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing, Martin Luther King Jr. Brothers, is Jesus the center of my prayer life? When you fast, what do I need to cut out of my life? What is it that I need to let go of? I'd like to propose today as our Holy Father, Pope Francis, that we need to turn to our beautiful Mother Mary to help us become these cheerful givers that her son wants us to become if we do this, then we will be rich, we will be useful, we will be smart, we will be strong, and we will be great only in and through him. There's one thing I love about our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and it's that he keeps on talking about this joy, the joy of the gospel. There's so many people that beat him down, so many people that criticize him, it's crazy. The internal attention that exists within our own church, within the clergy itself, it's ridiculous. Left ring, white right wing, you've heard me speak about this before. This is insanity, you know, the devil loves that. The devil loves division, and especially he loves division around the table of the Lord, around the Eucharist. And it's here that we need to be most united, amen? We need to strive for that unity. It wasn't, no, Apollos, it wasn't Paul who died for you, it was Jesus Christ who died for us in closing. Who is keeping me honest right now? Am I going to spiritual direction? Do I have a real spiritual director? How am I doing with my priest friends or my deacon friends? Do I really have someone I can rely on that I can count on, especially in times of trouble or in times of turmoil? Do I have people around me that I minister with? See, I'm blessed, I'm super blessed because I have a ministry, we're called Messengers of Christ, and we've been together for 11 years, and I can pray with them, I can be me with them, and they know me, and to be able to pray with them, it's powerful, and I look around and I say, wow, how many people really have this sense of community, and especially as a diocesan priest, to be able to minister with those that you serve and love, to have a crew, to have that select few around you, and to have good laymen and women that will keep you honest, to call you out when you need to get called out. Brothers, we cannot be prideful. We need to put our pride to the side, and we need to be able to listen when someone calls us out on it. Let us today pray in a very special way through the intercession of our beautiful Mother Mary that we may be these cheerful givers so that we may do the will of her Son and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My prayer is that this week we open up, we are brutally honest with ourselves, that we are not afraid, that we are not scared, that we let ourselves be ministered to, that we look for the prayers that we need, that we look for that relationship with the only one who can save us, with the only one who gives us life, with the only one who brings true joy. Praise be Jesus Christ.