 All right. Welcome. I think I'm introducing myself. So hi. I'm Curtis. And I want to, just this was a test to see who the heartiest people at the conference were. Those who would sit outside with that air conditioning and walk the hill before that. So congratulations. You win, which is good because it really is a test to see who really wants to be an apostle. So now that I know that I've got the people that have been inspired by the talks this morning about trusting God and his loving mercy, we can get going. What I'd like to do is we've got an hour and 15 minutes. I'm thinking probably going 40, 45 minutes to do some Q and A afterwards. And then we'll have a little bit of a break so you can march back down the hill before the next session. But I'm happy to stick around until maybe four or five minutes before the next session begins on a smaller level if you have more questions. And why don't we go ahead and begin a prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord God, you are a loving, merciful God and you have loved us since you created us. Even before each of us were created, we were created in your mind. You had the thought of us long before we were conceived in our mother's wounds. We were conceived in your mind and you love the idea of us so much so that even when sin wounded us and we turned our back on you through our own personal sin, your love did not diminish in any way, shape, or form. That rather you sent your Son to live amongst us and not just teach but to model the way to live as a faithful Son so that we as sons and daughters could imitate Him in all things. We entrust this time to you and we pray not only for ourselves but for family members and loved ones and for the church in a whole who is experiencing a tremendous crisis and trial right now. Lord that you would bring many people to conversion including ourselves to deeper level conversion that you heal and restore our family members back to the full practice of the faith. We entrust ourselves to you through the care of your mother as we pray together. Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. St. Francis. Amen. The Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. What I'd like to try to do is I have a general theme and then we're going to narrow in as I said at the introduction last night on two basic themes and so the idea is that Jesus doesn't just teach us in what he says. Good teachers do that. They say good things and they teach people but Jesus teaches us as the church teaches us at Vatican II through words and deeds. He both tells us but also shows us in fact God does this throughout salvation history with events with people and with the things that are taught. More never more so than with Jesus and I would argue that in some ways Jesus's model has been somewhat overlooked in our modern church and would be we'd be well served to return to his model and we can do many things in following Christ but I want to direct our gaze to two areas two areas where in the last 22 years I've seen more fruitfulness more effectiveness where I've seen in my own personal life as I've watched what God has been doing in the lives of first of all you know dozens and then hundreds and thousands and then tens of thousands of young people and there's patterns that arise and then how I'll try to take that back into my own personal life and say well if that's the pattern if I were to imitate Christ in this pattern would it bear more fruit and I've watched hearts and minds that were that were cooled or even closed kind of melt and to be able to see this is truly effective and I it's so I'm going to boil it down there's many many things you could learn and I'll talk tomorrow in our plenary session from a different perspective there's many things we could learn and imitate Christ some of them we probably can't and I say that with my dear friend and esteemed I won't say call me because she's far beyond me but Mary Healy's in the back over there uh biblical scholar but not all of us are going to be called to do extraordinary things for God but we are called to do ordinary things extraordinarily well we see this in St. Reza's the little way and we'll talk more about that but I want to look at two things I want to look primarily that Jesus lived a radical ministry of presence he made himself present in a crazy sort of way not only did the eternal son become man that's crazy but then the way he lived with intentionality with a few in order to reach the whole world also amazing kind of counterintuitive particularly this modern world we're quick to say hey let's get a web page or we'll do some television or we'll fly all over the world and we'll go big and Jesus could have been born right now he could have been born whenever he wanted he was born as we're told in glaciers at the fullness of time the perfect time and the time he chose didn't have any of those things and uh and nothing wrong with any of those things at all I would say it's the modern spiritual warfare it's kind of like modern warfare you can't possibly win without air supremacy but it's but battles are actually one on the ground eyeball to eyeball and that's even more so true for a spiritual warfare because we're not fighting against the people we disagree with we're fighting for them we're trying to win them not beat them and in order to do that you need to get into their lives and you have to let them know that they're loved before they agree with us we're told in scripture that while we were yet sinners christ died for us and so there's this crazy ministry of presence and I would argue that not only did he model that in history but but he still models it today and the second piece is going to be and I think many of you will will be able to resonate with that you're at a catholic conference many of you for more than the first time and and there will kind of leave an action point with each of these two items and they'll be simple but this first one may not require a whole lot of change in your life second one might be a little bit because we're going to talk a little bit about how Jesus taught and why I think it's so important and the way Jesus taught was as a storyteller Jesus tells stories over and over and over again and I would argue that the greatest storytellers in the history of creation are the members of the Judeo-Christian tradition and they they're just the best storytellers throughout all of of time until about the last 50 60 years and Madison Avenue and Hollywood tell stories better than we do right now which is too bad because we still had the best story and we'll talk about that I'm going to spend a little bit more time on that piece because I think it's going to be a little bit more novel to you just so that we can set up the urgency of what we're talking about and I'm here to present hope I'm going to be with you for 40 minutes or so as I said and I'm going to spend about 45 seconds on the bad news just so we know that we're up against a challenge there's about a 20 chance today that if you raise your child Catholic they're going to be a practicing Catholic by the time they're 25 or if you're if you're already through that phase there's about a 20 chance that your children are going to raise your grandchildren to be practicing Catholics and that's a devastating stat to recognize that this is the church doesn't operate like this we're going through a crisis of faith that's unprecedented and but don't despair because God created you and timed your existence on earth to be here right now you were literally created to walk through this crisis and that doesn't mean that it's going to be comfortable but it does mean that it's going to be amazing I think of Martin Luther King Jr if there had not been a civil rights crisis you would not have ever heard of and neither would have I it was the unbelievably uncomfortable problematic unjust circumstances that he was born into and then chose to try to live faithfulness to Christ and to walk into that and I'm not here to judge the pros and cons of Martin Luther King Jr I'm saying he became a great man because he was stepped into an injustice and if that's true of Martin Luther King Jr how much more of Jesus Christ who walked in the most unjust situation the reign of Satan in the world and and allowed himself to be proven to be the greatest of all time by doing the greatest thing at the hardest place and so this is a call to action for us but to recognize that it's not just that we're not keeping our Catholics we're actually hemorrhaging Catholics for every one Catholic that joins the Catholic Church usually at Easter six people leave the Catholic Church and so we are in an unsustainable hemorrhage at this point in time and I'm done with the bad news because I want to tell you there's a solution for this and it's simple and it's not easy but it's simple everybody here can do this but it involves changing our habits and changing habits are hard years ago I was working on a book and I would take breaks and and there was see late night television commercials for this thing called the bow flex and and when I first saw the bow flex I said there's no way I'm going to buy that and then you know but three or four times a week I saw the commercial with the bow flex and I realized those people are in better shape than I am and I said but I'm still not going to buy it and I probably saw the commercial 20 or 30 times and I thought I mean I could buy it you know and and then and then I finally saw it 40 50 60 times and I bought it but you know what that's not enough you actually have to use it so I can I can sell you the bow flex today but you have to change your habits and that's the hard part it's simple and I'm not going to ask you to do anything that's painful but we had to change our habits and I want to I want to liken what we're talking about in the new evangelization as to lighting a fire and then spreading the fire because I think that evangelization of the world is a lot like that and the first step is you have to light the fire if I was out lost in the woods with a couple friends of mine and we realized the sun is starting to go down we have no matches no lighter so we're like okay we're gonna have to rub sticks together never done this before but I've seen it and I start rubbing sticks together I'm on the first shift and I'm rubbing and rubbing and my buddy walks over and says he walks over this handful of sticks he said I found more wood awesome and then he comes back a little bit later he goes I found even more wood and I'm still now I'm sweating and a little bit of smoke but nothing going on and at one point in time as he brings the fourth or fifth pile of sticks I'm gonna say we don't need any more sticks right now what I need you to do is take over for me because my arms are falling off because we need flame but here's the cool thing once you have flame you don't have to rub the sticks together anymore now you have a different problem now you need sticks but if you try to solve the stick problem first you'll never get there the sequence is really important you got to get the fire first and then you're gonna spread it so I have one habit simple habit of how to ignite fire and another one of how to spread fire and Jesus himself said I have come in Luke chapter 12 verse 49 I have come to cast fire upon the earth and wood that it were already kindled this sense of fire and building upon that theme St. Catherine of Siena one of my favorite quotes of all saints says this the first time I heard it I was like okay this is a life motto and I've shared this quote with college students for more than a decade and she said this is true of each one of us if you are what you were meant to be you would set the world on fire if you are what you were meant to be you would set the world on fire and to recognize this is true and Jesus knows that about us that's why he's willing to give his life for us because if we were to become who we're meant to be which is why he created us and then we live like that we set the world on fire and oh by the way we'd also go to heaven and we'd probably take a whole bunch of people with us and while we can talk about Christianity as a life improvement program and it is I have a better life because I'm a Christian I married a woman who's faithful to me I've been faithful to her I don't cheat on my taxes I haven't been put in prison because I don't break the laws well sometimes when I'm battling against abortion I break laws that are unjust but I don't break laws that would get me put in prison and so I haven't spent much time in prison I actually have a better life I actually have friends who are honest and generous and on honest people always make better friends than dishonest so there is a life improvement piece but that's completely secondary all that matters in Christianity is going to heaven that's that's the key it's heaven or hell as as Cardinal Newman said about to be canonized everyone who ever lived still does somewhere and that's all that matters and to be able to recognize we have to to see that this is actually worth the effort because we're playing for all the marbles and sure it's great to have these other things to have a nice life but as Jesus said seek first my kingdom and my righteousness then all these things will be added on to you to have these things and not have his kingdom and his righteousness makes us a cosmic failure and to be able to recognize we've got to get this and that's true we we have our church I believe who need the members of the church to be set on fire beginning with me and it's not a one and done the times the way this enemy the devil who when we're not looking likes to put our fire out and he does it with lots of ways Jesus talks about a few of them we talks about the parable of soils and he says we get carried we get concerned about the things of the world and distracted with the anxieties and we begin to lose our fruitfulness and if we're not careful our flame will go out Mary's dear friend and partner and my friend Peter Herbeck said to me years ago something that when I first heard it was bone-chilling but I actually the more I thought about I said I knew was true of me at least a part in my life he said Curtis I believe that the vast majority of Catholics are in a loveless marriage with God you know we as Catholics we really are married we're in covenant with God we've been baptized we're in covenant but I talk to Catholics a lot and when I talk to them they they look like they've been playing basketball for an hour and they're tired so you say you know how's it going being Catholic and they'll kind of grab their knees and start breathing having so it's really hard it's always lent you know and it's it's there's this heaviness to be able to and it's not supposed to be that way doesn't mean there won't be difficulties in being Catholic but in Matthew chapter 13 verse 44 when the shortest parables shortest stories in the scriptures Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and he hid it and for joy over it he went and sold all that he had so he could buy the field in in in this situation the joy comes before the selling but I think a lot of Catholics I meet the selling comes before the joy well if I could just be better if I could just give up more I would eventually be happy and they kind of view our Catholic faith as cosmic fire insurance and I'm talking to one young guy how's your faith going oh it's really hard are you gonna leave no why not I don't want to go to hell which is a good reason not to leave but it's not the best reason to stay and so to be able to recognize we as a church will be the kind of people who can set fires if we ourselves are living from a place of encounter and I want to talk about where that can happen and it can happen in all sorts of ways there are thousands of ways to encounter Christ and what do I mean by encounter I mean to have this aha moment where all of a sudden the God we know we all of a sudden know his love is real it's personal it's it's it's not something that's purely historical maybe you've seen the play or the movie Fiddler on the Roof in the movie the the main character has three daughters and they refuse to accept the arranged marriages and want to marry guys they want to be in love with and he married a woman Tevia married a woman who he was arranged in and after he watches the third daughter refused to take an arranged marriage he's like well they all want to marry people they're in love with and he turns to his wife and says sings the song do you love me and she responds well for 25 years I've cooked your food and washed your clothes what do you mean and three or four times he says but do you love me and she goes back to the practical stuff that's involved in marriage and at the end of the song she says yeah I suppose I do and all sudden she says I love you for the first time in 25 years and I know when I told my wife Michael and we weren't married at the time when I told my soon to be fiance Michael and for the first time that I loved her I it had to have been true before I said it or I would have been aligned when I said it right but when you say it something changes and for us to be I love you type Catholics I will follow you Lord anywhere I will do whatever you want me to do I will say whatever you want me to say when we as a church live like that we will be on fire and then we could talk about spreading the fire so where does that happen where does this encounter occur I mean it happens all over the place God can meet you anywhere it could be through a tragedy it could be through nature it could be through the sacraments it could be through reading scripture it could be through serving the poor and I've watched over the last 22 years as tens of thousands of college students have encountered Christ and come back and said this is my story it's it's diverse and wonderful but I will say there's a pattern without a doubt there's one activity that has been more fruitful than any of the other activities and I don't say this to disparage any of the other activities they're all great but I will say in our experience sitting in front of the blessed sacrament exposed is the most fruitful way to ignite a fire our staff spend a holy hour every day in addition to mass and divine mercy chapel and other things that they're doing to sit in front of the blessed sacrament when possible exposed because there's something about sitting and looking at this apparent wafer of bread and having to do the faith act of yeah but I see what I think is bread but I'm actually looking at you there's something amazing about the way that reality happens we've watched thousands and thousands of young people we hold a conference every year Mary has spoken at it and and we hold this conference and we bring some of the best speakers in the country Scott Hans speaks Ted Sree speaks Mary Healy speaks we've got great speakers I mean we try to pride ourselves in trying to find the very best most engaging speakers we can find and we do a survey at the end of the conference and rate all the activities and Jesus beats the speakers it's so cool and he doesn't do anything he just sits there pretending pretending to look like bread and thousands it's amazing to think what happens so you sit there I was with a friend who had never been before and adoration began and on this particular either probably 10,000 people there and and about 20 minutes after Jesus exposed hundreds of people got up and left and he goes why are they leaving I said they're not leaving they're going to confession we had hundreds of priests over at the side and and literally thousands of young people going to confession last year we were down in Indianapolis and and thousands of people had over 6,500 confessions heard and it was amazing to watch and and as this is going on one of the cameraman says hey I need to take a bathroom break and so they it gets over the the backup cameraman comes up he says I'm kidding I just need to go to confession I haven't been in years and to be able to sit back and say we had a policeman who was there for security and he said can I do this next year I hadn't been to confession in 10 years and I went and to be able to watch Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and then the ability to get to confession that we believe is the best way there's there's it's up to God how it's going to work in your life or in your family member's life don't force God to work I'm just saying the pattern we see is that adoration and that's my invitation to you that you would increase the amount of time you're spending in front of the Blessed Sacrament because you have to be on fire more than you are today to be able to impact your others and then when you have the chance to bring people bring them to a place where they can sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament because one of the things I love about what happens when you put people in front of the Blessed Sacrament and they're moved to sit and this was true for me as I as I went to adoration for the first time in many many years not practicing my Catholic faith and I looked at the host and I knew enough Catholic theology to know that Catholics thought that was Jesus but I wasn't sure it was Jesus but I wasn't sure it wasn't Jesus in my mind I'm thinking about all the scripture passages I know and you know this is my body and you must eat my flesh and like those all sound very very Catholic and I'm not a Catholic Christian right now and I felt compelled there's there's no kind of middle ground either it is Jesus and I should fall on my knees maybe on my face or it's not Jesus and I should get out of the room and try to get the other people out of the room also because they're worshiping bread there's no middle ground and it led me on a two-year journey to come back to the Catholic church of praying and reading and discovering the church fathers and and and pouring over scriptures and finally going to confession but what the priests tell me about the focus conference about the adoration event is that um this is so beautiful said I obviously we can't tell you what we heard but I will tell you these are the confessions I became a priest here it's not I was angry with my sister or somebody cut me off on the highway and and I yelled these are I'm dead in sin and I want to come home would you please give me new life and so I want to encourage you if you if you already have the habit of spending time for the Blessed Sacrament um then maybe it's adding five more minutes if you're already praying a half hour a day or or or more then it's probably beginning to pray God who do you want me to bring to sit here with me one of the things that we've we've done and I saw this model for me with Scott Han Scott Han when I was here in graduate school in the 90s did not tell me that I should make holy hours he said what are you doing tomorrow at six o'clock in the morning and we went and made holy hours together he didn't tell me what to do he showed me what to do and to be able to sit back and say you can invite people but let let God put them on your heart I know you're gonna think mostly about your kids and grandkids but he may want to put them on somebody else's path and you may have somebody that's on their list that you need to sit whose relationship do you have that you could invite and and to not tell them what to do but to invite them to walk with you and so to be able to be committed to adoration whatever that might be that's the the starting of the fire that I would let Lord your fire burn in my heart my mind my soul to the greatest degree possible and that I would I would manifest that by coming to you in the adoration and then inviting other people as well all right so now if we can uh that's the first habit and like I said many of you are already praying and for some of it's a prayer every day and now I should say well you know what I could actually spend an extra seven minutes and drive the church and pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament even if it's just once a day you're praying every day but you're but you're gonna get to the church once a week the key thing here is not how much you're praying it has to probably be at least seven eight ten minutes enough to quiet down and uh and I would argue probably 15 20 minutes better than that but the amount's not important the consistency the consistency if I sit back and say hey I've got this great diet and I'm on it one day a month that doesn't work it's the consistency that's more important than the specifics and so I want to encourage you on that the other one is actually something much of what we're talking about today and tomorrow is in the book making missionary disciples which is in the bookstore and it really is what we've learned in the last 21 years this was written a year ago we're now in our 22nd year what did we learn and what are those repeatable habits how can we imitate Christ in word and deed you know Jesus prayed in front of this apostle so many times that they finally said teach us how to pray he didn't teach them how to pray first he modeled it first and then later taught we live in a church that tends to teach first if we model at all and and we need to change that because the the first term for Christianity was the way it was a way of living not just a set of teachings and I believe and I hope you do too I believe all the teachings I believe them all they're absolutely necessary but they're not sufficient there's more than teachings to be in Catholic and so the second piece is actually something that's new to me that really about maybe about a year ago I have the honor of serving the us bishops on their committee for evangelization bishop baron is the chair and it's an honor to serve I serve archbishop chap you on the bishop on the committee for the laity as well and I love archbishop chap you he's been the closest thing to a spiritual father of any priest in my life used to be the archbishop of denver and that's where I live he was my spiritual director for a decade but I like bishop baron's committee meaning better because bishop baron brings experts in every time to teach the bishops and the others that are on the committee best practices and so it's exciting because you learn something every time you go and so it's it's always fun and the way it works is the that's a hierarchy so the bishops all sit at one end of the table and then the staff who work for them sit in the middle of the table and then the consultants sit at the end of the table kind of with a tail the heads up there the tails down here but when the experts come in they sit at the tail so they're right next to me so I get to talk to them during the breaks I've learned a lot of fun things but there's been one that has changed the way I think about things maybe more than anything else that I've heard in the two years that I've served on the committee christian smith who is a sociologist out of Notre Dame really really solid guy written a number of books he has a book coming up which I'm going to talk about and it's you can order it on on on amazon but it's actually not out quite yet but it's the cover is done it'll be out within a few weeks and you don't need to get the book because I'm going to tell you the main thing right now and it's it's so critical so he's talking to the bishops about his previous work and he's probably got more insight as to what's going on with young people and the faith than anybody on earth and and from a position of faith he's a man of deep faith and I had been to talks and I'd read some of his articles and I'd been to some of his talks but I never met him because we're always in crowds and uh and he knew about focus but he never met me because I'd never met him it works that way and uh and so um so he gives his presentation it's really good and so I said that was really good and I said I wanted to introduce myself I'm Curtis Martin and he goes oh focus I said yeah I said I've been an admirer of your work for a long time he goes I love focus you're gonna love my next book and I said well what tell me about it he said uh I have a team of about 100 researchers and so we found uh hundreds of families who raised children and none of those children practice their faith as adults and we found hundreds of families and all of their children practice their faith as adults and we asked all of those families hundreds of questions what did you do oh not do and he said Curtis there was a very clear pattern one thing rose above everything else every there were things that were important did you have family meals together it was important did you pray the rosary together it was important did you take them to mass consistently important but but the most important more important than anything else he said and I'm like now I'm sitting back oh well that'd be great to know and so you'll have to come to my talk tomorrow to hear that I'm kidding they uh just kidding uh he said the families that raised children who grew up to be adults who practice their faith had the habit of having spiritual conversations with their children on a regular basis spirit and I want to talk to you for the rest of our time and the second habit will be based upon this um we used to be the best storytellers in the world our church uh and before us our Jewish brothers and sisters the best storytellers in fact you can imagine if they're actually were told in in in Genesis that Abraham was chosen by God because he would instruct his children and you have to go back and say there's a very real possibility that Abraham was illiterate there were very very few books back then and so and it wasn't just his children but it was the people in his household and many of them probably were not literate there were very few books very few people knew how to read but Abraham would sit around the campfire at night as the patriarch and tell stories about his ancestors about Adam and Noah and and Shem and the great characters at that time in history and he tell him what he knew about God and how God was an amazing God I guess imagine this this this man leading up the campfire and all the little boys and girls just listening tell tell us more tell us another one have you ever had that talking to you're telling a story to a child or a grandchild do one more one more and uh and there's the sense when when we tell stories something changes when we share principles we make lists and we talk kind of officially in the point the things and say then the second point is that when we tell stories they're like okay and then it went like this and when you start to talk about a narrative people lean in and and the the Bible is filled with narratives there are 69 chapters of narrative before the 10 commandments it's in Exodus chapter 20 but there's the first 50 chapters of Genesis and the first 19 chapters of Exodus are all narrative God tells us stories before he tells us principles we live in a church it tells us principles before they share the stories and the problem is is that when you only share the principles you don't establish relationships and there's a principle in parenting that says rules without relationship lead to rebellion and we're living in a culture of rebellion and it's because we have not established relationship and the best way to do that is to become a storyteller because it's not you know what happens for us right now if you're like me when it's Thanksgiving or Easter or Christmas and we're supposed to get together with our family members some of whom aren't practicing their faith anymore we get in arguments it's tense at one point in time I turned to my mother and I said why do I why do I consistently spend more time with non-believers on days like Christmas than I do can we just meet on the 24th or something like that this is this is a big day for me and we can't talk about Jesus and but we were talking about why they weren't walking with Jesus rather than about what Jesus and who he was and you tell stories and it eliminates some of the controversy and and Dr. Sri is going to give a great talk which I've heard before on relativism in his breakout but the key there is you don't even have to believe that King David ever lived to tell the story about David and Bathsheba and Uriah it's still a great story they did exist which makes it even better but to recognize that story does away with relativism because I don't need to agree with you about the facts I'm just going to listen to your story we do it all the time in fact we do it more than any culture in the history world the amount of things that we have to believe are true that aren't true to watch a movie is crazy it's called suspending disbelief and narrative allows us to do that so what I'd like to do is I'd like to talk to you about this because Jesus told stories and and many of those stories were historical and salvation history is a long lengthy historical story Ted and I wrote a book together called the real story in which it just talks about those stories it really is there's a the passage in the road to Emmaus and in the passage of road to Emmaus Jesus begins with Moses the book of Genesis Moses is the author of Genesis and explains all the scriptures so the entire Old Testament to them and how those those books spoke of him and there's not a single word about what Jesus actually said and so Ted and I tried to reconstruct what he might have said beginning with with Adam and going forward in a story form because we need to become storytellers if we want to win our our family's hearts we want to win our world we need to tell stories better and I'd like to give an example of that so but before we do that let me set the power of that see we mentioned earlier that the best storytellers right now are actually Madison Avenue and I would argue a set of not just stories but meta narratives a meta narrative is not just a story it's a story of stories it's a whole chain of stories like the Star Wars is a meta narrative it's not just a story it's lots and lots and lots of stories over many many years salvation history is another meta narrative but the meta narratives have been told to us are Star Wars and Game of Thrones and Harry Potter and I'm not here to criticize don't watch the Game of Thrones show but I'm not here to criticize those meta narratives as I am as much to say they're actually meta narratives that don't have Jesus at the center there's no need for Jesus if you believe in Jesus you can spiritualize Star Wars and there's some legitimacy to it Obi-Wan shinobi the term shinobi is based on channel bite we're a monk there's some connections there but there's no trinity at the center of the Star Wars and the problem is if our young people don't know salvation history but they do know these stories they begin to think that the world doesn't need the trinity at the middle of it and then we're in trouble because we need to teach them a story that's true so they'll recognize the world doesn't make any sense without the trinity at the center of it without the crucifixion in the center of our history we don't say that so what I'd like to do is I'd like to introduce you to something you've probably heard of may already do but I'd like to put a little bit of a twist to it the the concept is what's called lexiodivina and in the beginning of Ted's in my book we quote Cardinal Ratzner who at the time what had not I guess he was already Pope so we quote a Benedict 16th and he says lexiodivina is the diligent reading of sacred scripture accompanied with prayer and it brings about an intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking and in praying responds to him with trust if the church were to practice this I believe it would bring the church to a new springtime so this is powerful idea but I think with what I'm about to share with you you can do this what's cool is you don't have to be Scott Hahn to do what we're about to talk about I don't know if you have this experience with me listen to Scott but I can I get intimidated I study with Scott and and he mentored me for seven years while I lived here I was only in grad school for two I had a job the other five didn't take me seven years and he meant toward me and but I remember my my final semester in grad school I had an independent study with Scott and he wanted me to read a thousand pages a day and I had childhood dyslexia I don't read a thousand pages a year and I got great retention but I don't read fast at all and I am I'm reading and and my eyeballs are bleeding I just can't take it I mean I'm not even close I'm getting upper hundreds but I'm not even close to a thousand I just can't read that much I'm spending all day reading and I and he's giving me books to read and some of them are just horrible just like there's nothing in them at one point time I walked up this big 600 page book and I said why'd you make me read this and Scott has a photographic memory so Scott grabs the book and he opens it up to page 465 he goes that line right there's amazing are you kidding me oh my goodness why would you make me spend a week trying this chewing on cotton it was just horrible you know but that's the but the scary thing was Scott was when I was trying to read more than I'd ever read my life Scott was still reading more than me every day and he's smarter than I am so he was remembering more and understanding more and it could be kind of intimidating I'm really grateful for Scott on but but I actually had an argument with uh with a buddy of mine Danny Abramus and I did a program together called crossing the goal and Danny's been a friend for a long time he played in the NFL and coached the NFL and about two years into working on this television program with Danny we're having this argument and he said uh so you're telling me you'd rather have a college sophomore lead a bible study than Scott Han and I said absolutely because guess what there's only one Scott Han and we're not going to see another one whereas there's millions of college sophomores and if we could get them to be able to speak clearly about the scriptures we could set the world on fire now they need the insights that Scott's giving them thank God for his role in the body of Christ but if you build a system on duplicating Scott Hans we're done and and so we need to recognize this is something that all of us could do so what I'd like to do is I'd like to just take a look and basically what we're going to do is we're going to prayerfully read the scriptures and you can time me if you want it's going to take a couple of minutes um and uh we will and then what I want to do is these are scripture passages I read before and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to put it down and I'm going to retell the story in my own words and I found it's very important to start with the scriptures because my retelling is not the word of God the scriptures are so you should read the word of God first but not a long section few verses and then retell the story because there's crazy stuff I'm going to talk about the crazy stuff Jesus did tomorrow in the plenary session I want to talk about the crazy stuff he said um and to some degrees did as well here but in a very different way and just look and see we read stuff in the scriptures as faithful Catholics and we've got this funny relationship with the bible we'll sit back and say amen lord yes lord I don't understand anything I'm reading but yes it's your word and uh because there's there's crazy stuff that should bother us why why why would you do that so let me give you a couple of examples go to Luke chapter five and uh this is the this you know this passage well this is what's so fun about what we're doing is that when you start practicing lexio and when you do lexio you can do this with all the scriptures but I would encourage you to do Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, repeat and do those five books at least three times before you do anything else because you're going to find Jesus more clearly in these books than any place else and then once you have done this for a while and it takes it takes months because you might read one section for two weeks because you're chewing on it going I don't I think I found something I don't understand but I don't know the answers to it and you'll pray through it for a few days or even a week and then you'll sit back because I got to go find a commentary because I don't know why this here and then you go look don't start with the commentary wrestle with a little bit on your own because the commentaries will will short circuit you actually want to be in a place you're like I don't understand seeing Augustine said God put difficulties in the scriptures so then we come back to them again and again and again you can't say oh yeah I read that no you got to read it again and again so you know this passage if you're starting your clock you can start it now and Jesus saw two boats by the lake this is Luke chapter five verse two in following and Jesus saw two boats by the lake but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets getting into one of the boats which was Simon's he asked him to put out a little from the land and he sat down and he taught the people from the boat and when he ceased speaking he said to Simon put out into the deep and let your nets down for a catch and Simon answered master we have toiled all night and took nothing but at your word I will let down the nets and when they had let done this they enclosed a great shoal of fish and as their nets were breaking they beckoned to their partners and the other boat who came to help them and they came and filled both boats and they and the boats began to sink but when Simon Peter saw this he fell down at Jesus's knees saying depart from me I'm a sinful man and Jesus said do not be afraid henceforth you will be catching men that's the end of the reading so if you're I've got kids at home five kids at home still we have been blessed with nine and sometimes when I say we're going to do something religious the teenagers are going to go right you're like okay I'm actually going to be really really fair and only ask a little bit of time because what happens is the discussion is going to come from this may last longer but now they've chosen to stick around but we're actually I'm done with the first part took what less than two minutes now I'm going to tell it and that's going to take another two or three minutes and and then there's there's room for discussion and sometimes the discussion happens and sometimes it doesn't but if you take this time so I might read that passage and I have read that passage sometimes every week every day for two or three weeks and and I'll share another one with you when we're done with this just this kind of reading I'm going to read slowly I'm not trying to get through the scriptures I'm not trying to finish the chapter I just want to I want to I want to percolate on what's going on in front of me and say are there some things that are in here that that are unusual because we're told by Vatican II and the tradition of the church that every word is exactly as it ought to be there's not there's not a word in here that that shouldn't be there's not a word missing it's exactly as it ought to be so whether there's something missing why and whether there's something added that just doesn't quite need to be there it either raises the question you said back I say it's an unnecessary piece of data at first glance so I would say it this way so some fishermen had gone out from washing their nets they were done fishing the washing nets it's kind of interesting to know because if you've been doing this for a while I also know that you know Peter is a professional fisherman he's only mentioned going fishing twice and both times he fishes all night and catches nothing so you get the idea he's not a very good fisherman which I don't think is true but talk about you know let me you're going to tell that story again aren't you Lord and my wife likes to tell the story when we first met started dating because I'm five years older than she is and she likes to make a big deal about that and so when she starts on the story out here we go again and but it's like you're not a very good fisherman all the time are you and so anyway he's the deal is Jesus sees them they've been up all night Peter's probably frustrated he's tired might be a little grumpy at least tempted to be grumpy and he's doing the thing that fishermen don't really love to do but you have to do it because your nets you're lively he's washing his nets why you wash his nets I'm not quite sure he can catch anything they weren't dirty but anyway he's washing his nets and so he's he's they're doing it it's a it's a kind of a tedious task at the end of fishing if you've had a good day or night it's a really frustrating task if you've had a bad day or night and so Jesus says can I use the boat can we put out just a little bit and so Peter's kind of probably huffing and puffing a little bit or I would be and Jesus has given a teaching and it's not recorded what he said and so it how long he talked we don't really know he just said when he was done he said let's go out into the deep and and my thought by the first day it strikes me is do you think Jesus knew that he was going to tell Peter to go fishing when he first got there of course he did he's God so why did he not say hey hold off on washing the nets have you ever been in a situation where you feel like God's asking you to do something it doesn't make any sense he's always allowing you to do something it's not bearing any fruit and and that's one of these situations right here he does it all the time all the time he asked us to do crazy crazy things or just allow us to do crazy things and not correct this he knew he's going to go fishing pretty much exactly when he finished washing the nets right now it's time to go fishing and and there's obviously some trust because Peter says master so he's got some sense of trust that's a whole different talk I think probably his his brother Andrew and and uh we had we were pretty sure from John chapter one had met Jesus earlier at his baptism John Andrew Peter's brother was a disciple of John the Baptist and if you're in my mind you sit back and say well they read his baptism and they said we want to follow you and he said great I need to spend 40 days in the wilderness you go home and I'll come get you and so 40 days later he shows up and Andrew's like that's the guy that's the guy let him use your boat let him use your boat and Peter's like whatever just want to finish my nets and uh and now he's like okay master the story's right you're a carpenter not a fisherman what are we doing and then and then he catches the best catch of his entire life a professional fishing best and and you know you know what he said I mean he said exactly what I would have said he says this is amazing we should go in the fishing business together right I mean why would you not do that I mean I would just say this is great it's your first day so we'll call it Curtis and Jesus fishing um no no no no I can see where this is going we'll call it Jesus and Curtis fishing and and I think that if you had said that or I had said that I think that Jesus would have said yeah see I don't want to be your partner I want to be the Lord of your life I want you to quit your job and I want you to sell everything you have and come follow me and and my question for you is have you ever had a quit your job moment with God because that's one of those encounters he doesn't he may not ask you to quit your job but have you ever been the point where like I would quit my job if you told me to and to sit back and say actually following you is just more important than anything and everything and and now I'm done with that that's that's the retelling so that was probably what three minutes three and a half and and and when you know the story well enough that you could actually retell it and you see a few things and they're like why would he let him wash his nets why would Peter fall down and say depart from me I'm a sinful man instead of why don't we go in the fishing business together and then isn't it odd that that Peter walks away from the greatest catch he doesn't even start to clean the fish it's not just Peter it's Andrew his brother and it's not just Peter and Andrew it's James and John their partners four of the twelve apostles are called right here and they literally walk away from the best catch of their professional careers and don't clean or prepare a single fish they look at their elderly fathers and say I I gotta go and Jesus said you gotta love me more than you love your mother your father you're not worthy of me and see when you've sat in pause and sit back that and you ask people like what so we've ever had a quit your job moment and you know most nine-year-olds haven't but you start you start I watch this now because we I learned this a while ago and I shared it with my wife and she said we need to start doing this so on Sundays we do this in fact for the summer we've been trying to do it every every evening just right after dinner five seven minutes and you know what they've never said uh no I don't want to do it it's it's kind of like hey do you know can you tell me another story and I believe if we were to do this and start to have spiritual conversations with our loved ones you would draw them to the heart of the faith and they would catch fire and be able to spread it and to be able to recognize this is how we keep people Catholic and draw them back into the faith not to tell them you know when's the last time you went to mass I'm really disappointing I go into mass yeah you know what I hate this conversation and and when we feel obliged to do it but I actually don't think while we should be obliged to try to win them back the key thing there is win them back not not lecture them back it hardly ever works and it's really hard not to because it's the most important thing to us right I mean I told my my my kids right before my my first son got married I said you know we want to pull back the curtain a little bit the whole project here is for you to get to heaven and take our grandkids who don't exist yet into heaven it's why we've done everything not always well it's why we did everything and we want to invite you on the other side of the table now to be part of the solution here and I'm honored to say that we're four for four so far two of our four our missionaries of focus and and they're on mission with us all of them but to be able to see to have these spiritual conversations not about the church crisis some of us need to talk about that some of the time maybe all of us have to talk about it a little bit of the time but you don't win souls to christ into the church by talking about the crisis or expressing frustration but when you tell the great stories of jesus christ the great stories of the old testament patriarchs and of the new testament and new covenant saints you light people up st. Ignatius of Loyola was wounded in battle was almost killed by a cannibal and all there was was a bible in the lives of the saints and he started reading the stories and started to have spiritual conversations at first in his own imagination and then and then with in prayer and then he sat back and said oh my goodness i've been serving an earthly king and almost died these people serve a heavenly king i want to spend the rest of my life serving him he had to quit my job moment and founded the Jesuits and to be able to recognize that and it's interesting that when Ignatius of Loyola was founding the Jesuits his young Jesuits would gather around him and when he would give their their assignments and they'd end their meetings it always ended the same way he'd always turn at the end of the meeting and say go set the world on fire st. Catherine santa if you are what you were meant to be you would set the world on fire st. Ignatius go set the world on fire Jesus christ oh i've come to set fire to the earth and i wish he was already kindled and we're playing for all the marbles to be able to recognize this we are i'm going to do one more very quickly just to show you that this can be done anywhere and again you can time me if you want the setting is this always good to know the context of where you are i'll be brief this is the day after jesus gets baptized in john chapter one says the next day john was standing with two of his disciples that's john the baptist with two of his disciples it becomes explicit that andrew is one of them and he looked at at jesus as he walked by and pointed jesus said behold the lamb of god the two disciples heard him say this and they followed jesus jesus turned and saw them following and said to them what do you seek and they said to him rabbi which means teacher where are you staying and he said to them come and see and they came and saw where he was staying and it was about four o'clock in the afternoon i'm done reading i'm going to retell so one of the things that lex you invite you to do is kind of get your imagination engaged and just to back and say what was this kind of like just like i did before that peter might have been frustrated or grumbling or or you know tired or or why or puzzled that why jesus would wait until he was done washing his nets to say let's go fishing and in this one i think it's kind of interesting it's the day after jesus is baptized which is kind of a crazy day and two of john the baptist disciples who thought this could be the guy they they quit their jobs and uh they were younger brothers so they probably didn't have a job because the older brothers got the job got the business and so they were they were thinking okay we're gonna find the messiah so they're down there listening to john the baptist like this is the guy this is the guy this is the guy and then one day jesus shows up and john says that's the guy and they're like oh wow we thought you were the guy but you're saying he's the guy and crazy stuff was happening you know you've got an argument in the water who's gonna baptize who and john lost and baptize jesus and uh and the bird comes out of the heaven there's a voice and uh and it's it's kind of crazy what's going on and so they're wowed by jesus but they've been with john and now a sudden jesus is leaving and there's there's no cell phones you can't like ping him and find out where they are he's walking and if he goes over the next hill he's gone you good luck finding him and so they got to make this decision like okay there goes jesus but john we and no time for goodbye jesus is on his way like oh wow and they start to walk and then there's kind of this awkward thing where they're walking after him right and and they've ever been walking and you think somebody's behind you and you kind of turn around and in my mind you know jesus is kind of walking and he turns around and uh andrew and john are like you know and it happens two or three times and finally he jesus catches them looking at him and he says what do you seek and they're like i don't know there's not a script here where are you staying was that a good question i don't know it was a good question and jesus says come and see and they came and saw and it was about four o'clock in the afternoon and this passage bothered me because why do we need to know that it's four o'clock in the afternoon it's two thousand years ago does it really matter could it have been two thirty why does that mean who cares that it's four o'clock in the afternoon it was very frustrating to me that there was this incredible detail in john chapter one and to highlight and i've already mentioned this if you literally take a pin in four o'clock in john chapter one and go back one page you're the end of luke's gospel and you're at the road to a maze and jesus gives the greatest bible study in the history of the world and doesn't share a single word the scriptures don't give us a single word oh my goodness i would love a little more detail here even a couple more chapters nothing turn the page it's four o'clock who's doing the editing in this book why in the world would you want to know that but there's got to be a reason because guess who did the editing the holy spirit did the editing is exactly what it should be and this is one of the ones where i couldn't get it on my own and i read it and i read it over and over again i probably had it for two two and a half weeks i'm like what am i missing and i go back and read some of the commentaries and they said uh this was the moment when john's life changed he's the author of the gospel and um he's he's at some point in time he's he's exiled in the island of patmos and uh he's he's a mystic he's deep in prayer and i don't know exactly how it happened but in my imagination he's praying and he hears john i want you to tell my story and it was me i would have said look i read matthew mark and luke they're awesome i don't know what i'd have to add that's just you're really really good um i you know i'm just gonna defer and uh and then no i want you to tell my story and so this old man late in life decades removed from his life with christ in the flesh sits down to right he goes back to the beginning he's like you know what i remember when i first met him and and i were there with john and he got baptized and the next day he was walking away and it was uh what do you seek where are you staying come and see and we and we did and uh i remember it was in the afternoon um my life completely changed at that moment it would never be the same it was about four o'clock and the question for you is what's your four o'clock have you had those moments because if you haven't god wants you to have them so get close to the scriptures and get close to the Eucharist and the Blessed Sacrament and and be able to know the love story and if you have foster more of them because it's not a one and done i don't get to tell michael and look i told you i loved you i will tell you if i changed my mind it doesn't work that way i our love affair our marriage should be an enduring love affair and it is when it's healthy and and our faith is the same way but john if at four o'clock in the afternoon and see was it was decades later all the other apostles by the time he writes this are all dead they've all been martyred he's the last one he's the last one to give testimony in the gospels and he's reminded of his four o'clock and i think that framework of the four o'clock has been something that i've shared with college students now for five or six years is um is compelling it gives you them something to think about i've had we've had focused missionaries who have gotten married at four o'clock in the afternoon because of this passage and to be able to recognize this is a paradigm for me my dad died and i'll close this we can take some questions my dad died a couple years ago he died at home and my family was surrounding him and and when he passed about two o'clock in the morning we just spontaneously began to tell stories of life with dad and we cried we cried we laughed and uh but what i realized is that that's that's all the gospels are they're just telling stories of times with jesus remember that time he gave that center on the mouth that was awesome remember that time he forgave that woman caught adultery and it's just one four o'clock moment after another there were millions of them john says if everything was that he said and done was written down all the books in the world would not contain it these are the ones that were written down they're the best of the best and they're written in such a way into the inspiration of the holy spirit to provoke and and enshrine the opportunity to have spiritual conversations but for you to do it you have to read it and know it so well that you could retell it yourselves and here's the beautiful thing it's not hard it's not hard people were doing it for centuries and they didn't even know how to read this is not a you got to get a doctorate this is a you need to spend time in the scripture so my second and final action point for you is that you would begin to read the scriptures prayerfully on a daily basis slowly and that you would begin to pray for the opportunity to have spiritual conversations about what you're reading maybe on a sunday it's the lord's day i frequently struggle with i know we're supposed to make the lord's day holy i'm not exactly sure beyond mass and avoiding shopping what that is and for us to have spiritual conversations on a sunday has been a great thing for my family and so with that i think that if we live the encounter in whatever way god wants that but the most frequent we've seen is in front of the blessed sacrament and invite others to do the same and then if we were to prayerfully read the scriptures and learn those passions as well enough so that we could tell them ourselves we would be able to set hearts on fire and spread that fire throughout the world so my invitation for you is these two opportunities these two actions simple not not hard except for the fact that it's a change in habit and that as you do my prayer for you will be that you will go set the world on fire love to take some questions yes great question i'll answer it then i'll try to answer you i'm gonna answer a little bit different than i'll if i don't satisfy you i'll come back and answer it directly i'm a big believer in immersion experiences so it's one thing to invite somebody to go down the street and and go to the church and pray with you one on one it's another thing to invite them as we do on a mission trip for a week and have adoration every day there or to come for a five-day conference and be surrounded by thousands of other people that are also there because because getting people out of their ordinary life is really important jesus one of the things we didn't talk about he does crazy things if i wanted to tell you about the the arch in st louis i would i just did there's an arch in st louis uh jesus would say let's go for a walk and he'd walk to st louis it would be crazy but he did it all the time he would be up in galley it's a five-day walk and he'd say i want to show him something about the temple hey guys let's go for a walk and he'd walk to drusselm five days and he'd be like you see that over there okay yeah all right we can go home now oh my goodness but what he knew was it's not so much the experience as important as that is it's the walk can you imagine walking for five days with jesus and so if to the degree you can get people out of their ordinary life it will be much more effective way over 50 percent if you're talking about somebody who uh you're going to you think maybe well it's worth trying i think you're gonna be probably below 50 percent i don't know because that's not the model we use we use immersion events as the primary mode but i think it's powerful and i think anything we can do to invite people and again we we're kind of leaning and looking we use the acronym fact f a c t are they faithful are they available are they contagious in other words they're they're on fire about this and are they teachable those are the people scott saw that in me when i was here and invested in me um and so uh you don't do this with everybody and you don't do it with even the ones you want to right away necessarily do you have their trust uh and so i think you could by contextualizing it the percentage it goes way up and so but so i didn't answer your question i'm going to guess it's lower i'm going to say 20 percent without an immersion over 50 percent i mean we just literally i mean thousands and thousands and thousands of people um and and it's not it's a four o'clock moment but it's also um we have folks who are not involved in our program but come to to a five-day conference with us and discern their vocation and we don't even count those people in our numbers because we didn't walk with them but they're still having the experience because they're surrounded by people and they're like oh my goodness maybe this desire i have to be faithful isn't crazy because i think a lot of young people today who have faith are embarrassed by it i know i've met a young girl who said i used to tell my roommates i was going to a party on saturday night and i'd go to mass but i didn't want to tell them because i was embarrassed and to be able to sit back and say actually i've met some really awesome people who are also faithful is such a relief i think for anybody of any age but particularly for a young adult good enough fantastic yes father yes right yes so for the for the recording why don't we if crisis can lead to greatness can create this the space where greatness can be we mentioned martin luther king jr and jesus as two individuals in history who who were born into crisis and were great um i would i would actually argue absolutely we ought to it strikes me that that there's a prayer that every priest and every religious prays every day called liturgy the hours and in the liturgy the hours most of the prayer are the psalms and the psalms i just literally i've been doing lexio in the psalms for the last six months i literally just finished last week the psalms are overwhelming because over and over and over again so david and the other psalmist prays something like this not every psalm there are but but probably more than any other theme is lord my enemies have surrounded me i am devastated i am trapped you oh lord must deliver me and i trust in you and and they pray that every day and then they walk into their first meeting going it's go hard and the church is falling apart oh my goodness this is precisely when we got to be jumping into his arms saying you and only you lord can fix this i'm all in because here's the deal of us being with god we are like a pen or a pencil or a paintbrush in his hand he's the artist we deserve no credit whatsoever in fact the only way we can collaborate with him is if we give up ourselves when the pencil has some of its lead rubbed off then it's being of use but it doesn't deserve any credit for what's written but it participates in god's creative power when it gives of itself we should be stepping forward to god's life and say i got nothing but everything i have is yours use me i'm willing i'm willing to suffer for this i love talking to our missionaries we got about 800 of them and i love talking to them and they'll i'll meet them in tears how's it going it's horrible i mean i i feel like i'm making no progress the students i'm working with it's just it's terrible do you want to quit no i'm here do you want to move no i'm here and then the stories happen over time this one guy came to me said i got this guy's a superstar it's going to be awesome i think maybe you'll become a missionary i want you to meet him and i showed up for the meeting the guy didn't show and uh and i didn't hear anything about it i went back home where i was in a different city this the missionary was and uh i talked to him about three months later and i said so great how's the things going with that guy and he goes i was hoping you wouldn't ask that question he um he actually not only didn't show up the meeting with you he's blown off everything he isn't going to a single bible study he has met with me he won't take my calls actually the chaplain on campus met him and said hey long time no see why don't you give me your phone number and he gave him the wrong phone number and he goes i just i'm such a failure and uh he said i was i i'm embarrassed to tell you the story and then i talked to greg about five months later i said greg how you doing he goes you know i gotta tell you the last chapter of this book about three weeks ago knock on the newman center door and the priest opens the door and he's and the guy says the same guy says i've been running for almost a year god's called me to the priesthood and i'm in and uh good friday didn't look good on good friday it doesn't look good right now but jesus christ did not save the world with his amazing teachings and they are amazing and he did not save the world with his amazing healings and they are amazing he saved us by suffering and dying for us and if you think we've got another way there's no other way except to spend ourselves and trust to him and so i all in we should pray the psalms whether it's in the salter and in the liturgy of the hours as the religious or priest bishops do or whether it's just lexio as i just did and just sit back and say almost half of them i don't know how many more than 50 of the 150 are written by david um and he was a man after god's own heart and to be able to sit back and say we need men and women after god's own heart so i'm all in and i actually think that telling young people today that there is a crisis and that there's they have a role to play and if they don't play it there's no backup plan there's only god created you to be you there's no there's no other you and if you decide to play video games and get addicted to pornography then stuff that was supposed to happen is not going to happen because you talked to young people like i'm not hurting anybody are you kidding me if you're a fireman and the alarm went off and you were playing video games and you said i'm not hurting anybody you would lose your job and you might go to jail of course you're hurting somebody you have a specific task and when young people hear this they're like really show me how to live that yes yeah i mean the the third book which i didn't mention uh that i brought was uh the one that i wrote a few years ago called made for more they were made for more and to live for less um the pope benedict on his first mass as pope i was with my wife we were we were doing this very difficult um missionary work uh in hawaii and um and so we happened to be in hawaii when this was going on and if i were watching the pope preach and he's he uh in assembly said and and to you young people sorry you know i run a apostle for young people i lean forward he said the world offers you comfort but you were not made for comfort you were made for greatness i was like oh that's gold and we've tried to share that with people um anybody who's in love realizes it's never enough i i cannot love my wife enough i certainly can't love god enough i i mean it's i don't know how you do on that when i when i i don't always use the ten commandments as the examination of conscience before confession i can't get past the first one i was just it's i i'm an abject failure all my heart all my mind all my soul all my strength okay and by the way everything else i'm going to confess it's because i'm not doing this one well um so i got a big problem with the first commandment and so what do you say good enough if none of us can get past the first commandment and to be able to recognize can we set the bar higher because we live in a world that says it's okay as long as i don't hurt anybody as long as we don't mean you know abortion or divorce i mean those things have to be tolerated but but because we're hurting a lot of people in our culture and the point of that is that can't be the goal that can't be the target and we're supposed to actually set things right jesus actually was living the good life as the sun in heaven and he left that to come here to fix stuff and the goal of whole of catholicism is not to get to heaven if that were the case jesus would not have founded the church he was already in heaven the goal is to get as many other people to go to heaven as possible and for that it's not enough to do the corporal works of mercy we have to do the corporal and the spiritual works of mercy because even if you house somebody they won't need that house 100 years from now even if you feed somebody and we ought to house them we ought to feed them they'll still be hungry tomorrow but if you can if you can win their souls for christ they'll live forever so the spiritual works of mercy are frequently second in in priority because we have to feed them and care for them first you can't evangelize a starving person but they're never second in significance the spiritual works of mercy are far more significant because it affects the soul which lives forever and the only chance the body has of living forever is if it's attached to a soul that's going to live forever i think we are we got time for one more yes two more well be quick sure i do think sometimes it's important to take a step back before you take five steps forward and i but i don't know your circumstances well enough to answer what i would say is my experience is that jesus wants to be adored and it's easier to do so in a group uh it's get there's horror stories of people coming in for at the two a.m. hour and then the three a.m. person doesn't show up in the four a.m. person doesn't show up the five a.m. you know i might do to do that again i just spent six hours and i was late for work all kinds of stuff whereas when you build momentum it's great our experience has been we committed to the holy hour wasn't 24 seven and focus right away but the church the churches weren't always open so literally weren't open we would hold holy hours on the front porch of the church we know you're in there and within six months the doors would be open and one of our parent one of our campuses there the Eucharist was in a a closet in the tabernacle looked like a college refrigerator a little mini refrigerator it might have been i don't know and um and there was no room to sit in the where the Eucharist was and so but our staff started coming and and they would they would sit outside the the door and they were told don't do that okay so they would walk by and they would genuflect and they were said don't do that so they walked by and they'd make the sign of the cross and say don't do that and then walk by and they go and make as active adoration by a simple knot and that was subtle enough that they didn't get in trouble for it but within a year and a half the tabernacle was back behind the altar and in the center and and adoration was begun Jesus wants to be adored we have to go first and so building momentum is great but you don't necessarily have to stop the 24 7 you could still start one hour a week where people gather and it would be a time to invite people and then you can tell them about hey we're trying to keep watch with them might be time to start again with different events it's it can be when you're losing momentum momentum is very very important here um and so i i need to know more detail be happy to talk to you about it in greater detail to before i could give any counsel but that might be the case yes and then we're done sure well since they're not here i'm going to tell you what i think you should do um because you're here uh when i when i first came back to the catholic church i started going on weekday mass literally it was me and 27 90 year old women and one priest and um and these were wonderful women and they were sweet but it wasn't like we're gonna hang out you know and um and back i came back in 1985 i mean scott haun hadn't come to the end of the catholic church carl keaton hadn't written catholicism fundamentalism there was nothing i literally would read the church fathers and the saints and i'm like this is it and then i look around going nope doesn't exist now and um and when one of the people that was closest to me in a in age but it was still dead for a long time was cardinal newman is going to be uh canonized in october and i i was like oh my goodness this guy did it but still nobody i've ever met has actually done this become catholic and i'm the only ones who are our dinosaurs so i just started begging god i felt like the first salmon to ever swim upstream like i'm a sea creature why would i ever swim up a river and um but i have this draw i said lord you gotta give me a companion so go to mass every day for the first six months i wasn't receiving communion i hadn't come back yet but i was pretty sure i was on my way and and and then after i started receiving communities like you got to give me somebody to walk with i need somebody and um and i'd stay for half hour after every mass and pray lord i want to follow you i'll be true to you i'm so sorry i turned my back on you i'm in for the rest of my life you gotta give me a companion and after about six more months one time i looked over at the sign of peace and there was a 23-year-old guy on the other side of the church and we became best friends he followed me one year later and got his graduate degree one year later than i did here and uh we were partners in ministry for our apostles for years you know god parents one of those kids and two became four became eight became 70 it just started to explode don't don't wait for god to act beg him to ask over and over again that widow and luke who continued just to harass the judge until he gave and he says i don't fear god but this woman's driving me crazy and and and and jesus says i want you to pray like that and i don't think we pray like that you know do we weep because we don't have what we need to follow him um and so to be able to have that says we he wants to he broke his heart for us he wants us to imitate him and have broken hearts for what we're doing i want to thank you for weathering the heat and the distance i know you've got someplace to go but i'm very grateful for my time together let's close in a quick prayer in the father son in holy spirit amen lord we love you and want to love you want people to come to faith in you and to be with you forever as we pray together glory be to the father and to the son to the holy spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be a world without end amen father son in holy spirit amen thank you so much