 I want to start by saying I know some of you have just arrived for the defending the faith. Some of you have been here over the last two days getting a rich banquet of the word of God. Many of you have traveled and you've all come from your places at home and at work and out there in our culture, which is so broken in so many ways. And I've been struck again day after day at how much bad news we're hearing. One of the top news items that I read just this morning said that the Biden administration has put out a new ruling that will force medical professionals to do abortions, sex change operations, and assisted suicide against their conscience. Now of course that's going to be fought in court, but it's also going to drive many good, faithful, solid people, Catholics and others, even non-Christians out of the medical profession because it's too difficult to fight to simply live according to their conscience. So these are the kinds of things that we see coming out day after day. You know, if you wake up in the morning feeling pretty good about the day, all you got to do is read the headlines and you'll be depressed again. So you've gathered here at Franciscan University for the Defending the Faith Conference and I think the Lord is saying to you, rest yourselves here. Like Abraham said to his three guests in that beautiful passage in Genesis where the Lord comes to him in the form of three men, three angels. He says, rest yourself, have a little water brought to you, wash your feet, let me set a banquet before you. And I think the Lord is saying that to you. We've all been battered and bruised by what's going on in the world. The Lord says, here I want you to put aside the things that have been disturbing you and making you anxious, whether personally or in the world or in the church, and let yourselves be refreshed. And let me set a banquet before you. And the Lord even says, let me wash your feet. Let me refresh you. That's what he wants to do during your time here over the next couple of days. He wants to fill you. He wants to encourage you. He wants to lift from you the burden of anxieties and worries and things that you've been carrying. He wants to remind you once again that Jesus Christ is alive and that he is the Lord and he's on the throne and he hasn't abdicated and he has a plan for his church and for the world and nothing is going to derail or destroy the plan of the Lord. And he wants you to rest in that confidence. So let's pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, O Lord God, that you are the God of miracles. You are the God of healing. Lord, with all the tremendously disturbing, troubling things going on in the world today, you remain the sovereign Lord. And we pray, Father, that you would give each person here the spiritual refreshment and the revelation, the specific insights that you want to give them to encourage their hearts, to build them up in their most holy faith, to send them home renewed, restored, healed, refreshed in the Holy Spirit and ready to carry out once more the mission you have for each one of them. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Mary, seed of wisdom and star of the new evangelization, pray for us. The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now those of you who have been here over the last two days know that we have been focusing laser sharp on this theme that continues in the Defending the Faith Conference. And it's all rooted in one scripture verse, Luke 4, 18. Really, 18 and 19. Luke 4, 18 and 19. And they're going to put that up. There it is on the screens. And the theme of both these conferences is the Jubilee. And that's what Jesus announces here. So we've been focusing over the last couple of days on what Jesus announced here in this absolutely essential passage from the Gospel of Luke and how he was really announcing the new and everlasting and permanent perpetual Jubilee in himself. But what I'm going to do in this talk is focus on another part of this same homily that Jesus gave in the synagogue at Nazareth. Now I want to begin by setting the stage. What happens right before this passage? Jesus begins his public ministry with an event that we now pray as the first luminous mystery of the rosary. What's the first luminous mystery of the rosary? His baptism, the baptism of the Lord. It's an absolutely crucial moment in the whole mission of Jesus. And we know that John is preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He's getting Israel ready for the Messiah. But then Jesus himself comes to be baptized with John's baptism. And we're supposed to wonder, wait, wait, wait, why? This is a baptism of repentance for sin. The Son of God doesn't have any sin. Why does he come to get baptized by John? That's supposed to make us think. What's going on here? In the context of the Gospel, we begin to see this is Jesus's act of utter humility and obedience. At the beginning of his mission, he says yes to the plan of the Father, that he would not be the Messiah that stands apart from those lowlife sinners over there and tries to do something for them, but that he would be the Messiah who steps right into the place of sinners, right into solidarity with us, identifying with us in our brokenness and by doing that, by stepping into that baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, Jesus is actually already saying yes to the cross. He's saying yes to God's plan, that he would stand under God's judgment for sin. So Jesus goes down into that water, baptized by John, comes up from the water. Then what happens? You remember, right? What happens when he comes up? The heavens opened above him and the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove. Did you ever notice that it doesn't say and then the heavens closed up again? It doesn't say that. So the implication then is that when Jesus was baptized and the heavens opened above him, they stayed open because his mission from that day forward is to have access as man to heaven, to all the graces, the power, the blessing, the mercy, the healing, the glory of heaven and distributed on earth. That was his mission and the Holy Spirit comes upon him, empowering him for his mission and from that day forth, Jesus, the Son of God made man, walked under an open heaven. He brought heaven to earth. Now, once he's filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit immediately leads him to a place you might not expect. Where does the Spirit lead him? To the desert to confront the evil spirit. Why in the world would the Holy Spirit do that? Why would he drive Jesus right into the place that was known to be inhabited by evil spirits? Because now, Jesus as man is going to defeat the temptations of the enemy, not in his divine power, Son of God, but in his human nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. St. Lawrence of Brindisi has a wonderful reflection on this and he says, you know, Jesus went into the desert to oppose the enemy. He doesn't oppose him in his divine power. I mean, you know, if Jesus fought Satan in his divine power, in one nanosecond, Satan would be annihilated. It wouldn't be a fair fight. St. Lawrence says it's sort of like a guy goes into the boxing ring with a much more powerful opponent, but the guy fights him with his stronger right hand bound behind his back and fights with his left hand only. His victory is going to be all the more glorious. So Jesus fought the enemy with the right hand of his divinity bound and using against Satan only the left hand of his weak humanity. How, brothers and sisters, are we to fight the temptations of the enemy, which can be so powerful and so seemingly irresistible in our culture? The way Jesus did in the power of the Holy Spirit. He's the model for us. Now, after that day, after his, he finished his 40 days of temptation in the desert, the gospel of Luke tells us that he went in the power of the Holy Spirit into Galilee and he began his mission. So Jesus is now in his human nature. He's empowered by the Holy Spirit. He is God yet he chose to live as man dependent on the Holy Spirit. And he lived from that day in his teaching, in his healings, in his casting out demons, in all the miracles he did. He did them in the power of the Holy Spirit. And it's then at that point that Luke tells us he went into the synagogue at Nazareth and he gave his inaugural sermon. He gave his inaugural address, his opening homily and he took the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he found the passage he wanted and that passage is the one that's the theme of these conferences. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me. Now you realize he's talking about what had just happened. This passage is actually prophesying what is being lived in his own life now. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me. Maybe you could put that slide on the screens again. He has anointed me. That could be translated, he has made me the anointed one. He has made me the Messiah. The meaning of Messiah is anointed one. And then he explains why. Why have I been anointed? To preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to claim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. That's the everlasting jubilee. But in other words, what Jesus is saying here is that my mission is to be the one empowered by, anointed by the Holy Spirit, so that I can go into all the dark places of fallen humanity. Right into the places of brokenness, the place of blindness, of sickness, of demonic oppression, of the oppression of sin, of division between people, all the misery of the fallen human race. So I can go right into the midst of it and proclaim good news to the poor, which is all of us, and visibly demonstrate that that good news is actually true by actually healing people, actually setting people free from demonic oppression, actually opening blind eyes and blind and deaf ears. In other words, what Jesus is saying here is that this good news that I preach isn't good news without power. Without power, it's not good news, but it is good news because it comes with power. The gospel is different from any other message because it actually contains in itself the power to bring about what it announces. It actually enacts what it announces. Without that, it wouldn't be good news. Just think of this example. Imagine a prison underground, a dungeon underground where hundreds of people are chained up, miserable place. It's dark, it's dank, it's smelly, the people there are cold, they're hungry, they're covered with lice, they're miserable, their hearts are full of hatred and bitterness and despair. The worst place you can imagine. And then imagine a politician walks into that place and he says, hey everyone, I've got good news. There's a savior who's come to set prisoners free. Just wanted you to know that. Have a nice day. See ya. And he walks out of that prison. Is that good news for those people? No. It's not good news for them. I mean he says that and then leaves and they're still where they were. They're even more miserable than they were before because maybe he got their hopes up. You know, not that politicians ever do that. False promises of salvation. No, what would be needed to actually make it good news for those people? Breaking their chains. Opening the doors, right? Letting them go out into freedom. That's the gospel. The good news that Jesus proclaims. And so he announces this in the synagogue in Nazareth. He sits down. They're all looking at him. And as I think Ted Sree said yesterday, he gives the shortest, most impactful homily ever. He says today it's fulfilled in your hearing. Amen. Whoa! An explosive statement. Jesus is saying what I just read from Isaiah 61 is my mission statement. You want to know what my mission is all about? It's right there. Isaiah 61 verse 1. Maybe some of you have crafted a mission statement, right? A lot of companies have them today. Parishes have them. Diocese have them. It sums up the core of what you're about, right? Why you exist? What you do? Did the Son of God have a mission statement? He sure did. Luke 4.18 is our theme for this conference. It's Jesus's mission statement. I am anointed by the Holy Spirit to go into those places of human brokenness to proclaim good news and visibly demonstrate it by actually setting people free. Now one more thing to notice about this mission statement. If you could put it on the screen again. Jesus attributes everything he's about to do. The healings, the miracles, the casting out of demons, the setting captive free. Jesus attributes everything that he's about to do not to his divine nature as Son of God, but to the anointing of the Holy Spirit on his human nature. Brothers and sisters, do you get why that's so important? Because we get the same Holy Spirit. We get the same Holy Spirit that Jesus received at our baptism. The heavens were opened above us. And just as Jesus heard the voice of the Father, you're my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So the voice of the Father spoke, even though we didn't hear it audibly, he spoke at your baptism. This is my beloved Son, my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased. And the Spirit is upon you. And you have been anointed by the same Spirit that anointed Jesus. And that means this may challenge you. This may even scare your socks off for some of you. We are meant to have a mission that looks like the mission of Jesus. We are called to do what our Lord did because he's the model for us. He said, as the Father sent me, so I sent you. How did the Father send him? Just what he described here in his mission statement in Luke 4.18. It's the very meaning of the word Christian. If we are Christians, Saint Augustine says this. He says, not only has Christ our head been anointed, but we his body have also been anointed. Clearly we are the body of Christ because we are all anointed and in him we are Christ's. We are little anointed ones, little Christ's. That's the meaning of Christ. Christ means anointed one. Messiah, the same word in Hebrew version. We are little Messiahs, little anointed ones. Just as is Christ himself, the anointed one, as Saint Augustine says. Our mission is founded on, is rooted in being filled with the Holy Spirit just as Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Now, after Jesus gave this mission statement in his opening homily in the synagogue in Nazareth, he proceeded to do it from that day on. He did exactly what he said. He proclaimed good news to the poor. He opened blind eyes. He set captives free. He liberated the oppressed. Every page of the Gospels shows us Jesus doing that for everyone he encountered who was open to him and who believed in him. But then we have to look at, okay, that's great. That was Jesus. How did he then tell his followers to continue his mission after him? Well, we see it first of all in the sending of the 12th. Jesus calls 12 apostles, they are to be the foundation of the church he's founding. They are to be the leaders of this new community that he is founding. He sends them out on their first pastoral assignment. I teach in a seminary and all the guys in the seminary, they have their theology courses, but then they have their pastoral assignments. They have their practicum, where they put into practice what they're learning in their theology classes. Jesus did that too. He sends them out on their first pastoral assignment two by two and he says, go preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But that's not all he told them to do. He didn't just say, preach a well-prepared, theologically systematic, well-organized catechesis. He didn't say just preach a rhetorically powerful homily. He didn't just say, preach a beautiful meaningful message that will touch people's hearts. As good as all that is. You said, go preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Cast out demons. I want you to preach the gospel the way I do. Not only in words, but in supernatural deeds that I will do through you, that demonstrate that the words are true, that the Messiah really has come, that he really is victorious over sin and Satan and all the brokenness of this world. I want you to preach it the way I do in words and supernatural deeds. And they went out and did just that. Now, if you're like me, the way I read this passage for most of my life actually was, I read the sending of the 12, it's in Matthew chapter 10, Luke chapter 9. And I thought, wow, that's so wonderful. Jesus sent the apostles and he gave them this power to do healings and miracles to demonstrate the gospel. And obviously what he says to them has nothing to do with me. But then I realized we also have to read another passage where Jesus sends out a wider group of 70 disciples. This is in Luke chapter 10. 70 disciples. A disciple is a follower of Jesus. Is anybody here a disciple? Anybody? Okay, about half of you. The other half we're going to stay for the remedial session later tonight. Okay, hopefully you're all disciples, you're followers of Jesus. So this is for you. He sends out the 70 or 72 in some manuscripts. He sends them out and lo and behold, he basically tells them the same thing. Go heal the sick and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you. Proclaim the gospel the way I do in words and in supernatural deeds that demonstrate that the words are true. And they went out and they did just that. And then it's really cool because Luke tells us also what happens when they come back. They come back from their mission and they have their debriefing session with Jesus. And they tell Jesus what's been going on in their mission and they're so excited and you can see the joy they're seeing the kingdom be extended through their ministering to people and proclaiming the good news and healing the sick. And the really great thing about this passage, it's later in Luke 10, said it says in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. It's the only time scripture tells us Jesus rejoiced. Now we can take for granted he was the happiest man who ever lived because he had no sin and he had the intimate communion from all eternity with God the Father. So he's the happiest man who ever lived. But this is the only place where the gospel tells us Jesus rejoiced. What made the Lord happy seeing his disciples going out in the power of the Holy Spirit and doing exactly what he had commanded them to do, using their gifts, taking steps in faith to proclaim the good news and let the Holy Spirit supernaturally demonstrate it through healings and miracles. Jesus rejoiced. Does anybody here want to make Jesus happy? Now you know how to do it. It tells us right there in Luke 10. Now if you're like me you might have read this passage also the way I did and thought oh isn't that cool. That's so wonderful. Jesus sends out the 70. That's the first generation of Christians and this is the beginning of the church and obviously that was a special time and what he said to them has nothing to do with me. But then I realized well you also have to look at another passage. It's in Mark chapter 16. You know you can't escape from this in any of the gospels. In Mark chapter 16 we have the Jesus has risen from the dead and he's about to ascend into heaven and he gives his last final instruction before leaving earth. So it's Mark's version of the great commission of Jesus and this is what Jesus says to them. Go proclaim the gospel to all creation and these signs will accompany those who believe. Notice he doesn't say these signs will accompany a few extraordinarily gifted individuals. These signs will accompany a few canonizable saints. No he says these signs will accompany those who believe. Does anybody here believe? Only a few of you. We got work to do. No I'm just kidding. This is for you because you believe. These signs will accompany those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up snakes and if they drink any deadly thing it will not harm them. In other words they will be supernaturally protected from the work of the enemy when they're on my mission and they will lay their hands on the sick and the sick will recover. Take that JB Warfield and all those cessationists who don't think the Lord still works miracles. He says it right there. These signs will accompany those who believe. They will lay their hands on the sick and the sick will recover. Jesus says the same thing in the gospel of John. It's in all the gospels. So by the time Jesus is ascending into heaven if you were one of his disciples you might well have been thinking I mean that's fantastic but how in the world are we supposed to do that? We're not the son of God. How are we supposed to do Jesus what you are telling us to do? Well we find the secret in Luke. Luke gives us the clue to the great commission, the key to the great commission. At the end of his gospel again Jesus is about to ascended to heaven and he says to them go proclaim the gospel to the whole world but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. So it's almost like Jesus says green light, red light go to the ends of the earth it's incredible gargantuan mission. Hold on don't go yet. There's one more thing you need. You are not ready yet. In fact we know they're not ready because where was the church right after Jesus ascended into heaven? In lockdown. In lockdown in the upper room they were not ready. Now think of the people to whom Jesus said this. These are disciples who had just spent three years with the son of God. They have just come through the best seminary formation in world history. They have had the world's greatest most incredible insightful Bible study ever. They have had the most unbelievably amazing spiritual director ever. They are completely orthodox. In fact they define orthodoxy. Orthodoxy means in keeping with the teaching of the apostles. So they have all that and yet Jesus says don't go. You're not ready. There's one more thing you need because without this you will be trying to carry out a divine mission with human resources. And that's not going to go very well. In fact that's going to be kind of frustrating. In fact that's kind of going to be like that the hamster in his wheel. A lot of effort going nowhere. Do our ministries in the church our evangelization projects even sometimes look like that. If so it may be because we've neglected these words of Jesus. Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. Well what exactly does he mean by that? Well this is how Luke ends his gospel with Jesus saying that and ascending into heaven. But as you might know Luke's gospel was such a hit that he wrote a sequel. It's called The Acts of the Apostles. And like any good TV series he begins the next season with a recap of the previous season. So Luke begins the Acts of the Apostles with a recap of the same scene. Jesus is about to ascend into heaven and he gives his final instruction before leaving earth. And it's the same thing but in different words. And here what Jesus says is wait for the promise of the Father. Because John baptized with water. But you are going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. You're wondering how in the world you're going to carry out the mission I've given you. That's it. You are going to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now we have to unpack Jesus's words. We have to understand what he meant by that. When he said that you're going to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Baptism was not yet a theological word and a Christian sacrament. It was an ordinary word in daily use. Does anybody know what the word baptized meant in ancient Greek? Immerse in water. Dip in water. Plunge in water. Inundate. Soak, saturate in water. That's why when this prophet named John was going around plunging people in the Jordan River as a sign of repentance they started calling him John the plunger. That's what his name means. Or John the Dunker if you like. John the Baptist. That's what it means. And Jesus says that was a foreshadowing. You are going to be plunged into, soaked in, immersed in, saturated with the Spirit of God. The very power of God. The Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. That's how you're going to carry out the mission that I've given you. He tells them that. He gives them that promise. Then he ascends into heaven and they're there in the upper room. 120 of them. The apostles with the other disciples. Men and women with one person who had already experienced being filled with the Holy Spirit. Is that Mary? The mother of God. And it's interesting that Pope John Paul II has this beautiful reflection on Mary in the upper room with 120 disciples. And he says, she was awaiting the gift of the Holy Spirit for herself too. Why? The Holy Spirit had already come upon her at the incarnation. She needed a gift of the Holy Spirit too, John Paul II said, because at the cross she got a new mission. Her mission field was vastly expanded. How did that happen? Jesus said to her, behold your son. And he said to the beloved disciple, behold your mother. You're going to be the mother not only of the Son of God, but of all his disciples of the whole church. A vastly expanded mission field. You too need a new gift of the Holy Spirit. A fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower you for your mission. And so she was there in the upper room. She was probably telling them, it's okay guys, don't be afraid of the Holy Spirit. He's coming and it's powerful, but it's beautiful. And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came. And he came with that same anointing that Jesus spoke about on that day in the synagogue at Nazareth when he gave his mission statement. The Holy Spirit came with his anointing and he came revealing the love of God the Father. What changed them on that day of Pentecost? The revelation of the Father's love. Brothers and sisters, you know, if you wonder what is baptism in the Holy Spirit, you might know that people in the charismatic renewal talk about that a lot, right? Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not just for some people in a movement who are into that kind of thing, who are into one optional spirituality in the church. To be baptized in the Holy Spirit is the promise Jesus gave for all who believe in him. It's for the whole church to be plunged into the very Spirit of God. And what happens when you're plunged into the Spirit of God is he reveals the love of the Father and that changes you. Now, I would imagine that probably most of you may have heard before at some point that God loves you. Has anybody heard that once or twice? It's on Hallmark cards. It's on bumper stickers. I used to have one on my car, actually. So you probably heard it maybe even a million times, but it's kind of like this. Imagine a completely colorblind person, no color vision at all. They only see in black and white and gray scale. And imagine saying to them, you see that tree over there? It's green. And they might say, yes, okay, I accept that. Yeah, it's green. But they have no idea what you're talking about. And you might tell them again, no, it's green. It's really green. Absolutely. I agree. It's green. If you put it on a test, what color is the tree? They will write down the correct color. It's green and get an A on the test. But they have absolutely no idea what that actually means because they can't see green. Brothers and sisters, when we hear God loves you, we hear it like colorblind people. Only the Holy Spirit gives us that color vision that we know in the very core of our being, in the very depth of our heart, that God does love you with an absolutely unfathomable, unconditional, personal, unique, unbending, unchanging, fatherly, divine affection. And when the Holy Spirit reveals that as only he can, then we're able to cry out as the Spirit moves us from within to cry out, Abba, Father, and to love him in return with the affection of children. That's what happened to them on that day of Pentecost. The love of God began to burn in their hearts. Fear went out the window. They went out the door and into the streets. And starting with Peter, they began to proclaim the good news of the crucified and risen Messiah. And they couldn't keep it to themselves. And they were so, so full of zeal that that good news would go to the ends of the earth. They walked in the anointing of the Spirit. So, you know, Jesus, before he ascended into heaven, he said, red light, don't go yet. Wait till your clothes with power from on high. Now their clothes with power from on high. And they go in the anointing of the Spirit. Now it's time to go. My friends, do we have any reason to think that Jesus has changed his missionary mandate from the time he ascended into heaven? Do we have any reason to think it? I hope you're shaking your heads. No, we don't. Has the church ever taught all those instructions of Jesus worth for the first generation only? And they don't apply to any of us since then, except maybe a few saints. Never! As Trent Horne explained so beautifully, there are cessationists, you know, certain Protestants who believe that. The gifts cease, healing cease, miracles cease. Once Scripture was written down, we don't need them anymore. The Catholic Church has never taught that. And Scripture gives us absolutely no reason to believe that or any excuse for thinking that. We are called to and invited to be clothed with power once again from on high. And I believe that because, precisely because of the incredible darkness in which we are living right now, returning to an essentially, we are once more in a situation more like that which the apostles lived in than it has been at any time since. Tremendous spiritual darkness and oppression, you know, as the human race catapults toward the abyss, rejecting not only faith in God and in Scripture and tradition and in the church, but even rejecting the very things that God has written into us in the way we're created as men and women in His image. As the darkness grows darker, the Lord God is restoring to His church what belongs to us as our apostolic heritage from the beginning. The full equipment of the Holy Spirit so that we might carry out the mission that He has given us in the anointing of that same Holy Spirit who anointed Jesus for His mission with the love of God burning within our hearts to make the Son of God known and loved in our time once again. And to heal the broken, the broken hearted, the broken in body, the broken in mind, the far from God, the wanderers, the lost sheep, the confused, the sexually confused, the confused in identity, all of the darkness of our culture, the Lord is sending us right into it. You know, He has strategically placed in His divine wisdom, He has strategically placed each one of you in the place where you live with the circle of influence that you belong to. Your workplace, your family, your neighbors, He has strategically placed you. So that you may bring the light of the gospel there and extend the presence of His kingdom there. And He's given you the anointing of His Holy Spirit to be able to do it. Now for the remainder of my talk, I'm going to just give you a few principles, a few keys for walking in that anointing of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to us that is our inheritance in Him. A few keys for, well, how do you actually do it? Number one, continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We've all received the Spirit. I imagine almost all at least of us have been confirmed and baptized. We've received the Holy Spirit, but we need more. And in fact, there's an ancient document that helps us get this. It actually uses the word baptize in a secular context. This is actually a recipe from the second century BC that survives to this day, from before the time of Christ. And it uses the word baptize in its ordinary meaning. And it's actually a recipe for making pickles. And it says to make a pickle, you take the cucumber, you dip it in boiling water, and then you baptize it in the vinegar. Now if I take a cucumber and I plunge it into vinegar and immediately take it out again, do I have a pickle? So what do I need to do? I need to plunge it into that vinegar and keep it there until it tastes like a pickle. Does anybody want to taste like the Holy Spirit? You need to be plunged into the Holy Spirit and stay there until you're pickled in the Holy Spirit. So don't say, well, I was confirmed, so I got the Holy Spirit. That's enough. Yes, you got the Holy Spirit, but you need to be plunged into Him again. How do you do that? Ask for prayer from people who are obviously, you can see our spirit filled. Go to a life in the spirit seminar or attend an alpha weekend where people pray over others to receive the Holy Spirit, a personal pentecost, a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in your life. We need it so that that grace of baptism and confirmation come alive in us once again. Second key, cultivate intimacy with Jesus. We can't carry out His mission. We can't proclaim His gospel effectively if we don't know Him. In her book, Forming Intentional Disciple, Sherri Waddell, the wonderful Catholic speaker and she leads the Catherine of Sienna Institute, but she talks about how when she became a Catholic, she would begin to go around and interview people who were in church ministry, people who were servings, full-time directors of religious education and things like that. And sometimes she would interview a person and say, so tell me about your lived relationship with the Lord. And the person would be like, what do you mean? And Sherri would say, I must not be using words that they get. So she asked it in a different way. Tell me about your friendship with Jesus. What do you mean? And eventually she would get to the point where the person says, I don't have that. I don't have a lived relationship with the Lord. It's no wonder, brothers and sisters, that so many are walking away from the church and we're not effectively bringing them back. We have to begin with ourselves and cultivate friendship with Jesus. We see it in the Acts of the Apostles when in Acts 3, right after Pentecost, Peter does this incredible miracle along with John. He raises up this crippled man. He heals the crippled man. And then it says, the religious leaders, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and they knew that they were ordinary, uneducated men. In the Greek it literally says, aggramatoi idiotai. It says, when they saw them do this and proclaim the gospel, they were astonished and they recognized that Peter and John had been with Jesus. They are bold as lions. Where do you get that kind of courage by being with Jesus? How do you be with Jesus? Very simple. The sacraments, Eucharistic adoration, daily prayer, daily reading of Scripture, getting to know him. Getting near Jesus, it's kind of like getting near a nuclear reactor. You're not going to walk away unchanged. We get changed by him as we stay near to him. So that's the second key. Third key, ask, seek and knock. You haven't seen any supernatural giftings of the Holy Spirit? How much have you asked for? As St. Teresa of Avila says, when we ask God for big things, we do him a favor. We pay him a compliment because we tell him he's capable of great things. Ask the Lord for more courage. Ask the Lord for gifts of the Holy Spirit, even gifts like healing and prophecies. No, at the same time, ask for humility just so you don't misuse his gifts. But God loves to give those gifts. We're not asking for too much from God. We're asking too little. Fourth key. No, fifth key. Sorry, I'm losing track. Fifth key. Oh, it is the fourth. Sorry about that. Which one did I miss? Well, okay, the fourth. Oh, yeah. Get God's heart for the lost. Get God's heart for the lost. We have lived with, for years now, both in the Catholic Church and other Christian churches and then in the world with this heresy that basically everybody's going to have him because God is so nice. He wouldn't let anybody be condemned to eternal torment of separation from him. That is totally opposite to what Scripture teaches, what tradition teaches. And so we have to, we have to let go of our indifference toward people's salvation. We have to realize God weeps over the lost sheep. We have to say, God, let my heart be broken with what breaks yours. Give me your heart for the lost. The zeal that motivated the saints to go truly to the ends of the earth so that nobody would die without having heard the Gospel and coming to know Jesus. Okay, now the fifth key. Given by the person, I'm going to end with this one, given by the person who knows Jesus the best, his mother, her last words that are given to us in Scripture. Anybody know what they are? You got it. Do whatever he tells you. We've got to be obedient. This isn't talking just about obeying the commandments. This is talking about listening to the Lord and what he's saying to us specifically. Jesus, when she said that, he turned to the servants and he said, you see those six huge stone jars? Fill them with water. Now hang on, that didn't make any sense. I mean those servants, if I had been one of them, I might have thought, Jesus, you might not have heard your mother correctly. They actually didn't run out of water. They ran out of wine. What's the point? But he said, fill those jars with water and they heard what the lady said. Do whatever he tells you. They obeyed. That was hard work. I mean, you know, they didn't just turn on the faucet, right? They had to go out to the village well. They had to let down heavy jugs, haul them back up. I mean, and then carry them. How much? Maybe five gallons? Max, maybe more than that. All the way back to the wedding venue, pour them into these huge jars holding 20 to 30 gallons each. Back to the village well, haul up more water. Back to the wedding venue, pour it in. Back to the well. I mean, this is a lot of work. They might have said, well, you know, half-way full is, I'm sure, going to be enough. But they remembered what the lady said. Do whatever he tells you. They filled those jugs with water and Jesus turned it into wine. Jesus will take the water of our obedience and he will turn it into the wine of his divine life, the sweetness of the wine of the Holy Spirit, the intoxicating, the sober intoxication, the inebriation of the Holy Spirit that is the cure and the healing for this world that is so thirsty and that has no wine of divine life. Jesus wants to give it to you and he wants you to give it to this world in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So let's end with a prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.