 Again a blessing it is to be able to have everybody and gather everybody It's been such a strange time and a strange year our theme that we're we're gonna hear a lot about is taken from the Acts of the Apostles It says get up now and stand on your feet I have appeared to you for this purpose To appoint you as a servant and a witness of what you have seen and what you will be shown and I just found myself Over the last year just kind of praying and reflecting about what what was going on and where we saw ourselves and And how we were supposed to be church in the midst of a COVID and and how we were supposed to gather and how we're supposed to pray And how we're supposed to encounter Jesus and and one of the iconic moments for me from the Holy Father was actually in March 27th or 29th I don't remember the date that that he had the holy hour in St. Peter's Square and there was just something kind of surreal about that and and having been in the St. Peter's Square numerous times and there's always a huge crowd and there's an Excitement and electricity in the air and and to see a feeble Holy Father walk out kind of limping and He holds this holy hour for literally the world And one of the things he said is that this is an opportunity for us to reevaluate He said don't waste this time and nobody obviously knew what this time was going to look like But it was something that resonated in my heart then and it continues to resonate in my heart this This time and how did we use it and and what does it mean for us to? Reprioritize and take a look at what's valuable and what's most important and what's essential The last year's had all kinds of conversations about what's essential and and I think we largely got it wrong Most of the time those of you who are from Brooklyn. We got a few Brooklyn priests here To all right. All right But just obviously they were in the press and the media lots Claiming that religion is essential worship is essential But we're living in a world It's more and more that's saying that it wasn't essential the governor of Virginia comes out and literally says that he says It's not essential that we gather together to pray Which just caused me to think more and more over the last many weeks and months about About those core things that are essential to us that kind of define and direct give direction to us in our life in our ministry When everything else is stripped away provides us this opportunity to focus and in some ways that was my prayer For for this time during the the pandemic particularly the early times when people weren't able to go to mass My hope of my prayer was that that they discovered Jesus. It's present I mean so much of our spiritual life as we go right we go here we go to mass We go to prayer group we go to Bible studies we go to men's groups We go to all of these things, but there was a couple of months there where nobody could go anywhere And it seemed to me a perfect and a beautiful opportunity to allow the Lord to come to them and to encounter them where they were And it caused me to reflect more on the early church When there weren't these huge massive churches for people to go to There wasn't this place that they could all gather And the people were in smaller groups Then I had an occasion in the in the fall dealing with a friend of the university and some actually it was it was not the fall it was the spring Because biden had already been elected And and he was talking about how he had a spirit of entitlement Some of the things that were going on he felt frustrated and anxious and he realized that he was really entitled He felt entitled as a christian. It's like how could you do this? How could we deal with this that this shouldn't be happening because this is the united states of america How is this and he realized that he was very entitled in what he expected and what he was demanding And again, it just caused me to think more and more about what we are and where we are and where we find ourselves in a church I ran across the quote of pope john paul That he wrote to the letter to the christian faithful He says it is necessary then to keep a watchful eye on this our world with its problems and its values its unrests its hope its defeats and triumphs A world whose economic social political and cultural affairs pose problems with great grave difficulties Holy father john paul warned us that a number of years ago And he began to talk about the christian world that we lived in is no longer present and things have substantially changed Pope benedict picked up on that a bit and pope francis has spoken a great deal of it Francis would say we no longer live under a christian regime because the faith especially in europe but also in much of the west No longer constitutes an obvious premise of common life On the contrary It is even often denied derided marginalized and ridiculed If we think back on the holy father's early pontificate He spoke about the church being in the periphery and the necessity that that we recognize that And just as i've been praying over the last many months i've come to that place that and again We understand it and we're aware of it But i don't know what it is maybe the pandemic and all that just really resonated in my heart That we find ourselves in a profoundly different world And what does it look like for us as ministers of the gospel and what does it look like of us? Just basically as disciples right as disciples of Jesus. How do we live in this world? i'm struck again by by the book that that I just got black guys encouraged to be catholic Vigil church Vigil wrote and he said at the heart of the struggle and at the heart of the scandal over the last many Two decades was that ultimately people weren't being disciples They weren't being disciples of Jesus So what does that look like for us as men those of us who are priests Those of us who ordained those of us who are in seminary. What does that look like for us to live the christian life in the world that we find ourselves in? What i've been doing over the last couple months is just praying and reflecting doing a little bit of reading About what the early church looked like i was thinking you know When was this other time when was the time when when christianity wasn't in the center? And that's one of the things that pope francis has said time and time again that that we grew accustomed to the Being of the source of power the church was in a source of power And because of everything that's taken place over the last decades, but particularly over the last couple of years that's not the case And he said in one sense that's okay because the church was never supposed to be the center of power It was never what this is about But the church has lived in the periphery and brothers we're seeing that happen more and more Is that we are being moved to the side? And that desire that that spirit of entitlement that we're we're catholic christian. This is what we're built on We don't live in that world anymore So I was taking a look and contrasting as some of the elements of the early church when they had this same This same struggle that they had so what are the common things first off? There's been a profound rejection of god The one of the significant things that's changed over the last many years is that guys that the reality is those of us who Were in the ordained ministry we were part of the solution right the church was part of the solution We had problems and struggles and difficulties in the world And we would look to the church to be able to help bring some reconciliation healing some comfort. We're now the problem Rather than seem being seen as a part of the solution So we who are faith are being pushed to the side We're being told well You just think that because of your faith not because some argument may actually make perfectly good sense Apparently following science only works if it actually defends the opinion that an individual has I went to a march for life Not this year obviously the year before and there was this one image that I had that just is seared in my mind This woman was holding is kind of a beautiful placard of our lady And and on it. It said we wouldn't be in this problem if mary would have had an abortion That we who are believers we who are men of faith we who represent something greater than ourselves are actually seen Is the problem And in the early church in the roman empire, there was a profound rejection of this idea of god that we the christian community Was bringing The world that we live in that the idea of any objective we know this idea of any objective truth is profoundly mocked Not only do we have a crisis of morality? But there is no morality anymore that there was at one time a moral norm that could be offended There's nothing anything you want right now, right? And we're trying to bring some sense of Sanity into this But if we have no moral high ground to be able to stand on And no influence and if the very foundations of what we believe are being dismissed and mocked How do we live in the midst of that? How do when the when the scriptures invite us right when the scriptures invite us to stand up? Well, what is it that we stand up and do what is it that we stand up and say what is it that we stand up to encounter? What does it look like for us in this world that we find ourselves to be able to stand up and profess faith? And what can we learn from the early church? So I take a look at a couple of the elements of the pre christian world where where the dominant empire was the roman empire And it was not the christian community And a couple of things I think would be for us again getting back to these priorities and these essentials and Reprioritizing at the heart of it was their recognition that they were christian and obviously we understand that But this was something profoundly different than what we found in the jewish community Is that they were largely born into that it was a race. It was an ethnicity The christian community was not we find in the in the romans. It says there is neither jew nor greek nor male nor female That how the individual identified themselves and they all looked profoundly different But they identified themselves because they had encountered christ Paul says in the chrithians and we ought to bear witness to this right He says I don't come with you with great talks and great speaking. I don't have a series I don't have the thing of videos that I can just put for you what I come for you is christ and christ jesus and him crucified And this is what identified the individual it didn't matter their wealth It didn't matter their background. The only thing that mattered was that they had encountered jesus I had an experience a number of years ago. I was in taiwan It was obviously just a very small christian community about one or two percent And I was giving a talk at the university that was there and everybody was kind of introducing themselves There were a vice president of this dean of that faculty member of this And this woman came up to me and she shook my hand and she said hello. My name is maria. I'm a christian I was struck by that What did she want me to know the thing that was most important for her to be able to share with me Was that she was christian They had nothing else right The early christian community what they identified themselves was not power was not influence But it was the fact that they were christian and they came to that by a choice Paul says in galatians for through faith you are children of god in christ jesus For all of us who are baptized into christ have clothed themselves with christ. There is neither jew Nor greek. There is neither slave nor free person There is not male or female for all or one in christ jesus. Galatians 5 23 Christ is the center of everything And I think that one of the things that that that we're being invited to right now is Is to reflect and spend some time thinking about what does that mean that christ is the center of everything I think in the past We've been looking for the government or for organizations to be able to do things that were ultimately our responsibility And do the men and women that we're ministering with and even ourselves when we first and when we look at ourselves And we reflect on on our relationship with the lord. How is it that we identify ourselves? This idea of getting back to that which is most important what priorities the most that I stand before you As a christian I come before us that we come before one another is this basic fundamental reality That jesus is lord for me That he's my savior and there are struggles and there are difficulties going on in the culture that are going on the church And going all around us, but when we get through it all that's what brings us together brothers Is that we have the same lord? We have the same redeemer. We have the same savior It isn't he that is our hope he that is our strength He that is our counsel he that it continues to want to animate our life by the power of his spirit Amen I mean this is what ought to give us life in the midst of no matter what the struggles and the circumstances that we find ourselves in The early christian community had nowhere else to go because all they had was their relationship with one another And their encounter that they've had with christ There was nothing else that they could look to And in some ways for us this year so many of the things that we leaned on were taken away from us And we found ourselves at times like what do I do? And where do I go and how we're supposed to navigate this? And in one sense that was an uncomfortable experience, but at other is it was there was something refreshing and life giving about it so in the early church was was Experiencing persecution experiencing struggle and difficulty what they had was they had their relationship with one another The encounters that they had with one another And this is something I think that bears reflection for us that That when everything else is taken away and our communities were able to come back together What was their experience of faith in that? How much was their experience of faith in their experience? Necessity or built on their experience of church Their experience of literally the building sacraments Had they encountered and what was their encounter of jesus? Because so much of it was stripped away and the same thing with the question that we have to ask ourselves In the midst of the ministry as I mentioned that that I never imagined that I was going to have to tell people That they couldn't come to the sacraments What is that? I'm a priest right That's what I do That i'm able to minister to the people of god so so even when that's taken away and that's stripped away What do we find and what do we discover? Well for the early church it was jesus And it was just jesus because that's all they had And I think this is what the lord is inviting us to come back to What what was your encounter with jesus how how is your relationship with jesus changed over the last many months? Did you find him in the midst of the struggle? Did you find him in the midst of the difficulty when you cried out? I had an experience it was for some of you are aware that in november my older brother died of cancer He was diagnosed and lasted about three months my brother passed away and there was this one particular day When I was trying to get home to be able to spend some time with him that there was that there was the All that was going on with covet was raging at the time and I was sitting in our little friary chapel And and I felt like the walls were like just caving in on me and it's like lord I mean what's going on in the midst of all of this and and in the midst of the pressure and the anxiety and all of that Jesus just broke through and he said dave. I will not let you be crushed I will not let you be crushed And at that moment it's like well, it really doesn't feel like that right I mean this feels pretty pretty pretty heavy for me. He says I will not let you be crushed But what I experienced in that it was This image that I use is of an image of star wars and I wish bob were here Because I don't know exactly which star wars film it was and it actually really bugs bob That I don't know which one it was but it was the one when princess leah and I think Luke or in this it's like this big trash compactor. I don't know which one it was For yeah, some of you guys are as nerds as much as he is all right I actually I tell him I think maybe it was star wars and he gets so mad at me Not star wars. I say star trek But in the midst of right in midst of all this caving in there was this this profound presence of jesus And experiencing yeah experiencing him in the midst of that It was this refocusing It's it's the things that that I'd lean on that I leaned on that I held on to that all of I mean literally just being taken away And we have to ask the question and it's a question that I love of st. Francis St. Francis says oh god you are enough for me Oh god you are enough for me And I must say over the last many months and last year I prayed over that a glotton especially that one morning in my little chapel in the friary You know here you are lord you and I and I feel like everything's being caved in and me are you enough for me? And sometimes maybe it takes having all of this stuff happen all these things stripped away from us That we begin to refocus How has christ been your savior? How has he been your hope? How do we respond to that? Again when with them reflect on the early church Well when they came to christ they came to him as their savior and they begin to give their life and this becomes the focus of their life And they deal with struggles and difficulties because of that It's our experience and our story as well But each one of us I think is given this invitation to ask ourselves How is it that we encounter jesus more in the last year? And has he become the center of our everything? How is it that the crutches and the things that we lean on as they're taking away? Are we comfortable with that? Are we okay with that? How do we reconcile that where do we ultimately find our worth? If my worth and my dignity is just merely in what I do What happens when that's taken away? Again the the image of of the holy father saying we need to reprioritize brother was what is most important well in the early church in the early communities It was jesus because that's all they had Let's just take a moment just take a breath If you were to think for a moment reflect for a moment How did you encounter jesus? How did your relationship with him? How did he animate your life differently? Actually the apostles too says every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area And breaking bread in their homes They ate their meals with exaltation and sincerity of heart praising god enjoying favor with all the people When I was spending some time just reflecting and thinking about some of again the similarities between the early church I was struck and brought back to that this this gathering that the community had In the relationship with one another I shared when we were talking at the beginning one of the concerns I had is that some people come in thinking you know in some ways this year wasn't that bad And it is something for us to bear in mind that that everything is not terrible about this year I met a young couple that had been trying to have a child for a number of years And they finally conceived and they had their baby in november And they said 2020 is always going to be a year of grace and a year of blessing for us Right one of our students here at the university She was she was a freshman and she was talking to a couple of the older students and they were saying you know We're just sorry that you had to deal with COVID in the midst you had to deal your first year in the midst of COVID She goes well, what do you mean? And she goes well, you know, it's just not like it normally is and again the freshman girl She says well, what do you mean? And they said well, it's usually better than this and the freshman says this has been the best year of my life This has been the best year of my life. I can't imagine that it gets better than this Well in my own life one of the blessings of this year has been my relationship with my brothers I mean while everything was locked down and we weren't having conferences the friars We just drank beer and played cornhole. We basically bunch of rednecks, right? All right, but it was it was honestly just about every evening We just gathered together played a game maybe watched a movie played hours and hours and hours of cornhole And in many ways, it was the best couple of months. Just this is funny I put gas in my car in March 3rd and did not put gas in my car again until June 11th Right And and there was there was parts of that that were profoundly graced But what it caused was a greater communal life And then in the scripture that we're using this idea of standing up it says that we are going to stand And the question I think we have to ask ourselves brothers is What is the relationship we have who are the people in our life that we're looking to That that that we're able to receive ministry to We're able to let them see us Let them know us Hold ourselves accountable to them them holding themselves accountable to us I think one of the graces and the blessing that we see in the early church Was the way they lived in relationship with one another The way they shared their life with one another One of my greatest concerns and I'm sure you could speak to it as well of the last year was the isolation That's why when we were talking about what we were going to do at the university You know people always said you know father Dave We're so proud of you that you allowed the kids to come back to campus that was never in my radar I couldn't imagine not letting the students come back to campus. This is where they belong But the idea of them being isolated was so profoundly disturbing to me I said we're going to do whatever we can do to make sure that they're going to be back Now at the time I didn't think what we're going to offer is allow them to come back to pay without paying tuition So we ended up doing so it's not exactly what the plan was but apparently got at a plan for that I think brothers too many of us isolate ourselves Is that we're not living in relationship We're not living and communicating with brothers that are allowing themselves to really open up our heart and make ourselves vulnerable and allow ourselves to be seen And I think more and more what we're going to have to find guys is what we're going to see is Is as things get more and more crazy and confusing in our culture that we are going to have to come together And I think it's the Pope Benedict was the first one that I remember John Paul might have been saying it but he says that the church is going to become smaller And she's going to become more pure Now I didn't know what a pandemic was going to look like I didn't know if that was going to be a part of what this pruning is going to look like But we brothers have got to be able to come together And when we look at the early church, they gathered in little places They gathered in houses and they gathered together and they prayed and they supported and they encouraged My invitation for you in this in this week is to do just that there'll be various opportunities for you to be able to kind of Share your life with one another And share with what's going on But my concern is that is that we're out there and we're trying to do everything by ourselves And we're trying we're doing all of these great works But ultimately is it developing and deepening our relationship with Jesus and our relationship with one another And what does it look like for we as brothers to be able to Witness to our parishioners and to the people in our communities How important it is that we come together that we pray that we forgive one another that we repent to one another That we support each other that we encourage one another that we challenge one another And I think my one of my concerns was that what what COVID did was it allowed us to just kind of hide And be separated and I know because I've talked to many people. I've been traveling for the last many months And a lot of guys struggled And they were kind of locked up in their rectory and they struggled and they fell into things that they hadn't followed struggled with for years And it's into that that I think the Lord wants to speak Into that deep desire to be seen And to be known And yes first that that takes place with Jesus and just allowing him to look into us and to bear into our hearts But also in our relationship with one another And it's easy for me to say, you know, who's that person in your in your diocese or in your area They're sharing your life with but I know some of your stories and it's just not that simple So what do we do this week? That allows us the opportunity to be in relationship to come together As a community in the midst of the craziness and come together and support one another And encourage one another And to be honest with one another So to that end I invite you during the meals and the recreation time and and some of you come in here And you know some people and you're going to catch up on relationships that you've had for years And others you you don't know anybody So in your meal time going for a walk just Try to reach out Try to allow yourself to be known try to make yourself available to others Amen The other part of this That I've been reflecting on Is how we we we see literally going in front of us two different kingdoms when jesus comes in the scriptures And he says the kingdom of god is at hand They're just an image that I really appreciate, but I also see the world shaking at that I don't know if you read the uh, Bishop baron's letter to the suffering church that he wrote that I thought was really quite beautiful But one of the things that he said was that this was what's been going on and I would actually In many respects say what's taken place in the last 18 months has been demonic It's man of the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of the world or the spirit of the age Or whatever language that we want to be able to use But I think it's imperative for us that are there ministering in the midst of this To be able to recognize and see how the evil one is working And to see how he's active catechism states Catechism 550 The coming of god's kingdom means the defeat of satans It is by the spirit of god that I cast out demons Then the kingdom of god is upon us You know over the last many months I've just found myself reflecting and praying on the the relationship between the kingdom of god and the kingdom of the world And just some contrasting that I think is important to spend some time reflecting and thinking about That we live in the world where the human person in one sense is the center of the world Now we may think that's cool to be in the center of the world until we realize that that's everybody's experience And that the person standing next to us wherever they are also in the center of their world And because of that it's created. I think this massive confusion Where the kingdom of god is crisis at the center And we are with the center and everybody at the center is focusing on that I think the invitation that we're being given is to refocus the people that we minister to but even refocus in ourselves Is jesus at the center of everything that we're doing If it's a program or if it's a movement, I don't know what it is, right? But refocusing in our all of our eyes on the same thing The kingdom of the world is becoming more and more tribal Division is essential Keep us apart Keep us against them Get ahead of them keep them down Focus on what is different I gave a talk to the kids the other day the students at the youth conference And I was talking about just all that's going on in the race relations that we have that that fundamentally Much of the culture is moving to we identify ourselves by the color of our skin And it's becoming more and more us against them and I was just reflecting on martin luther's king's Desire and hope that it would not be the color of the skin, but the content of their character And I find myself praying and reflecting more and more on the the how the evil one is fundamentally the divider And the evil one wants to divide and if he can divide and he can isolate and he can make it us against them Then he begins to see the victory and the pandemic was the perfect opportunity for that And it was interesting when we come out of the pandemic the first thing that happens Is the whole thing in the situation in minneapolis with george floyd When the opportunity for us to begin to come together after this literally global one of the few things in the history of the world That all of the people in the world were experiencing we have this This profound horrible thing that took place in minnesota And the opportunity for us to begin to come together was only ruined The kingdom of god is about unity Again in the early church that was neither greek male female But they came together because they'd expanded counter jesus The kingdom of god calls us to himself calls us to his heart matters not our skin color Our background our history our story or even our sin But it's one of unity We have to recognize i think the way the evil one wants to divide wants to divide our hearts wants to divide our community Wants to divide our ministry wants to divide our diocese our parishes And how is it that we can use the spirit of god to bring us together The kingdom of god the kingdom of the world is about controlling restraining binding restricting fear darkness sin The kingdom of god is about freedom It's about transformation It's about holiness It's about light The kingdom of the world is about the enemy And the enemy in recognizing in the kingdom of world wants to make each one of us the enemy That if we can look at our neighbor and we can say that they're the problem they're the struggle there is what's wrong But the kingdom of god reminds us that is not the king that we are not the enemy The enemy is we hear in Ephesians 6 12 is not flesh and blood But principalities The kingdom of the world the prize is the soul and our heart And the kingdom of god is the prize is our soul and our heart Catechism says in 408 The consequences of original sin and of all men's personal sin puts the world as a whole In the sinful condition aptly described in st. John's expression The sins of the world And it is to this brothers That we are invited to come forward and to be able to stand and recognize that god is present And that he's asking something of us And what does it look like for us to be able to in the midst of all of this craziness that's going on To be able to stand up To be able to give witness But I suggest brothers that if if this is not something that we've experienced in our own life If the lord isn't breathing his presence into our own life is he isn't moving in our own life Then it's not going to be able to do that when we stand up in front of our communities And when we try to minister to them, but ultimately we ring shallow when we ring empty But if we're encountering him and he's becoming the source and he's becoming more of the center in our life This this return to these fundamental basics we ask ourselves. Why is it that I do what I do? I Think when I was I was reflecting recently about how Jesus has come to rescue me and save me But I think oftentimes if I was honest what I was trying to do is I was trying to pay him back for what he's done for me I mean god has been so profoundly good for me And there has to be some response and it's like so much of what I do It's like I want to pay you back as if I could ever pay him back for what he's done for me You know I could just do this or I could do that or I could do this better I could do more and there comes this place in my own life And I think hopefully in our own all of our lives. It's not about paying him back for him saving us And for him rescuing us and for him calling us by name Rather, it's about us being able to surrender And allowing him to be who he wants to be for us getting rid of of all of the The trappings that go along with our ministry And the programs and all they just getting rid of all of that and say Jesus, this is just about you and it's just about me And this was the invitation that the Lord gave me this year Is Literally everything being taken away those things that are most dear to me being taken away And what do I do now? And what do we do now? So what we're going to do is we're just going to spend a couple of minutes and and just even as I was speaking Just this this like this forest that is just being opened up for us And getting back to the basic and getting back to that which is essential And what is the Lord inviting you to in the midst of that? So do me a favor just take a breath Just for a moment Pray that God's spirit would be present to you In his spirit would be light Lord come with your light The light of your holy spirit, what does it look like for us to get back to the basics? What does it look like for us to Willfully surrender the trappings? What's it look like for you to be the center of our life? What have we cling to other than you Jesus? What have we held on to? What would we not let go of? Jesus come with your light Or how have we hid from our brothers Not allowing ourselves to be seen. How have we put up a facade?