 As I said last night, I'm Father Parkson, a priest from Phoenix, Arizona. It's a great joy to be with all of you here at this wonderful conference. There's a scene from Dante's Inferno that's always haunted me, and Dante is brought by Virgil into what he calls the anti-chamber of hell. Basically, there's this group of people, they're massively large, they're naked, they're dirty, they're being stung by these wasps, they're crying, they're bleeding, and somebody picks up this banner, this whirling banner runs, and then he says this massive line of people. He said, so long you couldn't see the end of it, it's chasing after this banner. And then eventually the banner gets dropped, then somebody else picks it up and they run, and then they all run after the banner. And he says, these are the people who are not good enough to go to heaven or bad enough to go to hell. They were undecided their whole life. They never waved a single banner of their life, they never had the courage to say, this is who I'm, my allegiance is to, and so now they spend all of their eternity aimlessly running after this banner. And I remember reading that thinking, ugh. Yikes. And I've wanted that in my own life, you know, if you had followed me around this last week and watched the way that I lived, what could you say was the banner over my life? Who is my ultimate allegiance to? If I were to watch you live this last week of your life, who would I say is the ultimate allegiance of your life? Whose banner are you flying over you? And we have a cautionary tale of what it can look like if our hearts are not fully sold out for the Lord and the readings that we have. You know, Jeremiah speaks out and they say, this man deserves death because he's speaking against the city. What Jeremiah says is, you think this is me against all of you or me against the city, but I'm a prophet and I was sent by God and God is calling you to repent to return to him with your whole heart. And you can kill me and that'll blot out my voice, but that won't blot out the justice of God, which all of you will still have to answer for. This is not between me and you or me against the city. This is between all of you and God. And he says, so your move. And then they say, let's not kill him. Maybe you're right, you know? And in the gospel we have a hered and he does something he doesn't wanna do. Why? Well, in some sense we could say he was attached to pleasure. He's enamored by this dance by Herodias' daughter or we could say he's attached to honor. He makes this promise. And then when it says the mother tells Herodias, tells Herodias' daughter, I want the head of John the Baptist. The scriptures say that distressingly, John the Baptist says, you know, have his head cut off. He didn't wanna do it, but he was attached to other things. And there was a goodness to John the Baptist, a goodness to Jesus that he's drawn to, but his heart is not there. It's torn between these two things. You know, somebody once said, sometimes in life we can have too much of Jesus in us to be happy in the world and too much of the world in us to be happy in Jesus. That we're kind of in this middle place. And friends, where are our hearts right now? Can you and I honestly say that our hearts are totally sold out for the Lord and His kingdom? Our allegiance, the banner over our lives is that Jesus is Lord. And if you were to watch me live my life, you could say that. Can you and I say that about our lives? And when we talk about the gift of purity of heart, a lot of us will talk about purity. We think about sexual purity, which is a part of purity. But in its broadest sense, it just means that your heart is about one thing. When we say something is pure gold, it's just gold. There's no admixture of anything else. When you say something is pure water, it's just water. There's no admixture of anything else. When you say that you have purity of heart, means that your heart is totally sold out for the Lord. What does that sound like in a believer's life? Well, here's a quote by San Ignatius of Antioch. He said, my dear Jesus, my Savior, is so deeply written in my heart that I feel confident that if my heart were to be cut open and chopped to pieces, the name of Jesus would be found written on every piece. Amen. And so that's what purity of heart sounds like. And friends, every human revolution always begins in the same place, which is the human heart. History changes is when people tell Jesus, I just want to be about you and your kingdom. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in my heart and in my life. Holiness is the most powerful thing in human history when somebody unites their will totally to Christ. As a priest, I'm so convicted when I hear this story about Satan appearing to St. John Viani and he tells him, if there were three more priests like you, my whole show would be up. Just three more. Are we those kind of believers that are totally sold out for the Lord? And let's ask the Lord today, ask him at this mass, that he would convict our hearts. And we say, Jesus, if I have an allegiance to anything else other than you and your kingdom, please reveal that to me, Jesus, not because you want to condemn me, but you want me to repent and return to you with my whole heart. And friends, we wouldn't need any other evidence in the Eucharist itself that Jesus gives us everything because he gives us himself in the Eucharist. So none of us should be afraid to give our hearts wholly to the one who gave himself wholly to us.