 Now I want to just show you so you know like this morning Deacon Harold was talking about the anchor and and I don't know if you know I have an anchor that I wear on my wrist that I had custom made and Inscribed in on the part that goes up Coming down. It says Magnificat and across the bottom. It says fiat Because I believe in my life. There is not a greater witness or example for us to follow than the Blessed Mother in terms of How we receive the Holy Spirit She received it without question without reservation without hesitation When the angel of the Lord said the Holy Spirit's gonna overpower you he's gonna overshadow you He's gonna come upon you and you'll be the coming mother of God her only responses Let it be done unto me according to thy word and those words are not resignation Those words mean let it happen. I'm ready for this I think so many times we read it with the wrong context like she's like, okay If this is God the way it's gotta be okay. Who am I to argue with God? No, she's like let it happen to me I want this to happen to me This is why when she says her Magnificat my soul rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked upon my lolliness and done great things for me And that's why people will call me blessed In the same way people will call us blessed if we let the Lord do great things for us. Amen. Alrighty then Anyone from Chicago area I Have great. I have a cousin that lives in Chicago. I'm very close to her. She's like a real sister-in-crice as well as a cousin And we our relationship has really been deepened over the last several years I've been to Chicago a few times In 1871 some you probably know most of the story the the great Chicago fire Destroyed most of the city and the reason it was so devastating is because on the sides of the river in Chicago We're all these slaughterhouses and before there were any kind of standards or environmental regulations They would just dump everything all the waste from these slaughterhouses into the river In fact, if you look in the archives, you can see pictures of ducks standing on top of the river They called it the stinky river As it wasn't really a river, you know You ever like make soup and after it cools off you get that layer of fat on top when you got the you know That's what it was like. It had this layer of hardened sticky stinky Waste on it constantly and when the fire broke out on the side that was closest to the lake, Michigan The the river itself caught on fire. That's how it spread from one side of the river to the other The river was on fire and that's why it was so devastating and and and it was full of disease Between the 80 in the 1880s at least 10,000 people in the city of Chicago died from cholera and typhoid fever in 1885 14 years after the great Chicago fire nearly 100,000 people had died from illnesses carried by this diseased river and They were actually talking about what would it take to just shut the city down and move somewhere else It was that bad But then the Army Corps of Engineers got together and thought well Let's try something This is you know the the Chicago River flows down from the north and it used to like curve and then go through the rest of the city and What they did though is they built a series of locks and canals and Caused water from Lake Michigan to flow into the river and Then they built a canal 27 miles long that connected the Chicago River I think to the Displanes River and that was down into the Mississippi and what it was able to do is all this fresh water instead of Instead of all the diseased water going out into Lake Michigan and polluting the the city's drinking water Water was coming in a fresh water was coming in and just washing all this filth away And after you know it they moved more earth Building that canal than they did building the Panama Canal It was one of the greatest feats of engineering up to that point and it saved the ship the city of Chicago That's amazing and when I when I first read this story, I thought of the passage from Ezekiel in chapter 47 where God is with Ezekiel and he says to him son of man. Have you seen this? And he says he's looking at this water flowing out of the temple because out of this temple is this flow of water and This is what God said to Ezekiel said this water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into Ereba And when it enters the stagnant waters of the sea the water will become fresh And wherever this river goes every little every living creature which swarms will live and There will be very many fish For this water it goes there that the waters of the sea may become fresh That is what baptism is God looks at our souls and it could look like the Chicago River full of disease and and muck and grime And he says like I want to wash you clean I want to I want a fresh flow of the Holy Spirit to come into your life because wherever the Holy Spirit touches things It's made alive Life thrives when the Holy Spirit's flowing in our lives the life of God So we have this term baptism in the Holy Spirit and I want to experience I want to kind of explain what that means because oftentimes people can get very confused as to what we mean when we say Baptism the Holy Spirit so I want to be really clear that first and foremost that baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience that that has been given to the church to release and Strengthen the effects of baptism and confirmation. It is baptism that makes us a child of God But how many of us have lived so many years of our lives totally unaware that we're children of God Do you wake up in the morning go? Oh my gosh? I'm a child of God I'm a beloved princess I'm a prince my god my dad. He's king of the universe And because of that I have joy in my heart. I See so many Catholics Who have no idea who they are in Christ? No idea that they've been adopted by the king of the universe and as such are heirs to his kingdom They live like spiritual orphans Not knowing who they are This is the great sickness that has plagued our world people trying to find their identity in things that are passing People are trying everything to find happiness and fulfillment And they're buying into every lie that the world can conceive Saying if I just do this or this or this the next thing I'll find happiness and they never do And so the world for many people is just a hamster will and they're running as fast as they can and the world keeps holding up This and say come on you can catch this you'll be happy so they run faster, but they're not moving anywhere They're not getting anywhere. They're burning themselves out. They're they're overwork. They're stressed out and Maybe Even in your own life you're feeling this way like I'm just trying to find something and I'm working so hard at it And I've never really been happy in my life But this grace of baptism the Holy Spirit can get us off this hamster wheel Off this fruitless pursuit of pleasure as a way of fulfilling us and into the arms of God where we know his love and his Relationship to us as father and we know ourselves knew as child of God and The term baptism in the Holy Spirit. It's a biblical term It's in the Bible and this experience has been affirmed by our popes throughout the history of the church but let's start with what it says in The Bible so Jesus in speaking in Luke chapter 12 verse 49 he says I came to cast fire on the earth And I wish it was already kindled like he he came to set things on fire and The most vivid image of that is the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes down and rests on them like tongues of fire That's the fulfillment of Jesus's desire. It is God's desire that each one of us get baptized with this baptism in the Holy Spirit He says to that his Apostles in Acts chapter 1 He says the promise of the Father about which you heard me speak is Coming do not depart Jerusalem but wait for this promise for John baptized with water But in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit This is Jesus saying wait until you're baptized in the Holy Spirit He goes on to say you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth I'd imagine the Apostles were like wait what? I mean we like the whole earth Like everywhere Like you're calling us to be foreign missionaries. Wait, what is a foreign missionary? Does anyone even know what that is Jesus give us a manual We're gonna need money Jesus. Give us money Jesus will need a place to meet give us a church building. Give us something Jesus means like I'm gonna give you something I'm gonna give you the only thing you need. I'm gonna give you my Holy Spirit That's all they needed. That's all that Jesus gave them Because that's all they needed and when they had that they had everything they needed for the church to be born St. John the 23rd said renew your wonders in our time. Oh Lord us through a new Pentecost He said that at the beginning of Vatican 2 like we want the fruit of this whole endeavor to be a new Pentecost upon the church Pentecost a spirit of receptivity that should have been the spirit of Vatican 2 That's not where we ended up Unfortunately, but that's what was prayed for St. John Paul the great said the institutional and charismatic aspects are Coessential to the church's constitution like it's like two lungs. We have the sacramental hierarchal Portion of our church given to us by Jesus established by Christ, but then we have the charismatic side Willed by the Holy Spirit and both are like lungs in the human body both need to be functioning for us to be fully healthy as a church We need to be breathing deeply of the sacramental life of the church. We need to be breathing deeply of the Holy Spirit and together There's completion. There's fullness St. John Paul the great goes on to say it is from this providential rediscovery of the church's charismatic dimension that before and after the council a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements and new communities The charismatic movement as it were as it was called through the 70s and into the 80s And I think even and the 80s it started to break out of what we called the charismatic renewal and invade every part of our church I love how St. John Paul the great referred to this. He didn't say this is something new Something just made up in recent. He said it was a providential rediscovery Like we were getting back to the roots of something that the church had for centuries, but lost If you read some of the writings of the church fathers, they will talk about like how they went to say their prayers And they would be chanting in latin and at different times in the church history And then they're they're they're chanting in latin would cease and they would start chanting in tongues And this would go on for an hour Where they were still chanting but they're all chanting in tongues Like there have been different times in our church's history where this grace has been poured out But I believe right now even more so today because it is so necessary The world has gotten so broken and so dark and so evil that if we don't Completely surrender to this holy spirit. Not only are we not going to make it The church is going to suffer. We need to be the people who can turn it around It is not what I do not accept the fact that is we're in a situation where it's the last person out the door Shut the lights off Now we've contracted and we shrink but this was prophesied by pope benedict the 16th back in the 70s He said the church will become smaller In leaner and we'll stop worrying about how much money we have and how much how much How many buildings we have and we'll start relying on the power of god again And that's when the church will regain its spiritual dominance in the sense that Our legacy will be reborn When we stop Relying on being accepted and loved by the world Chesterton said the world is changed by the saints who most Contradict the modern times And in a time where people have Disregarded truth redefined the love to the fact to the point where it doesn't mean anything anymore Those who stand up cling to christ and say I stand with the way the truth in the life. Jesus christ will change the culture Or die Trying Because there is nothing like the blood of martyrs to fertilize the growth of the church Because a lot of that happened in the early church as well And what makes us think That we should have comfortable Casual catholicism in our lives when the world is going to hell in a hand basket But we're not going to be the people that god needs us to be without the holy spirit This grace this power from on high needs to be rushing through every fiber of our being Animating every part of our soul and we should not stop pursuing the holy spirit until he's consumed everything And set everything on fire. Jesus says I came to cast fire on the earth. I wish that it was already ablaze He wants you on fire Pope Benedict the 16th said in effect Jesus's whole mission was aimed at giving the spirit of god to men and baptizing them in the bath of regeneration The bath of a new life This baptism in the holy spirit. He went on to say this and this is 2008. This is pope benedict He said today I would like to extend the invitation to all let us rediscover dear brothers and sisters the beauty of being baptized in the holy spirit Let us recover awareness of our baptism and our confirmation Endless sources of grace Pope francism said self said you the charismatic renewal have received a great gift from the lord Your movement's birth was willed by the holy spirit to be a current of grace in the church and for the church And what is the first gift of the holy spirit? It's the gift of himself So our popes have been affirming our church has been affirming the scriptures affirm that Baptism the holy spirit is an experience that's been given to the church to release and strengthen the baptism The effects of baptism and confirmation Is it necessary for some people? It's not because you've been raised cat You've been walking in the spirit without needing to have it reborn in your life or released in your life A lot of saints from a very young age We're moving in the power of the holy spirit, but there's been a lot Who started off very badly in their lives and ended up very well because they prayed for this release of this grace For some of us it is necessary to awaken this grace. It's a late dormant like the chocolate syrup at the bottom of your Glass it needs to be stirred up. It's in there. It just hasn't been released When you look at what the catechism says about the fruit of confirmation It says it is evident from its celebration This is article 1302 in the catechism says it is Evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of confirmation Is a special outpouring of the holy spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of pentecost Now think of your confirmation ceremony didn't look anything like the day of pentecost Where people speaking in tongues were tongues of fire coming down where people overjoyed and expressing their gratitude and praising god out loud For this great gift they received No, we all sat there like good little boys and girls with our hands folded the bishop either slapped us or Touched us or did whatever he did and then we waited for grandma to give us a card with five bucks in it And we considered that our diploma from catholicism Because we didn't know there was more Because we got sacramentalized but not evangelized But we were because we were told about the holy spirit but not told how to experience the holy spirit And why it was so essential that we did that And so so many people After years of living this bland purposeless powerless Catholicism said why am I even bothering I'm leaving And you know what they did they went up to the local mega church where they talk about the holy spirit Where they talk about jesus and they pray in such a way that it stirs them up in their life And they say I found what I was looking for that the church never had and it was ours from the very beginning and we lost Our birthright. We lost our inheritance. We did not pass on this great gift somewhere along the line. We blew it But the charismatic renewal is reviving it and we need to be bringing this grace of the holy spirit to every parish in the country Every parish in the country people need to be invited to experience this new life in jesus christ and we need to be praying that it happens This is how we're going to win back Even if our church has become so small that there's five people in it, but those five people really believe are sold out That's going to be the seed that starts the rebuilding Jesus says every branch of mind that bears no fruit. I prune He's been pruning his church brothers and sisters. This is not satan winning This is christ pruning his bride and getting ready for new growth And what he's asking is who's going to stand with me filled with the power of my spirit to move forward in joy and victory And stop surrendering to fear and doubt and despondency and depression because it's not going to be easy It's going to cost me something. I don't know. I just want to be comfortable Has god ever met you in your comfort zone? I'll tell you the answer right now. No because he doesn't do that. He always expects us to step out of our comfort zone He always expects us to step out of our comfort zone, but when we do we meet him there So this is what it says. This is what it says in the next paragraph after I said about the The catechism is talking about what happened on the day of pentecost. He goes from this fact Confirmation brings an increase in deepening of baptismal grace. It roots us more deeply in in divine affiliation which makes us cry abba father It unites us more firmly to christ. It increases the gifts of the holy spirit in us It renders our bond with the church more perfect It gives a special strength of the holy spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action As true witnesses of christ to confess the name of christ boldly and never be ashamed of the cross wow Seems like what the church just needs is an overdose of the holy spirit But the good news brothers and sisters we can't overdose on the holy spirit We can only receive But we can only receive to the capacity that we're open. We can only receive to the capacity that we're empty St. Mother Teresa said god can only fill that which is empty And if you're so full of yourself guess what you're never going to be full of the spirit ever You got to let go of yourself You've got to do what the saints said we have to do we have to unite ourselves in christ's death And die to ourselves so that we can be united with him in his new life this new life of the holy spirit There was a time in my life when i was convinced That i was filled with god and you know why i was convinced of that because i had carved out this small space in my life And said god you can have that space and he filled it And because he was filling every space in my life that i gave him i thought he was filling my life and i was so wrong I had so much more to let go of so much more to surrender so much more to open to him And when i and it's been a continual journey You don't get baptized in the holy spirit check the box and move on. It's an ongoing experience as god invades deeper into who you are It's like god has conquered the world, but has he conquered your heart? Well, he can't conquer your heart. You can only surrender your heart Hearts are the only thing that god doesn't conquer Hearts have to be surrendered god does not invade and take over He occupies as you surrender He occupies as you surrender I said in the first session roman's 5 5 god's love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit has been given to us If there's no space in your heart, there's no room for jesus. There's no place for that love to go st. louis demontford Wrote in his most wonderful book true devotion to mary he said men He's quoting st. tom. He was meant to say st. Thomas make a vow at their baptism to renounce the devil and all his works St. Augustine taught that this is the greatest and most indispensable of all vows Yet who has really kept this great vow? Who has been truly faithful to the promises of holy baptism? Have not all christians been unfaithful to the promises made to jesus and their baptism? Where does this use universal disobedience? Come from except from our forgetfulness of the promises and obligations of holy baptism And from the fact that hardly anyone Ratifies for themselves the contract they made with god by those who stood as their sponsors Pump the brakes That's it the nutshell We have to ratify the promises personally that our sponsors made for us at the moment of our baptism We have to step it while you said well, I I I did that I do that every easter. I we renew our baptismal promises Do we or do we just repeat those words? Are we really desirous of what our baptism provides us? I mean right now 85% of the young people confirmed this year will now be participating in their church in seven. They'll be gone Only 20% of catholic adults practice their faith on a regular basis only 30% of catholics believe in the real presence of jesus and the eucharist Brothers and sisters these statistics should scare the hell out of us and say whatever we think we're doing as a church We're doing it wrong Or we're doing it with the wrong power Are we trying to sustain the body the mystical body of christ with the mere human effort? Or are we going to let the holy spirit? renew the bride Revive the bride The reason why we need to respond to this why we need to ask for this grace to be poured out in our lives is because The sacraments are not magic There's two parts to every sacrament. There's what we call opus operantum. That's god's part That means every time you go to a sacrament even if the priest is in mortal sin Because he's been ordained and he gives you that eucharist jesus is president of the eucharist. It's not dependent upon The holiness of the priest It's not dependent upon you god makes that if he changes that bread and wine into his body and blood and there's grace there for everybody But there's the second part of every sacrament whether it be confession communion confirmation Or baptism that's our part the opus operantis The part where we are in the proper state of receptivity Those include freedom from mortal sin Hearts and minds attuned and desirous of what god has for us in those sacraments and a will Desirous of that grace And I can tell you that for the first 18 years of my life I went to the sacraments on a regular basis and none of that was true I didn't want what god I didn't know Our own ignorance Our own negligence Our own sinfulness Can prevent the grace of our baptism when we come into a lived reality But what is the opus operantis when it comes to our baptism? What is missing what haven't we done to receive the fullness of the grace of our baptism? First it's faith to believe Faith is not a feeling you do not have to say well I feel like a child of god today to be a child of god today It's a fact And it requires a will to say I want what's in there because oftentimes you don't get what's Behind the door until you step through the doorway Faith is stepping through the doorway Imagine there's a door and behind that door is everything that you need to be a saint And you're standing outside and say okay god I want it You need to take a step of faith into that doorway and all of a sudden you realize I have access to it now I've stepped into it. I've said yes I've made that step of faith. It's receptivity God my heart is open. How do you open your heart to god? That's such a great question, huh? How do I know I'm really open to god? How do I know if I'm really wanting what god wants from you in my life? I think I've prayed that prayer, but I'm not sure If you are sincerely saying you want what god wants in your life today And you pray this prayer Jesus. I want what you want for me. I give you my heart You've done it Your mind and your will Are greater than your feelings It's only in the last five years that we've decided that feelings are the arbiter of truth The thing that we serve above all things which has just led to moral chaos And divisive hatred in our world Because if I have if I say anything that upsets you or hurts your feelings You're personally attacked and triggered and you come after me like how dare you throw truth in my face? That triggers me and like we can't even have a Like our ability to communicate on the fundamental truths that define us Because we've met feelings the most important thing but our deeper than our feelings is our will And our will is is the gatekeeper. I mean our our our will is the gate keep gate keep I can say this our will is the gatekeeper for our hearts And when you say I open my heart to god your heart opens to god And god will come in and sometimes it'll feel amazing. Sometimes you'll feel nothing Sometimes you feel his love and it's overwhelming and tears come sometimes you pray and you open your heart to god You feel nothing, but we don't move because there's feelings we move because there's truth We're moving in faith So with every sacrament In our total desire for all that god wants to give us and our surrender to that That's what happens And i'll share it just real briefly before we go into prayer For me, I was 18 years old when I went on a retreat Put on by net ministries net stands for national evangelization team. It's this wonderful ministry out of saint paul minnesota They travel around the country. They do retreats in parishes and just about every state they there's now net ireland There's net canada. There's net australia You know, they're spreading across the globe and they're going to be spreading even more and their message is simple come to jesus christ Make him the lord of your life And I went on one of the retreats in high school and it was so profound I didn't give my life to the lord on that retreat, but I wanted what these people had So I found myself right after I graduated from high school in 1983 traveling to minnesota for a week-long camp And I got there a day early Because my mom was going to visit her parents who lived in wisconsin. They dropped me off in minnesota and she Went back and so I got up to the camp a day early and the team of young adults that was putting the retreat on They were going to have some time of prayer They said john, do you want to join us for prayer? And I was like, I mean no I mean like I mean like that's what I wanted to say, but how you know like catholic guilt is a real thing Right like oh, yeah, I'm up here for a week long retreat and you're going to pray and the first thing I'm going to do is say No, because I wanted to go fishing there was like this beautiful lake And I was determined to go get some fishing in before the the camp started, but they're like, hey, we're going to pray You want to join us? I'm like sure So we I'm like, where are we going to go pray? I'm like, oh no We're just going to go over the under this beautiful tree and we're just going to take some time to pray I'm like, okay, so I'm standing there somebody breaks out a guitar They start jamming on this guitar singing a praise and worship song and I'm like, wow This is what it sounds like when people actually sing church songs because like I grew up in a parish Where the only spiritual manifestation where people were able to sing without moving their lips It's amazing like every like we were just like We sound like the teacher from charlie brown Nobody sang and like these people would not just sing and they were singing loudly and I'm like, oh wow They really like to sing and then they start like putting their hands in the air and I'm like, you have a question What is that? You know like, I mean like are you being robbed from behind? Am I missing something? You know like they're making like some people are putting their hands out in front of them. So I'm and I was like What are you doing? That's so weird and then they got to the end of the song and the worship leader didn't stop He just started strumming the guitar and and shouting out praise praised you lord Jesus Christ brings up magnify you and they're like going for it and I'm like, oh man Where the heck am I now? We're not in Kansas anymore. Toto. This is weird. This is weird and then The dude two people down for me I don't know what was going on But the only I can only assume that he had just bought a car and had lots of regret because he was going like I should have bought a honda. I should have bought a honda. I should have bought a honda I should have bought a honda and I was like, whoa And like the other guy lost his cat and this girl was like going here kitty kitty kitty kitty Oh here kitty kitty kitty And this other guy's like see my new bowtie. See my new bowtie. Like what are you boy? You're not you're wearing a t-shirt And I thought if I can just like slowly back away into these bushes Get to the cabin and grab my my duffel bag. I could be hitchhiking home. I could be home in two days Let's do this. You know like every part of me wanted to just like get the heck out of there because it was weird But then You know like I was like, I'm not gonna look But I peeked and there was across from the circle One young lady and I have to admit she was very beautiful in many ways But what attracted to me me to her in that moment was she was there like this The big radiant smile on her face going I love you Jesus I love you Jesus And I realized that age 18 I'd managed to go through all my years of faith formation and received all my sacraments And never had I once in my life said those four words in that order and meant it And that's when I said god Whatever she wants or whatever she has I want that I want to be able to tell people I love you. I want to be able to tell you I love you I don't have that power. I don't know your love. I don't know what she has This is a mystery to me, but if this is if all the other stuff they're doing Gets me to that place I'm open But it wasn't until three nights later that I went into the confessional Because like all throughout the retreat I kept feeling like I was bound like I just couldn't get there And when I stepped into the confession when I confessed my sins And when the priest prayed the prayer of absolution over me, and I mean I've confessed everything I'd only gone to confession one other time in my life and that was my first confession And I had broken a number of moral sins Some of them had to do a purity Some of them had to do a stealing line. I mean like it was it was I mean I was your typical high schooler But as I confessed these sins the the wake was getting lighter and lighter and when the priest prayed the prayer of absolution It was like being in The classic medical show where the paddles are put on the chest and like Because all of a sudden my heart was alive And I knew I was loved by god and something that wasn't there was there The new life of christ was revealed to me like a snapshot boom And it's not like every problem in my life was worked out and I never had sin anymore And I never had but it was like god is there and he is love And he's worth everything and I was stunned I walked and did my penance and then I just said a prayer like god No matter what you ask of me. I will say yes In the next morning The guy who founded net ministries came up and he says hey, I was praying last night and I think god Would want you to consider being a missionary with net in august I think Is that I had I'd been accepted at college. I had you know, I knew I had everything worked out I had my 10-year plan. I was going to go to undergrad. I was going to be pre-med. I was going to go to go to medical school I was going to be a doctor I didn't have a big house fancy car hot wife everything I did get the hot wife by the way but Everything else changed and in that moment. I said okay god if this is what you want. I'm in And that's what started my life And I don't I could share for another hour everything that god's done But I just can't because I want you to experience it for yourself I want us to turn our hearts now to receive that for you an awakening whatever god wants to do in you For it to just us to be able to collectively go before god say whatever you want god I'm open And break those three beautiful words that have been given to us by the church come holy spirit and what we're going to do is John paul's going to lead us in a song and we're just going to ask the holy spirit to come and guide us And after a few minutes of just being in the presence of god I'm going to lead us in a prayer To give our lives to jesus christ Once again a complete surrender to god because it's jesus who will baptize you in the holy spirit not me You don't you're not going to baptize yourself in the holy spirit Jesus is the one who baptizes us in the holy spirit. We're going to pray jesus come baptize me with your holy spirit Completely flood my life with your grace And after we give ourselves to jesus, we're going to come back and give ourselves completely to the holy spirit