 Greetings, children, and welcome to this series of homilies on our holy faith book for the bread of life. I want to introduce you to this type of cough syrup, you know, so I take this little cup when I've got a cough, I'm not feeling well, and so on. I pour a little bit in here, and I have to do this so that I kind of feel better because I get sick. We get sick as human beings. But if we look at the beginning of time, when God first created us, in the original plan, God did not intend for us to get sick, and God never intended for our bodies to die. At the beginning of time, when God created all things in any crowned creation with the human person, our bodies and our souls were both immortal. We were not going to get sick. We were not going to die. We had special gifts given to us by God. They were gifts that the angels had that God shared with us. But then we fell. Our first parents believed lies spoken by the devil, that God was trying to keep something from them, trying to make them not have any fun, and our first parents believed those lies. God took such good care of Adam and Eve. He gave them each other. He gave them the garden. He blessed them, and yet still our first parents believed in the lies of the devil. And so because of that, they fell. They rebelled against God. And that fall from grace, that doesn't just affect Adam and Eve. That affects our human nature. That means we share in this original fall. We have this fall. It means this fallenness in our own soul. It means we desire what we know is wrong, or we don't do what is good. It also means that our bodies will die. It means we get sick. It means we have cancer, dementia, heart disease, all these things that happen. Not to intend that. Sometimes when people are really sad when someone dies and they say, it's not fair. It's not fair. They're completely right, because death is a consequence of sin. Our first parents chose the wages of sin lies over God's gifts and His majesty. And we bear that in our human nature. They even know that sin is washed away, that original sin is washed away by baptism. We still have that fallenness in our souls. It means because of that fallenness, we're inclined to sin. We have the original sin from Adam and Eve, but then we have our actual sins, the sins that we do. When we tell lies, or we don't do our chores, or we're negligent, or we gossip, or we do other things, all these actual sins become a part of who we are. They cause a little chaos and trouble in our souls. They cause problems in tension with the people that we love and care about. They cause problems with our relationship with God, with ourselves, and even with all creation. So in order to get that sin out, we have to turn to Jesus. Lord Jesus comes and He comes to us as our Savior. He wants to free us from our sins, and not simply take away our sin, but also give us the help of His grace. And God's grace that heals all of the hurt that was caused by our wounded nature, all that woundedness, that trouble, that fallenness we have in our souls from our original sin, grace heals that. Grace is God's life, His power within each of us. And when we cooperate with grace, we're made stronger. Stronger than we could ever be by ourselves. God's strength is within us. So say, I know that's bad. I shouldn't go there. And my mind and my heart is like, oh, but it's really cool and fun. No, it's not. It's wrong. You stay away from that. That's grace. Makes you strong. Oh, we see good things. I should go help my neighbor. I should do my chores without mom and dad having to ask me. And we think, oh, I don't want to do that. No, I'm going to do that now. I'm going to do it with zeal. I'm going to do it with some joy, right? That's grace. It makes you stronger. And we receive grace from the sacraments. That's how Jesus gives us that life, that power. So we have to cooperate with that. We have to allow the kingdom of sin that wants to take over our hearts to be casted out. And only Jesus can do that. So we have to cooperate with this grace. It means we have to say yes to all the blessings that Jesus wants to give to us. It means in our lives, we should constantly, in our own life, how we follow Jesus, say yes. When we feel in our hearts, the Lord says, go help that person. I don't want to. Go. Yes, Lord. Right? Go do this. I've done enough. Let somebody else do it. Go do this. Yes, Lord. Right? Our constant way of life is yes, because the Lord loves us enough to give us His grace. So the original blessings that we lost were the fall. We now have the opportunity of redemption to be redeemed, to be saved in Jesus Christ, and then to live as the children of God by the help of His grace. Dear children, I want you to understand the immense blessing that God wants to give to us. Now we're still going to get sick, and we're still going to die. The consequences of our wounded nature will play themselves out. But with God's grace, the suffering never has the last word, and sin is destroyed. But if we say yes, we have to say yes, so that the grace can work. So we can say, dear children, that the whole content of what we've been discussing, what you've been studying, can be summarized in three simple words, good, fallen, redeemed. Don't get stuck in the fallen. We were made good. We were made in God's image and likeness, and He loves us immensely. We chose other things. We choose other things besides God. We fall. We sin. We are given the opportunity of redemption. So make sure you let God's grace work in you. Let God redeem you by the power of His grace. God bless you children.