 Good morning, everyone. I'm going to get the details out of the way quickly so I don't forget. First of all, I'm supposed to keep this up close to my mouth because I don't have any pockets, so I can't wear the mics that go around your ears. So if I start yelling, all right, please, let me know. The first thing I want to say is I have a number of my books that are in the bookstore that you can purchase. The latest one is called More of the Holy Spirit, More. It's a study of the gifts of the prophet that are listed in the prophet Isaiah, wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, those gifts. How all of those gifts lead us into union with God. So I'd recommend it if you don't have it. There are a number of other books that I've done, four, five, six. Some of them are in the bookstore. The shipment from renewal ministries where I work, they did not arrive. So if you want to check out our website, which is simply renewalministries.net. That's all you need, no spaces, no capitals, nothing, just renewalministries.net. But there are books in the bookstore. I'd urge you to go take a look. There are also some of my CDs there that I think might be helpful. And then I'm taking all my talking time to advertise. Nothing I say today is predicated upon this reality. Make sure you have a daily prayer time. If you don't start today, don't wait till you go home, start today. Have a time with God every day, not just you talking, but you listening, all right? I'll say more about that. But the two books that I want to recommend in light of personal prayer, in addition to my own book, Fire in My Heart. But these two books by Sister Ruth Burroughs, she's a cloistered Carmelite sister from England. Sister Ruth Burroughs. And one book is entitled The Essence of Prayer, and the other book is entitled To Believe in Jesus. The Essence of Prayer and To Believe in Jesus, those books are available in the bookstore. Okay. I'm going to talk about discipleship. And I'm going to talk about discipleship because, and I'm only speaking for us, I don't think Catholics really know what it means to be a disciple. I didn't, and I'm using myself as a measuring stick. What does it really mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? Brothers and sisters, we're in an age where we need disciples. We need them. It's not an option. If you're baptized, if you're confirmed, it's an obligation, is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. So I want to speak about that this morning. I'm not going to have much time for questions and answers. So if you want to come to my workshop this afternoon or you want to grab me, please feel free if you have a question from whatever it is that I say. Because I'd like to close out my talk today with just pray. It's just us come before the Lord together and ask Him the grace that He wants to pour out upon each of you and on all of us today. All right. Does that give you enough orientation? Okay. I now have 50 minutes and 32 seconds. Okay. Here we go. Last year, May of 2014, a man by the name of Robert George, who is a professor at Princeton University, very, very bright man, and a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is one of those modern disciples. He gave a talk at a Catholic prayer breakfast in Boston, May 2014. And if you go online, just put in Robert George, that's his first and last name, Robert George, Princeton, put in Catholic prayer breakfast, May 2014, and you'll be able to pull this up for yourselves. I want to share just a short portion of it with you. He began his talk, which is long, he began his talk by saying this, the days of socially acceptable Christianity are over. I'll repeat it. The days of socially acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past. It is no longer easy to be a faithful Christian, a good Catholic, an authentic witness to the truths of the gospel. A price is demanded and must be paid. There are costs of discipleship, heavy costs, costs that are burdensome and painful to bear. Of course, one can still safely identify oneself as a Catholic and even be seen going to mass. That is because the guardians of the norms of cultural orthodoxy that we have come to call political correctness, do not assume that identifying as Catholic or going to mass necessarily means that one actually believes. That's where we are. I'll repeat that. That is because the guardians of those norms of cultural orthodoxy that we have come to call political correctness, do not assume that identifying as Catholic or going to mass necessarily means that one actually believes what the church teaches on issues such as marriage and sexual morality and the sanctity of human life. One more. And if one in fact does not believe what the church teaches or for now at least, even if one does believe those teachings but is prepared to be completely silent about them, one is safe. One can still be a comfortable Catholic. In other words, a tamed Catholic, Catholic who is ashamed of the gospel. A Catholic who is willing to act publicly as if he or she were ashamed is still socially acceptable. But a Catholic who makes it clear that he or she is not ashamed is in for a rough go. He or she must be prepared to take risks and make sacrifices. If Jesus said, anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me. We American Catholics, and I would say for all our Canadian brothers and sisters, we North American Catholics have become comfortable. We had forgotten or ignored that timeless gospel truth. Anyone who wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me. That truth, there will be no ignoring it now. And so the question each of us today must face is this, am I ashamed of the gospel? Am I prepared to pay the price that will be demanded if I refuse to be ashamed? If in other words I am prepared to give public witness to the massively politically incorrect truths of the gospel, truths that the mandarins of an elite culture shaped by the dogmas of expressive individualism and me generation liberalism do not wish to hear spoken. Put more simply, am I willing, am I unwilling to take up the cross? And follow Christ. So I want to talk about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Hebrews chapter 12, I'll stop reading after this. Hebrews chapter 12 says this, see that you do not refuse the one who is speaking. Chapter 12 verse 25. See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven? At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he is promised, yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of what is shaken that is created things so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire. Brothers and sisters, we are at a crossroads culturally. We're at a crossroads politically. We're at a crossroads religiously. And none of us can drift or will be able to drift into heaven, not one of us. We have to make some clear choices. And I've been praying that the Holy Spirit this weekend and the prayers of our mother will help you to make the decisions that need to be made in your own personal life, in your family. Now you don't go home from here and say, okay, we are now doing this. That's not it. Hearts have to be evangelized, but we need, at this very late hour, we need to begin the process. The other day, in the parish that I'm part of in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the other day, we buried a man 63 years old in his wife had two sons. And as they said, they waited a long time for each one of them. He died of a form of cancer that took him from diagnosis until death, slightly less than a year. Nothing, absolutely nothing worked. And when Chris was dying on the day that he died, he brought his grandchildren around him, five of them, and he told them a story about heaven. And then as he began to fade, one of his sons picked up the guitar and began to sing some of his favorite songs. And as a family, they sang him into heaven. And one that I know well said to his dad, he said, in fact, we were all saying it, dad and mom and my brother and I, and all of us who were there, all the relatives who were there. We just said, dad, go for it. Go for the light. Look at the light. Run, dad, run. Run to the light. We'll follow you. Run. That's discipleship in action at the critical moment of life. How ready are we? I know I'm not. I'm not. What do we need to do? I'm going to tell you what I think are bedrock truths that you need to make your decisions about what it will take for you to be more clearly a disciple of Christ. I'm gonna give you some of the foundation out of which you can make those decisions. I can't make decisions for you. Nobody else can make those personal decisions. Couples can make the decisions that involve their family. And it has to be both. But we need to come to terms. The days of socially acceptable Catholicism are over. Christianity are over. So the first thing that I wanna say, first thing that I think we need very, very clearly to do is know who God is and know who we are. Do you know? I know about that much of who God is, but I need to know that much. I need to stand on that much. And it is the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal the Father and the Son. That's why we so need the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, who is given to us in baptism and confirmation. That Holy Spirit dwells within us. We are temples of the Holy Spirit. That's not just a nice analogy. It's the truth. When we're in a state of grace, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. And that Holy Spirit in everything in our lives is trying to draw us into union with the Father and the Son. It's a love story from start to finish. But oh God, God makes me do this, God makes me do that, this, that and the other thing. My goodness, all God wants is that you are in union with God. That's the deepest hunger of your soul, whether you know it or not, is union with the source of all love. And the Holy Spirit is giving us to lead us, as I put it, to lead us safely home to Him. The 10 commandments are God's priorities. Make them your own. Make them your own. It's not, oh, I have to do this. I have to go to Mass on Sunday and have to honor my Father and Mother, and I don't like them. I mean those kinds of things crop up again and again and again. I'll shout not steal what was only a little thing. I'll shout not kill what I almost did, but I didn't. Do you know, do you hear the minimalist, the very minimalist attitude, rather than these commandments are, and God commands them because He knows it will lead us to life. He knows it will lead us to union with Him. It's a love story from start to finish, really. And some of that, as I think Father, Father said last night, Father Michael, he said, "'It has to go from the head to the heart.'" G.K. Chesterton said, "'That's the longest journey a man or a woman takes "'is the 17,' for him it was 17." That's a little shorter for me, but thank God. But we all have to make that journey from the head knowledge, the information, till it comes to the heart and I say yes, this is my life. This is how I wanna live it. Want you, over the course of this weekend, if you can, take out your Bibles, and I hope you all have Bibles. Pope Francis is saying it again and again. Carry your Bible with you. Look up the Ten Commandments. Make it a meditation for the next month. See where you're weak. Don't be afraid of it. You're not gonna despair. You're gonna say, oh God, oh God, oh God, I need you. And that's great. That's called humility. Now shout not have strange gods before me, before thee. How many strange gods do we have? We have all kinds of things. Money, sex, pleasure, power, influence, all that kind of thing. Captures us when we begin to follow its dictates rather than being in charge. Remember, God gives you the grace. Gives you grace is a sharing in the life of God. I used to think as a child, they were kind of golden bubbles that came down from heaven. That was grace. Grace is God sharing himself. When I ask for grace, I'm saying Lord, draw near. Share with me your heart. Share with me this quality or this attribute that you have. Ask for grace. It'll be given to you faster than you can imagine. He's waiting for it. He gave us that awesome gift of a free will. He will never force it on us. It's an awesome gift, it's a frightening gift because we can exercise our free will right into hell. Scripture tells us, if you read John, especially I love to read John 15, 16, and 17. And in those passages, in those verses, read them over, John 15, 16, 17. Look at the promises of God. Look at them. They're amazing. But over and over again, in 15 and in 17, Jesus says this, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. I spent a year on that verse. As the Father has loved me, as the Son loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, that love is extended to us to embrace us and draw us in by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's the greatest love story there is. God doesn't like me. I know, I know there are serious things. I know there's serious discouragement. I know there's depression. I know there's fear that can paralyze. I'm not mocking any of that. That's the work of the enemy. And he can be dealt with. But I am saying, will you please look at who you are. You are a son of God. That's not pride. That's not arrogance of any kind. That's the truth of who you are. I want you to walk out of here this weekend with your head up a little higher. I'm a daughter of God. I'm a son of God. And that's real. You are so loved that the Father gave His only begotten Son for you. You were bought with a price. And the price was the life of His Son. And the Son so loved the Father that He said, Father, thy will be done. And He gave His life for you. Pope Benedict says, if you were the only person on the face of the earth, God would have sent His Son to die for you. God did not come in Christ to die for billions of people, though He accomplished that. He came for you and for me. He who knows every one of the hairs on our head. He who knows all of our days before one of them existed. He who knows every mistake we made and every way we would turn away from Him, still He gave His life that you might have Him in heaven forever. It's real. Run toward the light. I've told this story before, but I had a good friend who was dying in Minneapolis some years ago. I've never forgotten this. She was a very, very fine, fine woman. And she was dying. She kept saying to her, children, do you see the light? Do you see the light? And they were crying, of course. And they said, no, mama, we don't see any light. And many people who are nurses, et cetera, will say, people will speak of a light or they see something. And this man who died just last week, one of his sons said to me, you could see his gaze shift from us to him. You could see it. You could watch it happen. And this woman is dying. And she keeps saying, can't you see the light? And they said, no, mama, no, mama. Went on for three days. They said that there were doctors and nurses kneeling in her room because they had never seen anyone die the way she was dying. And at the very end, she said, next one up, bring my sunglasses. And she died. She knew who she was and she knew where she was going. Even if there's purgatory time, which there probably will be for the vast majority of us, there'll be purgatory. But you know who you are. You've won the race. You've run it. And you've won the prize of your dignity. I just love that line of Pope Benedict. And I wish I could quote the source to you and I can't right now. If you were the only person living on the face of the earth, God would have sent his son to die for you. Think about yourself that way. That's not pride. That's truth, how you handle that truth. Everything else can get in there. But just tell the enemy over and over to go to hell where he belongs. He's the one person you can tell to go to hell. Do it. I've stamped my foot. I've pounded a door. I've told him to get out of my life. It's just that little whisperer. He has a malevolent intelligence. It's an evil intelligence. But it's a powerful intelligence. He knows where our weak spots are. Say, well, you might know them, but God does too. And I know who wins to get out of my life. Don't dialogue with him. Just tell him where to go. Really, really, don't dialogue. You know, sometimes you find yourself thinking thoughts and answering thoughts. Be careful that the enemy isn't getting in there. He wants to destroy us. God has won the victory for us. All we need to do is say, here I am, Lord. I'm yours. You know how beautifully Father Michael spoke last night about the mercy of God? I keep the diary of St. Faustina by my bedside. There is nothing, no greater gift that God could give us in this world after giving us himself. There's no other greater gift he could give than this expression of his mercy. It's mercy. The only thing I want to caution you on is there are many people, and I hear them saying it, you may have said it yourself. There was a time in my life when I said it, where I would do something wrong and I'd say, ah, well, God will have mercy. I missed a very important step. Lord, I'm sorry, will you please forgive me? Don't ever forget that. Repent, repent, repent, and there will be nothing but mercy. You don't have to beat yourself. Just repent. Some of you have heard this story from ages ago, but it was one, you know how you have significant moments in your life that change your direction. And I went to a confession, this is years ago, I went to confession to a priest who knew me well, and that's important. And I went in and I went through the, you know, my, what I called many years ago, I entitled it my laundry list. My sins, you know, you go to take things to the dry cleaners, it's always the same clothes, you know? It's always the same sins. There are just habits and patterns of sin that each of us has. And you know, well, I just, I don't have to examine my conscience, I just know it's this and this and this. So I went to confession in that spirit. And I confess my sins, and this was the first time going face to face. And he went like this. And I thought, oh, oh, so then I kind of looked and his lips were moving and I thought, oh, that's good, he's praying for me. And I sat back, many of you have heard me tell this, but it was one of those moments that changed my life. He finally, he looked up at me and he said, sister, may I ask you a question? I'd never gone face to face before and hadn't ever been asked that. But I thought I would be polite. And so I said, oh, of course, father, you know. And father said to me, are you sorry for anything you've said? I was ready, right? Well, of course I'm sorry. I wouldn't be here if I weren't sorry. I mean, that's what welled right up in me, you know? And then I thought, and this was, this is what you call a grace from God. This thought went through my head. Would I be confessing all the same sins all the time if I were really sorry? Wouldn't there be a change, at least in the number of times? I did this father probably five times, six times something like that, 10 times for this, you know? And it really was like somebody took a sledgehammer. Because I thought, if I were really sorry, wouldn't there be some change? I mean, it takes a long time to break habits and patterns of sin, but wouldn't it be a little change? No, I go up and down with different weeks and different circumstances, but I'm moving in the right direction. I was not moving. I was, well, this is me. Same old, same old, you know? And so he said to me, sister, I could give you absolution, but I would rather not. Now remember, he knew me. He said, I'd rather you go and learn how much you stand in need of the mercy of God. Before that mercy was a nice gift from God. Now mercy was absolutely necessary. I can't save myself. Do you know that it took four months of going before the blessed sacrament every day and praying this simple prayer, Lord, have mercy on me that I might know how much I need your mercy. Have mercy on me that I might know how much I need mercy. I live by the mercy of God. It doesn't mean that I treat it carelessly. I am absolutely in need of it every day. I was just struck this morning over here during mass. Somewhere five minutes went by and I was not at all attentive to what was going on. I was somewhere out in outer space. I don't know what I was doing, but I suddenly was jolted back to the reality that this, the holy sacrifice of the mass is the most powerful thing, the most powerful gift that could ever be given to us. And I was thinking about a meeting that I have coming up in three days or four days. Now we'll do that. We don't have to condemn ourselves, but pull ourselves back. You are so loved by God the Father. You are so loved, he is really Father and he is your Father, created you. He knew what he was creating. And he gave his son so that you could be with him forever and that son said, Father, thy will be done. The power of hell might be broken in us and that we might have eternal life. And the Spirit, as I said, who is the love between the Father and the Son, a love so great. It's not, I don't have the theological term because what I was going to say is a love so great between the Father and the Son that it generates the Holy Spirit, but all of them, they're uncreated. They've always been, they always will be. So the word generate is a human term that I'm just trying to define for you that the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son. And that love is given to you. And the Holy Spirit within you is seeking to return you to the Father. I don't know about you, but I can't keep quiet about that. And when somebody tells me some sin that they're committing and they say, well, I mean, God understands if there is a God, God understands. Yes, God understands our weakness. We need to ask forgiveness. Mercy of God, the mercy of God will be poured into us not because we earned it, we can never earn it, but because when we say, Lord, Father, Jesus, I want to follow you, I want to be like you, I want to be your disciple. And he pours into us the life of his spirit and he draws us to himself. Read the passages, John 15, 16, 17, whatever you ask in my name, I will do. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you, live in my love. Read those verses, that's the call on your life and on mine. It is that love that's going to change people, 17 minutes. Okay, do I have 17 minutes or does that include my prayer? It includes the prayer. Okay, I have 10 minutes then, all right. I want you to really hear me on this. The Father cries out for us to respond to him. The Father who created us cries out for us to respond. He wants a relationship with each one of us and he wants to use us to bring others to him. Let me tell you two very quick stories. Some years ago I fell and really damaged this arm. It's rebuilt with titanium, this arm in the hand. And I was in a lot of pain. It was very, very difficult. And one day while I was walking through the house in the mother house where I was living, as I'm walking through the mother house of our community, I literally, not audibly, but I heard God. And what I heard was, when are you going to make pain your companion instead of your enemy? And I responded, never, I apologized quickly. And I pondered it, the pain that I was experiencing showed me how near God was. I kept offering it for all the needs of other people. So let me show you how it bore fruit. I was at a gas station. I was putting in gas, it was March, it was cold rain. There was a hole in the overhang right where the car was. I have this arm in a very large cast of some kind, you know, and it's kind of like this. And I'm putting in the gas with this hand, the water's dripping down and I am agitated. And I forgot what the Lord had asked me. And I'm agitated and I thought my father had a gas station. I know what a gas station oughta look like. This one isn't being taken care of. And this and that, I was just mumbling and on and on to myself, make a long story short. I finished putting in the gas, put the gas cap back on, walked over to the door of the gas station. And I, you know, it was like a thunder cloud over my face, I'm sure. And I had my hand on the door and honest to goodness, brothers and sisters, I heard this, who are you? I said, you're my father and I'm your daughter. And I do love you. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I opened the door and walked in. There was a Middle Eastern man, young man behind the counter, nobody else, nobody else in the gas station. And I start walking down the aisle to give him the money for the gas. As I walked down the aisle, I'm not kidding you. He leaned across the counter and he said, I was thoroughly bewildered. I looked around thinking that maybe there was somebody literally that I hadn't seen, there was nobody there. And I said, I'm Sister Ann Shields. I'm thinking, are you Muslim? Are you Christian? I don't know, you know, I don't know what I'm speaking into and I said, I'm Sister Ann Shields and I work for an organization called Renewal Ministry that's right across the street here. And I'm thinking, what are you? I just didn't know what to say. And I said, and I do mission work to spread the gospel. It wasn't a very robust declaration of who I was, but I said it, do you know what? He leaned across that counter, a guy in his 30s leaned across the counter and he said, I wanna make something out of my life too. What if I hadn't repented? What if I had walked in there with a storm cloud on my face and put down my money and walked out? Second story, I was stranded in LaGuardia Airport about a year and a half ago, snowstorm. I was stranded there for 38 hours. Yes, so I'm glad that you understand. So by 11 o'clock the night, having been there since seven in the morning, by 11 o'clock that night, they turned down the heat, they shut down the whole airport. There were probably two or 3000 of us still in the airport but they shut it down. So it was very cold, I'm sitting there, I'm mumbling. You by now understand what I do. Really, why doesn't, why this, why that? You know, for heaven's sakes, they've got all these people, they should be, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I did. And then I just stopped. It's that grace, it's that breath of the Holy Spirit that comes across you. And I say, Lord, I'm sorry. I said, my brothers and sisters in Iraq really know what it is to be suffering. This is nothing but inconvenience. Really, serious inconvenience but still inconvenience. And I did. And I stopped. I stopped and I said, please forgive me. Forgive me for my pride, forgive me for my arrogance. Please help me. And they announced that they were opening the stores. You could go get something. So I went down the hall to the bookstore looking for a good book. And a murder mystery would have done quite, quite well. Really, in the middle of the night, you know, I can't sleep. I might as well read something that would really occupy me. Don't worry, I had spiritual books with me too, but a good murder mystery helps. So I get up and I walk down to the store. I'm the first one in that particular bookstore. Young man, again. Probably late 20s, early 30s, again. Behind the counter, that's the only person in there. I ask him where the murder mysteries were. He told me. And I went over to that section. I had my coat on so the crucifix was not visible. Yeah, because it was cold in there. It was really cold. So I'm looking at the books and you know how suddenly you know there's somebody there? And I turned and it's this young man and you can see my height. He was easily six, three, six, four, something like that. So I looked up, you know. And he said, pardon me, but may I ask you a question? And I said, yes. And he said, who is God? Notice that in both those times I had repented, both those occasions in the gas station and there I had repented for my own irritability. God is so gracious and merciful. I will tell you what I told him. I turned to him and I said, I didn't know. Is he baptized? Is he, I don't know. I know nothing. And I knew there were gonna be a lot of other people coming down that corridor. And I just said to him, God is your father who is in heaven. God created you. He is your father. And he gave his only eternal son. To love you and to save you and to bring you safely home. And if you're baptized, the Holy Spirit dwells within you to guide you home, to union with God. He just stared at me and I thought, I'm not saying anything more. Just gonna wait. Do you know what he said? He said, but that's beautiful. And I said, and that is your God. What I wanna say to you is to use every single one of us in a world that is growing darker, every one of us. All you need to do is be committed to the Lord. All you need to do is pray every day and say, God, use me. I could give you 15 stories of God using not only me, but others. We're seeing it again and again. People are looking in the darkness. They're looking for something. They don't know what's wrong, but something's wrong. And it's getting darker. God needs every one of you. He needs disciples. He needs those who are committed disciples. You don't need to be perfect. You never will be, not this side of heaven. All you need to do is know him, love him, be willing to do what he asks you to do. Be at his service. Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Let that be your attitude every day. Ask the blessed mother. Ask her to pray for you. She loves to do that. Ask her to pray for you. You are never alone. You are never alone.