Thank you guys. Okay. Okay. Alright. Oh, you guys.
Hello. Well, I'm glad you're awake. You guys, we had... Oh, I'm so grateful. So, so grateful to be able to be here with you all tonight.
I know I'm going to have a problem and the problem is... I don't know if you know this about me, I tend to talk a little quickly. I don't know how that's going to translate to the space.
And so just pray for that, pray for echoes, pray for clarification. You guys, I am so grateful, so thankful for Patrick, for Mother, for Lila, for everyone who came up here. The French people, they were great.
But this, I don't know if you saw, the title of this talk, it's called, it was given to me, just so you know, it's called The Greatest Love Story. And I thought, okay, here's the thing. They all know.
Like, this is the truth. Here's my promise to you. Tonight, I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know. Agreed? You're like, no, I came here to learn something, bro.
Let's go. But here's the thing. You know this love story already. But what if you didn't? Like, you know this.
But what if you didn't? So tonight, I'm going to read a story, and you know this story. And you know how this story ends. But what if you didn't?
It's actually a story we heard yesterday a couple times. It's Luke chapter 24. Here's the disciples on the road to Emmaus. And it says there's a guy named Cleopas and his traveling companion.
Now, we know that Cleopas had a... wife named Mary. So my guess is this is Cleopas and Mrs. Cleopas. And what they're doing is, well, I'll just read it to you because you know this story. I could paraphrase, but let's go to the Word of God.
By the way, if you like the Word of God, I have a podcast I could recommend to you. I really think you'd get into it. Okay, okay.
So here's the word. Luke chapter 24. It says that very day, two of them were heading to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus. And they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them.
But their eyes were prevented from seeing him, recognizing him. He asked them, What are you discussing as you walk along? They stopped looking downcast.
And one of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know? Are you the only one here who doesn't know? Because we know.
We know what happened. Who does not know? about Jesus, what's taking place there in these days. Jesus said, what sort of things?
The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. How our chief priests and elders both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel.
They knew. Here's the deal. Cleopas and Mrs. Cleopas, they knew.
They knew that Jesus was a prophet mighty indeed in word. They knew that Jesus was arrested by the chief priests and elders. They knew that he was crucified.
They knew that he was executed. Like, they knew. And Jesus says to them, you're stupid. I'm paraphrasing.
Here's what he said. But he does say, He says, how foolish you are and how slow to understand. How foolish you are, how slow to understand.
To believe all that the prophets spoke. Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures. Amazing Bible study.
Jesus is walking along. He's like, by the way, here's what you think you know. Let me fill in the gaps. Because they knew. They knew the story.
Here's the story they knew. Here's the greatest love story ever. And Jesus is telling them on the way to Emmaus, seven miles, he's telling the greatest love story.
And it begins like this, in the beginning. This is going to be a long talk. In the beginning. There's God, and he's good.
And this good God made this world good. And he made human beings, and he made them good. He made human beings like him in his image and likeness, and the whole thing was good. In fact, Jesus would say, it was very good.
See, in the beginning was God and he was good. And he made this world good and he made you good. And they'd be like, yeah, we know that already. And then he would say, what happened was this. We took our human freedom.
We took our ability to be like God. We already had. He gave it to us. And we broke the world. By sin.
You know, I think it's funny, something about the first sin that Adam and Eve committed. It wasn't a mistake. You know sins are mistakes. A sin isn't I made a mistake. A sin isn't I broke a rule.
A sin is this. God, I know what you want. I don't care.
I want what I want. That's what they did. God, I know what you want.
I don't care. Not that I didn't know. I just didn't care.
And so they did what they wanted, and it broke the world. And what that did is, again, here's God who's good. He made this world good. He made them good. But with their freedom, they chose to break the world.
And it broke our relationship with God, with each other, and even in our own hearts. And so what happened was this, and you guys, again, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. You guys know this.
What happened because of that is there became this unbridgeable gap. Between God on one side and humanity on the other side, and no matter how hard humans would try, no matter how much good things, how many good things human beings could do, we could do anything. We could do nothing to get from this side, from our side, to God's side.
every philosophy, every other religion is an attempt, is an attempt on our part we recognize the brokenness. You guys, you recognize the brokenness, amen? We know the brokenness.
Every philosophy, every social construct, every economic reform, all of it is an attempt to fix that brokenness. But here's the thing about unbridgeable gaps. They're unbridgeable.
And you know this. And Cleopas and Mrs. Cleopas knew this. And they thought that Jesus would be the one.
They thought that Jesus would be the one to be able to restore it all. But they knew the story. He was a prophet mighty in deed and word, but then he was executed.
He was a prophet mighty in deed and word, yet we thought he would restore it all. But he was executed. We had hoped, but now we know.
And again, Jesus said, okay, knuckleheads, let's take a little review. My guess is Jesus went like this. Here's some more stories you might know. Imagine Jesus said, hey, Cleopas, Mr. Cleopas, remember that story of Abraham? They're like, duh, of course we do.
Okay, he had... that one son. What's his name? You know. I told you.
I promise you. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. And that's an Isaac.
What did God say? God said, hey, Abraham, take your only son, your beloved son, whom you love, bring him to a mountain. mountain that I'll point out, and upon that mountain you will sacrifice him.
So what does Moses, Abraham do? He does what God asked him to do. He takes his only beloved son, and he takes him to a place called Mount Moriah.
And on Mount Moriah, he gets to the base of that mountain, and he puts the wood for the sacrifice on his only son's back. And he walks with his son up to the top of that mountain. And on the way up, Isaac, his son, asks a question. Father, here's the fire, here's the knife, here's the wood for the sacrifice, but where is the sacrifice? And Abraham says to his son, My son, the Lord will provide himself a sacrifice.
They get to the top of the mountain. Abraham is about to sacrifice his son, but what happens? The angel of the Lord stops him. Don't lay a hand on the boy.
Don't do the least thing to him. He spies a ram, coppets horns in a thicket, and sacrifices that ram. Now, this is amazing, but imagine Jesus would say, remember how he sacrificed that ram? What did Abraham promise his son that God would provide? A ram or a lamb?
God provided a ram in that moment, but God had promised to provide a lamb. Time goes on. It's Exodus.
You know the story, right? The people of Israel, the brothers of Joseph. You don't remember Joseph?
He had this amazing technical dream coat. And his brothers sell him into slavery, so then the whole family goes into slavery, essentially, ultimately, in Egypt for 400 years, until God goes to Moses. And Jesus is telling Cleopas, and this is Cleopas'whole story. This is the story you already know.
And God says to Moses, tell Pharaoh, let my people go. There's a bunch of plagues. The last... One is what? Take a lamb.
Remember, God had promised on Mount Moriah to provide a lamb. They take a lamb. In the evening twilight, they sacrifice the lamb.
They roast its flesh and eat its flesh, and they mark their homes with its blood. And this is what Moses told the people. He said, listen, as when you do this, when you mark your homes with the blood of the lamb and eat the flesh of the lamb, You'll be saved and you'll be freed. You'll have liberty and you'll have life. Only, though, only if you mark your homes with the blood of the Lamb and only if you eat the flesh of the Lamb.
Imagine, here's Jesus saying, Cleopas, this is Cleopas. Remember this? They're like, oh yeah, I remember that. Because they would do that every single Passover. They would take the flesh of the lamb and eat it and say, this is the lamb of Passover that set us free, that God passed over, the angel of death passed over us, and God gave us liberty and God gave us life.
Then I imagine Jesus would say, hey, remember when John the Baptist came along? Like, yeah, yeah, we knew John the Baptist. What did John the Baptist say? I've gone through a lot of scripture really quickly, just by the way.
John the Baptist, the first time John the Baptist saw Jesus outside the womb that we know of, he's by the Jordan River, and he looks at Jesus, and he says what? He says, behold the... You guys, I promise you, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. Now, sometimes though, sometimes I used to always think when John said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
I thought, he was like, yeah, Jesus is a lamb. He's like fluffy and gentle and cute and cozy. He's Jonathan Rumi. I mean, basically, you know, he's very fluffy.
But when John the Baptist was saying, no, that's the lamb, no one was like, bro, get your eyes checked. They were saying, wait a second, you mean he's the lamb of sacrifice? Because they knew the story.
They knew the story. You know this already. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. And so then Jesus comes into the city of Jerusalem. When?
Well, we call it Palm Sunday. But the Jews would call it the day they bring the lambs into Jerusalem. I always pictured Palm Sunday as like Jesus is riding his donkey, you know, they put down the palm branches and stuff, and he's by himself. When Jesus was going into Jerusalem, that's the same day that all the sacrificial lambs were being brought into the city of Jerusalem as well. So he'd be surrounded by sacrificial lambs.
Why? Because he's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And that Friday what happens?
Again, you guys, do you know this already? That Friday what happens is Jesus is executed. False.
This is what Jesus unpacked for Cleopas and Mrs. Cleopas. He said, wait a second, go back to the beginning. The father was willing to sacrifice his only beloved son. Cleopas, what mountain was that? Jesus, Mount Moriah.
Very good, Cleopas. Mrs. Cleopas, on what mountain range was Jesus crucified? Oh, Mount Moriah.
Very good. The same mountain. Cleopas, you were there.
What did Jesus carry on his back? We carried the wood of the sacrifice. Exactly.
What did Jesus have around his head? A crown of thorns. Mrs. Cleopas, what was the ram caught by? It was caught by its horns in the thicket among thorns.
So Jesus is the lamb that was promised. At what time, Cleopas? was Jesus crucified. The same time the sacrificial lambs were sacrificed in the temple. Exactly.
You guys? Cleopas? Mrs. Cleopas? This is for both of you, either of you. They divided his garments, correct?
Yes. But what did they do for his robe? Class? They cast lots.
Why? Because it was all woven from one piece. What does that mean? That means it was an ephod, which is a high priestly garment.
So here's Jesus saying to Cleopas, Mrs. Cleopas, you thought you knew what was happening. You thought that it was an execution. It was not an execution.
This was a sacrifice of the Lamb of God. By the high priest, Jesus Christ himself, that takes away the sins of the world. This is the crazy thing, right? So let's go back to the beginning.
God is good, made this world good, made you good. Sin broke the world. There's an unbridgeable chasm between humanity and God.
And God bridged that gap. How? Where?
On the? Jesus Christ, who is both God and man. is the only one who could ever bridge that unbridgeable gap between God and man. And what did that do?
That restored us. What did that do? That action redeemed us.
What did this Jesus on the cross do? made it possible for our sins to be forgiven, for us to be able to have access to the Father, because that's what you do. If he bridges the unbridgeable gap, that means you and I have access to the Father.
Pause. Once again, was it the incarnation that saved us? Yes or no? You guys, remember, you know this. Did God becoming one of us save us?
No. Did Jesus'miracles, healing the man born blind, did that save us? No.
Did Jesus driving out demons, did that save us? Did Jesus calming the storm, did that save us? There's one moment, there is one action of Jesus that saved us, one action of Jesus that restored us, one action of Jesus that bridged the invisible gap, and that action happened upon the cross. What do we mean? That means it was the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
that bridges this unbridgeable gap. Another way to say it is this. The moment, you guys, the moment that Jesus offered up his body, blood, soul, and divinity to the Father in loving sacrifice, in loving obedience, because that's what happened, right?
It was our disobedience. we said, God, I know what you want. I want what I want. It was our disobedience that broke the thing. So here is God and man who says, by his obedience, he says, I offer you, Father, my body, my blood, my soul, my divinity to you in loving obedience.
I trust you. And that action redeemed the world. But wait, there's more.
You know this. We know this already. This whole conference, we're talking about the real presence of Jesus.
Amen. Yes, Jesus is truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity in every Eucharist, in every Mass, in every tabernacle around the world. Is the point of the Mass the presence of Jesus? No. It's the presence of Jesus that makes the point possible.
I want to say that again. The presence of Jesus is not the point of the Mass. I mean, it's a big deal. I'm not minimizing that. But just like the point wasn't the incarnation, the incarnation makes the sacrifice possible.
The real presence makes the sacrifice possible. So we fall into a big trap when we say, oh no, the point is that you're here. Or the point is I get to receive you. Those are amazing things. But what saves us is the sacrifice of the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus to the Father in humble obedience.
And where does that happen? I'll tell you this right now. Here's an analogy. When the priest says, this is my body given for you, elevation.
This is my blood given for you, elevation. That's like the incarnation. God is present among us.
But it's this moment. It's the moment where the priest holds the body of Christ and the blood of Christ in his hands and says, Through him, with him, in him. Who's him?
Jesus. You know this. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, forever and ever. You guys, that moment.
That moment is the moment where Jesus on the cross says, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. That moment is what's happening. And he cries out in a loud voice and breathes his last. And with that last... ounce of breath he offers on the cross, his body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Mass.
You guys, it's not just about looking at Jesus. When you see the Lord lifted up like this, you are looking at Calvary. When you see the Lord lifted up like this, you're participating in his restoration of the world. When you get to be going to Mass, and here is the priest holding up our Lord like this and just saying, God, Father, this is for you. You get to be a part of redemption of humanity.
Because every time that happens, the Father is glorified. Jesus, this is for you, Father. And the world is sanctified. The world is restored. The world is renewed.
Amen? But you know this. You know, ignorance is a problem. I think one of the reasons why the bishops so wisely wanted to have the Eucharistic revival is because we saw, like, no, a lot of people don't know. A lot of people are ignorant.
A lot of people are unaware. And so what we need to do, we think, what we need to do in answer to that is we need to bring people from ignorance to knowledge. That's not bad.
That's great. We need to tell people the truth because, right, that's the road, right? If you have ignorance, if I don't know, give me some truth. Now I have knowledge. But I wonder if our problem is deeper than that.
I wonder if our problem is what Jesus said in the book of Revelation. This is for us right now. This is for all of us.
Jesus in Revelation chapter 2, he's talking to the church in Ephesus. And he says this, hey, church in Ephesus, that's a paraphrase. He says, I know your works and your labor. I know your endurance. And that you cannot tolerate the wicked.
Like, you're doing great. You're doing the right things. You've tested those who call themselves apostles but are not.
Discovered they're imposters. Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name. And you have not grown weary. Good job. I believe that Jesus could be speaking to every person at this revival.
And say those words. Hey, you're holding fast to the faith. Here you're struggling. I know you're struggling. I know you're striving to be faithful.
I know it's hard out there, but I also see your endurance. I see your perseverance. And also, he goes on to say, I know you believe the right things.
I know that you know. You know this. But then he says, yet I hold this against you.
You have lost your first love. Sometimes our problem is ignorance. What we need is knowledge, and the road to knowledge is truth.
And sometimes our problem is indifference. Sometimes it's, I don't know. Too often it's, I don't care.
But we say this, we say, well yeah, but we have Jesus. This is for us Catholics. This is for us practicing Catholics.
This is for us who tonight, right after this, we're going to have adoration. We're going to bow down and bend the knee before our Lord. And we're going to praise him and love him.
But too often, and we're going to say, we have Jesus. This is the real presence. But too often, we're the kind of people that Jeremiah was speaking to.
If you know anything about Jeremiah, God sent Jeremiah to the people of Israel. to give them a word. It was a hard word. And I'm passing on this hard word because it's a word we all need to hear. He said this, O my people, thus says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, reform your ways and your deeds so that I may remain with you in this place.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words. This is the temple of the Lord. This is the temple of the Lord.
This is the temple of the Lord. Consider this. The Israelites, they had the temple of the Lord.
What does that mean? They had God in their presence. They had God in their midst. They had the real presence of God in this unique way in the temple. And they were like, no, no, no, listen, we're okay.
We have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. And too often us Catholics, that's what we say. We have the real presence.
We have the real presence. We have the real presence. But our hearts are far from him.
We know. We just don't care. If the remedy for ignorance is to get to knowledge and the road to knowledge is truth, the remedy for indifference is love and the road to love is repentance. My brothers and sisters, I just want to share this with y'all.
Years, a year ago when I was asked to be part of this, I was so honored, I am so honored. I'm so grateful to be able to be with you and to speak and to share this. But this word kept coming back again and again.
If this is gonna be a revival, if it's gonna be a real revival, here's the reality. In the history of Christianity, you can never have a revival without repentance. So we know this.
We know that, like Jeremiah said, I can't just say, but we have Jesus, we have Jesus, we have Jesus. Like Jeremiah said, I have to, he says, you have to reform your ways. There's one last Bible story I want to share, just to kind of hammer the point home. It's from 1 Samuel.
Eli is the priest in the temple, and he has two sons. They're named Hophni and Phinehas. There was also Ferb, but we don't talk about him.
But Hophni and Phinehas. They were, the Israelites were fighting the Philistines, and the Philistines are winning. And so Ophni and Phinehas, who were not priests after God's own heart, who did not follow the Lord closely, but they're like, wait a second, in the past, there were times when like Joshua... took the ark and brought it into battle and then the Lord God fought for us and then he won the battle.
So Hophni and Phinehas have this great idea. The Philistines are winning. Let's take the ark and bring them into battle and then we'll win.
That's what they do. And as soon as the Israelites see the ark, they're like, yeah, we got this. They cry out.
The Philistines are scared out of their minds. But then they go to fight. And the Philistines win. Because you might have the presence of the Lord, but he's not your toy. God might be in our midst, but he's not our plaything.
He's not our pet. He doesn't exist to help us win whatever battle we want to win. He's in our midst to transform our hearts so we can be close to him, not so we can just fight for whatever we wanted to fight for. So what happens is the Philistines win and they capture the Ark and they put him in the temple of the god Dagon.
Now, please keep this in mind. In the temple of the god Dagon, God didn't leave. He was still there.
Why? How do you know this? Because overnight, the Lord God knocked Dagon on his face. The Philistines come in like, wait a second, who knocked down our God? Put him back up.
Next night, the Lord God knocked him on his face again, knocked off his head, knocked off his hands, and the Philistines are like, we got to get rid of this thing. So he was still present. He was still present.
And he is still present. Just like Mother Olga said, I have Jesus and they can't take him away from me. But here's the problem.
I can just not care. I can say, here's the moment of redemption, here's the moment of restoration. I can be there at every single Mass and say, that's it. But if I'm not willing to repent, it makes no difference whatsoever.
Think about this. What happened when Jesus offered up himself to the Father, his body, blood, soul, and divinity, in loving obedience to the Father? The Father was glorified and the world was saved.
At every Mass, as we offer the sacrifice of the Son to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Father is meant to be glorified and the world is meant to be saved. But if I don't give him my heart, he's just that much less glorified and the world is just that much less saved. Amen?
So what I need to do, this is the last thing. What I need to do is, I need to repent. Yeah, but I'm faithful, I go to Mass. I know, I know. But maybe we're here tonight, and Jesus could say, I know you're doing all the right stuff, I know you're fighting, I know you're persevering, I know you're enduring, but you lost your first love.
And the road to love is repentance. So here's a big question. If you've lost the fire of your love, this is the question for everyone of us to just ask.
If I've lost the fire of my love for the Lord, my first love, the first fire, question, what are the fire extinguishers in my life? Now sometimes the fire extinguishers are big, big sins. They take my fire, my love for God, I bring them out into the tornado.
Like, I don't know why this keeps going out. This is weird. But most often, it's those small things that we settle for. It's those small things that just...
They don't snuff out our flame right away. They're just kind of like putting a cup over a little fire and just like hold it there a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Just get slower and lower and smaller and smaller. I'm not feeding it.
Here's the invitation for all of us. Tonight, identify what are the fire extinguishers in your life. The Lord is present among us.
I don't need more knowledge, but I need more love. I shared this earlier today with somebody that last year my mom died. And I don't know if you're like my mom, but she's a great, great woman.
But my whole life my mom had a stack of Catholic books that she meant to read someday. Stack of Catholic magazines that she was going to get around to one day. And so whenever something came up, you know, about the Bible, about the church, she'd be like, well, I don't know enough, I don't know enough, I don't know enough. And she automatically disqualified herself because she said she didn't know enough. You know, knowledge can make someone great, but only love can make a saint.
And the truth is, you are not disqualified. Your brokenness doesn't disqualify you. A littleness of heart doesn't disqualify you.
Not knowing enough doesn't disqualify you. Not doing enough doesn't disqualify you. It's not that I don't know, so often it's I don't care. So I just pray tonight, Lord give me that love. Not that I'll be like, let me feel it tonight, in adoration let me feel it.
No, no, no, no, no. The road to love is repentance. So let me make these choices.
Jesus, where are those fire extinguishers? I can't expect to take the fire of this weekend and bring it back to my home if I try not cramming it into the life I just left. Something has to change.
Someone has to redecorate my home. We have to do some remodeling. That's the plan. Tonight, be able to make some of those decisions. Where are the fire extinguishers I know I'm returning to when I go back home?
It's time to remodel. Because I cannot fit the fire of God's love into the life I left behind. I can't return and expect that flame to keep growing.
I have to identify those fabric extinguishers. I have to repent because I need love. You've been restored. By Jesus'offering as body, blood, soul, and divinity.
You've been redeemed by Jesus'offering as body, blood, soul, and divinity. He has won for all of us access to the Father. He's given us this love, and that's the reality. Again, knowledge can make one great. But only love can make you a saint.
So God, help us love. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.