[Applause] can all sit. Good evening. It's great to be here and great to have you be here. So, I hope you're feeling that way. Uh it's we're we're really in for a beautiful weekend. We've been actually 12 years since we started talking about coming to do a healing a whole person in Denver and in the last couple years it started to gain momentum and here we are and so I trust the timing is perfect. So just a question how many people were here for the marriage conference we did last year? Oh it's a good number. Okay. And how many people have been to a JP2 healing center event before? Okay. And how many people have never been to a John Paul II healing center event? That's the majority of it. Great. You're in for a great surprise. Uh we we we love these weekends. These are uh just beautiful experience of encountering the presence of God, the love of God. And as we'll say through the course of you'll hear this over and over in different ways through the course of our time together. Healings an ongoing encounter with God's love and truth that brings us into wholeness and communion. Right? Healing is an ongoing encounter with God's love and truth that brings us into wholeness and communion. And as Pope Benedict says that everything in our faith is part of healing that healing is synonymous with redemption if we understand at a sufficiently deep level. Okay. So everything that the church does everything that we do together and especially our worship is healing. And so we're going to we're going to spend time in a lot of different kinds of prayer and teaching and activity and sharing uh through the course of the weekend through these these next couple days. And the goal is just in in the way that the Holy Spirit is always so gentle with us to invite the Holy Spirit to bring us into communion with the Father and Jesus. Right? And each one of us is going to have our own individual experience of that. So don't put an expectation for the person next to you, the person you brought with you. Each one of us needs to have the freedom to have our own experience and and to have the freedom with that. Let's start with a prayer experience. And we're going to do a lot of what's called vigio deina this weekend. Okay. Everybody familiar with lexio deina, right? Lectio Deina is is a prayerful meditation on the word of God that in that brings us into contemplation. Visio deina is taking the word of God in visual images and we do this all the time in church. You know, just look at the beautiful stations of the cross over there, right? Somebody painted those, I'm sure. And just how they just draw you into the experience. or look at this the statues throughout the the sculptures that are throughout the the room and just the artwork. That's one of the beautiful things about being in the Catholic church is we really celebrate vigio deina you know and I had somebody that was studying humanities and was studying the history of the development of that in the churches and what I what I learned is that the in the 1600s right before the printing press came and there was a a lot of upheaval that was going on in culture and a lot of upheaval is going on in the church. The popes commissioned some of those famous artists to come and bring their art into the church in music, in painting, in sculpture. And it became the proclamation of the gospel. Like that became the proclamation of the gospel. And it really became a uh a way to stay faithful in the midst of all that turmoil. And and I realized that when I went to visit churches in ger in Europe, you know, many of you probably been to churches in Europe and you know, they're so old, so many of them, and there's such beautiful artwork there. And I remember walking into a couple of the churches and they were in areas where the faith had really waned. You know, there was very very little faith, but there were thousands of people walking into these churches just to admire the artwork. And I remember remarking, it was like people are now deaf to hearing the gospel, but their hearts are still drawn to the beauty of the gospel, the beauty of the of the revelation that's there. And so we're going to use visual deina this weekend because we want to not just speak to our understanding but speak to our hearts. And we find that visual deina does that. It's it's one thing to meditate on the word of God. It's another thing to to to contemplate and enter into the experience of that. So if you will start with the image on your front cover. This is a a painting of Carvajio of the incredility of St. Thomas. Right. This is this is in the in the church calendar. This is the second Sunday of Easter. I think I think this is divine mercy Sunday where we have this gospel proclaimed. And if you remember the story, all the disciples are there the first time Jesus comes and Thomas is not there. And Thomas says, "I will not believe what you've just told me unless I can put my hands into his wounds, my hand into his side to his nail prints." So this is the the Carvajio's representation of that. And so we have Jesus, we have Thomas in the front, John right behind him, and Peter in the back. So I want you to spend just a couple of minutes asking the Holy Spirit to show you where you are in relation to this image. Okay? I know it's a strange prayer, but just ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you are personally as we begin this weekend together. And if nothing comes immediately, just stay with it. Just just let it come. Don't don't try to grasp for it. [Music] We're going to have a couple of the the team, the local team here come around and I want I just want several of you to share what you're experiencing And usually we take a a second till everybody's ready to do that. But if you can just raise your hand, they're on either side. If you can raise your hand and I'd like to hear from men and women uh just what you're experiencing and and I as you share it, I want you to share what you're drawn to and then how you're how it relates to you as you're starting this weekend. I feel like I'm drawn to John, St. gone. Just um really wanting others to have a deeper level of faith in my life and me feeling like that peacemaker role in my family and things like of that nature and just kind of watching and wanting God to answer the prayers that we've been praying for those family members in in our lives and that maybe we haven't seen the results yet, but just just watching and seeing what God's going to do and and continuing to support those people in my life that I really want to get to that next level too in their faith journey. Yeah, that's great. So, as John that one who's bringing people together, praying, interceding, and desiring for your family members to come. Yeah, great. Over here, I too identified with John um as the disciple whom Jesus loved because throughout my life I have found it difficult to accept that God does love me for who I am, what I am, and that I am beloved. Great. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead, father. I was just noticing how um gently Jesus's hand is placed on um Thomas's hand and just the um the there's no resistance, but he's he's just gently guiding him to encounter the wound. And I felt myself um almost having a realization, Lord, I'd forgotten that you were wounded. You were forgotten. I had forgotten that you were wounded. You were wounded. that you've experienced my woundedness as well. Yeah. Good. Thank you, Father Chucky. Okay. Over here, I am struck by Jesus's face. Um his face. Yes. So intently um and patiently at Thomas. This is his finger knowing that Thomas needs to do this and allowing it. and the the other three foreheads are wrinkly kind of like interested. But Jesus knows that this is what Thomas needs and he's just like open and allowing him and you know for me because that's striking to me. I think I just need to let myself or accept that Jesus knows what I need and wants to give that to me. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Beautiful. Um for me is the the wound. Um you know Thomas uh putting his finger in Jesus's wound. Um what comes to my mind is like Jesus I have this wound like you have a wound and if you can please um heal me from that wound. So So you're identifying with the wound of Jesus in you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. It was Jesus's face for me. I guess I come in with a lot of pain in the retreat and like I want to have a face that is as accepting. Is it Jesus face? Jesus's face. Okay. Yeah. realizing he wants to bring me in this time to have that kind of like peace at the end of it even though there's so much pain. Thank you. And then over here it's really pretty simple I think for me maybe obvious but I think just identifying with Thomas and uh Lord help my unbelief. The Lord help my unbelief. Help my unbelief. You're identifying with that. Yeah. Great. Okay. Thank you. Let me propose to you that in the areas of our wounds where they're not been healed, which all of us have those by the way. You know, everybody in this room has wounds that haven't been healed yet. If you didn't know that already, now you know. And in those areas of our unhealed wounds, and you know, we've been at this a long time. And we have each one of us that are going to be speaking, we have unhealed wounds still. Even though we've experienced a tremendous amount of healing, there's still places that are unhealed. Some of those be healed on earth. Some of them won't be healed till heaven. But in those places, for every one of us of our unhealed wounds, we have unbelief. We can identify with Thomas in those places of our hearts. Like we may have great faith in all these other areas of our life, but in this place there's a place of unbelief. There's a place of Jesus, until you do something here, I can't believe that this is real. And so if you're coming in and you're desiring healing in a particular area for yourself or your family or anybody else, just know that it's okay that you start with a place of being like Thomas. Lord, I maybe even I won't believe, but I I can't believe Jesus unless you do something to show me. And notice Jesus's response to Thomas. Jesus doesn't come in and start to criticize him for his lack of faith. Even though in other situations he would do that with the disciples. You know, he would challenge them to have greater faith. But in this situation, he didn't do that. And where do you think Jesus was when he when Thomas made that statement to the other disciples? How do you think Jesus knew to come back to meet Thomas here? He had to be listening, right? And I wonder if he was listening and being present with them since he said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." That he was present with them, just not visible to them. You know, we we sometimes talk about, well, Jesus was somewhere else and he just came back. But maybe he was there the whole time. And maybe he was just waiting for the moment that he could reveal himself to Thomas. The moment that Thomas was ready. You know, maybe if we came 12 years ago, for many of us, we wouldn't have been ready for what Jesus has in store for this weekend. and the things that you spoke to other people or you spoke to him in prayer or you spoke to yourself, maybe Jesus was listening to you. Maybe he wasn't far away from you, but was right there and heard everything that you desired and everything that you wanted. And if that's the case, then it's not up to us to get our healing. It's not up to us to make it happen. What did Thomas do? He just spoke where he was and showed up. You've already shown up, right? You're in the room. Jesus is here. And so, the only other thing you need to do is just speak the truth of where your heart is. Just let him know this is where I am. He already knows, but it's important for us to speak it because it prepares our hearts to receive. Notice also that Jesus still has some of his wounds even though they don't hurt now and then they're healed, you know. And and I started thinking this morning as I was praying, I started thinking, I don't see any lash marks on his body or anything else. You know, it's just these five wounds. So, obviously, he's in his resurrected body, but this resurrected body has carried these signs so that we know that the risen Lord is the crucified Lord. So, we know it's not a ghost. We know it's not a mirage. We know it's not somebody playing tricks. This is this is the Lord who went through all of this and the disciples went through it with him. You know, can you imagine? Maybe some of you can imagine too well, but can you imagine what it was like to be a disciple, walking with Jesus for three years, giving up everything? like your whole life you've just given up everything and you're putting all your eggs in this one basket if so to speak right this is the Messiah and he's going to conquer everything he's going to bring the new kingdom and I'm going to follow him and can you imagine the disillusionment that they experienced when he gets arrested even though he tried to tell them you you understand from the scriptures that they didn't get it and can you Imagine what it was like for them to watch Jesus go through this and everything that they hoped, everything that they dreamed, everything that they desired, everything that they gave up completely count for nothing. Some of you have been married and you gave up everything in your life to marry a person and they betrayed you. Or some of you joined religious communities and everything that you expected something else happened. Or you joined a church or or you were a child and you trusted an adult and they sexually abused you. Right? Those are those are comparable experiences. And what do you do? How do you recover from that? And I speak from my own experience. I love my mom and dad with my whole heart. And that heart got shattered at the age of 14 years old. I understand Thomas because after that I quit trusting anybody and anything for a long time. Like why am I going to risk trusting anybody again? When my heart's been shattered, when I've been disappointed, when I've been let down. And I think of Peter as he denied Jesus and then wept bitterly when Jesus gazed at him. And this is the moment, you know, he's in the background here. He hasn't been brought by the sea and brought by the charcoal fire yet to be fully restored, but he's looking and he's watching. What's so powerful about this scene is that everybody in it is receiving the power of healing. This is the power of grace. It's what we celebrate every mass. It's what we're going to experience this weekend, right? Is his presence to forgive and to heal, to heal our wounds. And he invites us to be wherever we are in this picture. Wherever we are outside of this picture, he just invites us. He's not forcing anybody. But notice he's guiding Thomas's hand. Thomas just showed up and he's guiding his hand and he's waiting with the others for what they need.