Go Make Disciples
Audio releases from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to further the mandate to "Go Make Disciples."
Go Make Disciples
"Hope Does Not Disappoint" - Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR | 2025 Discipleship Conference
Keynote presentation from Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, from the 2025 Discipleship Conference for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.
A solemnly professed member of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Province of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Penance, Father Dave was ordained to the priesthood in 1996.
From 2012-2019, Father Dave served as the director of Franciscan Pathways, an evangelistic outreach of his Franciscan, TOR, community. In that role, in association with 4PM Media, he hosted and produced The Wild Goose video series on developing a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit, a documentary on St. Francis of Assisi titled Sign of Contradiction, and Metanoia, a 2019 video series on conversion. He hosted and produced Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (2020) with Dr. John Bergsma. He also hosted and produced the 10th Hour Productions documentary series My father’s Father, released in 2024.
Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, was elected president of Franciscan University of Steubenville by a unanimous decision of the Board of Trustees on May 21, 2019.
The first Franciscan University alumnus to assume the school’s top pastoral leadership role, he graduated with his BA in theology in 1989, then earned an MDiv and MA in theology from the Washington Theological Union in 1996, writing his MA thesis on the indissolubility of Christian marriage. He earned a doctorate in education from the Graduate Theological Foundation in 2005, with a doctoral project focused on Catholic education in a post-modern world. He also earned an executive juris doctorate from Concord University School of Law of Purdue University Global in 2011.
At Franciscan University, Father Dave held a number of pastoral, leadership, and administrative positions from 1996-2008. He also served on the faculty as an adjunct professor of theology (1996-1998) and as vice president for Mission and Planning (2003-2005), serving on the President’s Cabinet, leading a team of faculty, staff, and students in strategic plan development, and building mission awareness on and off campus. In addition, Father Dave served as director of Household Support (1996-1998), assistant to the president under Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, (1998-1999), director of Youth Outreach Conferences (1999-2003), and director of the Study Abroad Program in Austria (2005-2008).
From 2008-2012, Father Dave directed Post-Novitiate Formation for the Franciscans, TOR, in Washington, D.C., forming student friars in their spiritual, educational, and psychological development.
Father Dave preaches at approximately 50 events annually, including retreats, workshops, pilgrimages, parish missions, and Franciscan University’s youth and adult conferences.
He has written eight books, including his newest, Joyful Sons and Daughters, Embracing The Father’s Love, hosts Franciscan University Presents on EWTN, and cohosts the popular podcast, They That Hope.
Since 2008, he has served on the board of Renewal Ministries; since 2020, on the board of Damascus Catholic Mission Campus; and since 2016, as the spiritual advisor to Walking With Purpose. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees for Saint Francis University (2000-2012) and a past board member for the National Service Committee.
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First off, thank you so much for being here. I was saying to Heather earlier, uh, I love being Catholic. Amen. One yeah, we can clap, we can clap to that. And when I say amen, you have to respond, amen. Amen. And I do that basically because it's four o'clock in the afternoon and I want you to stay awake. Amen. But one of the things I love about being Catholic, and there's a lot of them, uh, I love the fact that when I look out, we look differently. You know, unfortunately, the word diversity has become a very political divisive word, but I love the diversity in the church. You can go to some churches that aren't Catholic and everybody looks the same, they're around the same age, they're around the same color, they all look the same. Because you come to a Catholic group like this, and we all look radically different, and that's a great, great thing. Amen? So amen, let's share for that. Amen. The other thing is I'm gonna do my best to try to share with what I think the Lord wants me to say, um, but I also want you to do your part, and that is to really be attentive as the afternoon is going on to what the Lord is saying to you. The reality is I've had experiences where people came up to me and they said, Father, when you said this, it was so powerful. And I had no recollection of saying that, right? So that means that God's actually doing something. So you invest yourself, I'll invest myself, and hopefully something good comes about. Amen? So I had an opportunity a number of years ago to uh go to Bosnia. I was with a group of students of mine at the un at Francisca University, and we went into this one particular area, the most star region, of an area that was in the midst of the war, had been largely destroyed, and we went to a shelter. It was an old kind of a bombed-out hospital. And there were a group of individuals, about 75 people that lived there, and they had not had mass for over a year. There was a priest that lived down the road. Um, I don't know why he felt this way, but he said that they were the refuge, uh, and he would not go and celebrate mass with them. I remember when I walked in, this lady comes up and she grabbed everything was through a translator, but she grabbed my cord and she began to kiss my cord, and she said, I love this more than life itself. Right? So myself and a couple of the students were invited to an individual's room. His name was Slavko, and Slavko and his wife invited us in. The people that lived in this refugee center would, their meals were largely cabbage soup. It's generally what they would have all the time. They were hungry, many of them were ill, didn't have proper housing. And when we walked in, this individual, Slavko, he couldn't speak very loud, he had a very raspy voice. And he walked in and he said to us, to me and the students, you are my hope. I was touched by that. And began to listen to his story. And whenever he spoke, he would always speak very quietly. And I noticed that on his neck he had a large scar. He began to share his story. He and his wife were in their home, and the soldiers came in the front of the house, and their three kids went out of the back door, and the soldiers grabbed he and his wife. They separated him and they beat Slavko. And they took barbed wire and they wrapped it around his wrists and his ankles and they slit his throat, literally left him for what they thought would be dead. He and his wife eventually, a couple of days later, reconnected. They had not seen their kids in 18 months, assuming that they were probably killed. And this individual went on and he shared how grateful he was because God is faithful. And that God is loving. And that God has been close. And I myself, I get frustrated. I I missed a flight coming down Oklahoma City, and I thought God had abandoned me. Literally, in the middle, in the middle of O'Hare, I'm just sitting there. It's like, why have you done this to me, Lord? Right? You never do anything for me. And they who had every reason to despair or to be discouraged or be disappointed were actually filled with hope. I had the opportunity later in the day to celebrate Mass with this community. And I shared with them that the individual had said that me and the students were his hope. And I said, but the reality is, is you're our hope. In the midst of everything that you've gone through, you still believe, you still worship, you still desire the sacraments, you still believe in a God who's a God who keeps his promises, a God who is close, a God who loves. I said, You're our hope. And from the back of the little auditorium where we were, a little lady yelled, she yelled out, No, Father, it's God. God is our hope. And it can only be Him. The scripture that I was giving for this week, for today's afternoon, comes from 1 Peter 3, 15. And it says, always be ready to give an account of that which gives you hope. Or another translation says, always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for the reason of your hope. This today has been a conference that's been a day in discussing and studying what it is to be a disciple. And now you're being sent out. Here's a remarkable thing. The whole idea of having conferences about discipleship, the church has been alive for around 2,000 years. We've been doing this for about 75. This idea of programs for discipleship, and in books, I mean, it's a relatively new thing. It's hard to me to believe that the gospel was ever shared before the wild goose. I thought that started it all, right? I thought that was the beginning of it all. Paul actually did not have a set of DVDs to send people to. And that's the world that you're actually being sent out into. A world that is is so oftentimes confused about where to find their hope. We live in a world that largely, oftentimes, sees their hope in their politicians. I'm not gonna get political, amen? Do we place our hope in the president of the United States? In our courts? In our Congress? No. No. A little aggressive there. We live in a world that becomes more and more disenchanted and frustrated and disappointed. It's a failure of our institutions, you know, of our government, of our honestly, our universities, church, even. We live in a world, and it's one of the struggles with social media, is we know all the problems of the world, but the reality is we largely can't do anything about it. Sure, we pray, of course we pray. But other than that, we're constantly being told what's happening here and this war and this problem, and it all kind of weighs in on us, and we find ourselves oftentimes frustrated and anxious and despairing. We live in a world that has no purpose. The percentage of people that are going to not going to church is increasing constantly. We live in a world that desperately needs hope. And that's why I was so grateful to our Holy Father, Pope Francis. When he's talked about being disciples of hope. When he called for this year, he's praying and he says, What does the world need right now? What the world needs right now is hope. And that's your job. You are now to be disciples. We're about to send you out to be disciples. I love in Romans 5.5. Pope Francis talked a lot about this. He says that hope does not disappoint, right? Romans 5.5. It says, hope does not disappoint because. And at that point, everybody should just take a deep breath. Well, why is it that hope doesn't disappoint? Because the reality is, is oftentimes I think we've we're disappointed. We we find ourselves frustrated and anxious and angry at times. But Paul says, hope does not disappoint. Can we trust the words of the scripture? Are the words of scripture true? So we need to listen. Hope does not disappoint because, and everybody should be quiet. Why doesn't hope disappoint? Because the love of God has been poured forth into our hearts. I mean, why could Slavko, in the middle of this refugee center of Bosnia, his sons, his two sons, and his daughter have been killed, still talk about a God who's kind, and a God who's merciful, and a God who's loving, because the love of God has been poured forth into his heart. And I get to preach a lot all over the world, and I think 99% of the times I say something about God's love. Because when it's all done, that's what it comes down to. I wrote a book. One of the first books I wrote was a book on freedom, the spirituality of freedom. And I write this whole, I thought a pretty good book about freedom and God's created us to be free. And then the last chapter is that we live in the love of God. And the student came into my office and she said, That's it? And I said, What do you mean that's it? That's all it is? It's just the love of God. It's like, sorry. That's all I've got. I love Father Cantilama, who was the papal preacher of the pain. He said, if you could take all of the scriptures and put it in three words, it would be, God is love. Why aren't we disappointed? Because the love of God fills my heart. And what Paul is saying is it doesn't matter what's taking place anywhere else, it doesn't matter the circumstances of the world, it doesn't matter the suffering that you find yourself in, it doesn't matter the struggle that you find. That doesn't mean there's not pain. That doesn't mean there's not sadness. But what it does mean is that we can still have hope. Because the love of God has been poured forth into my heart. And brothers and sisters, this changes everything. And what I'm about to say may challenge you. But when I say that, some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know what that experience is, to be overwhelmed and enveloped in the love of God. And some of you are sure. Because we haven't encountered that love that changes everything, that radically changes us. But ultimately, this is why I can have hope. And what the scripture, again, that we're challenged with by the conference this week is that now we need to be able to go out and share that. Always be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. So when people say, Why is it that you hope? How do you answer? I had an experience a number of years ago. I was flying from Pittsburgh back to Arizona. And we were flying, and this woman, she kind of went crazy on the plane and she started screaming, and she was like walking up and down the aisle. I thought it was kind of cool, but apparently it caused them to be anxious. So we had to make a stop into uh Chicago. So we stopped in Chicago, the police came on and they dragged this lady out. I thought it was I thought it was really interesting. I thought it was gonna be a great story and a homily. So here we are, right? Well, this lady next to me was all frustrated. She goes, Ah, this I can't believe this. Now I'm gonna be late. This is ridiculous. So we take off, we get going, we're in the plane for about, I don't know, an hour and a half, two hours, heading to Phoenix. And the captain comes on and he says, uh, I have an announcement. Unfortunately, we're gonna have to land in Albuquerque. And because we weren't weren't scheduled to stop in Chicago, we didn't get fuel, and I'm not positive we have enough fuel to get to Phoenix. All right. Again, this lady next to me is apoplectic. She is, I can't believe this. This is ridiculous. What are we doing? And I'm thinking, what's our option? Come on, Captain, let's give it a shot, right? So she looks at me, she looks at me, always be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. She looks at me and she says, How can you stay so calm? Right? How can you stay so calm? You need to be able to answer that question. And the thing is, is it's it's my story. How is it that I can stay so calm? I mean, I could say, well, the Pope says this, or I could say, the archbishop says this, or I could say, you know, my mother, my mother loves the Lord, but she didn't ask about any of that. Always be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. And I think we're facing a struggle in the church today. Because on one level, people haven't experienced that. We find ourselves, and I find it interesting, that they're often telling somebody else's story. They're telling, again, beautiful stories of Maximilian Colby and the Saints, beautiful stories. But the scripture says, always be prepared to give an account of that which gives you, not Colby, not John Paul, not Mother Teresa, which gives you hope. The question we have to ask ourselves is, are we able to articulate that? Have we experienced that? Have we experienced the one that ultimately gives us hope? Because in the end, brothers and sisters, it's Jesus. That's why we can have hope, because He has loved me, because He has rescued me, because He has saved me. And it's and that answer has to be yours. You need to be able to articulate it. This is a homework assignment. Go home on a blank piece of paper and write it down. Write down your story. And if you don't have a story, if you're not sure what you're gonna say, if somebody says, why do you have hope? You can't say, well, here's what Father Dave said. He told a really cool story in a plane. That's not gonna move somebody's heart. And there's a moment in the time for doctrine and dogma and all of those things. But all of that stuff can be debated. When you tell your story, this is what God has done for me. This is how He's rescued me. This is how everything in my world seemed to be falling apart. And I discovered and I found God in the midst of that. That's why we can have hope. Be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. And it's interesting. When Peter writes this, if you look at the heading in the scripture, it says, Christian suffering. Be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. I shared with the priest this morning. Uh did you, I don't know, in Oklahoma, was it COVID? Did COVID get to Oklahoma? Okay. Because it did, it did get to Ohio. It did get to Ohio. And when that whole thing was going down, uh, we're having a million questions about what we were going to do. And I had this crazy idea because nobody knew if the students were going to come and if they're going to come back to class and their parents were going to let them go. So I said, Well, what if we invited the new students to come and we wouldn't charge them? We would let them come for free. I thought this was a crazy idea, but when I was praying about it, I couldn't shake it. So I went to the guy in charge of our finance. I knew he would tell me, Father, that's a really stupid question, idea, right? And he said, Wow, that's an interesting idea. Not at all what I was looking forward to, right? So we invited our students back. When most campuses across the country were saying stay home, we said, come, because I believed that the best place for them was to be together and to be in community and to be close to the sacraments. It was crazy. In the midst of that time, I got emails that said, if children, not if when kids die, their blood is on your hands, father. I got a call from the govern the governor of the state because I was choosing to let them come back and some other things that I chose to do. People were boycotting, people were calling the health department about the university. In the midst of all this, every time a student got COVID, bless the Lord, when it was all said and done, nobody got too sick, and we were very, very blessed. But every time a student got sick or COVID, I'd get nervous and anxious, and I'd go in the chapel and say, please, Lord, please, just crying out to the Lord. In the midst of this, my brother was also diagnosed with cancer. So I went home a couple of occasions to Arizona to try to visit him in the hospital. They wouldn't let me in. Dressed up and looked as good as a priest as I could possibly look. They were not impressed. So my brother literally dying of cancer by himself, his wife, my mom and dad, nobody could visit him. I remember I was sitting in the chapel just praying, frustrated and anxious, and wanting to be home and not sure what to do with the university, and I felt like this trash compractor, and everything was just caving in. And in the midst of that, I heard the Lord speak something to my heart that was so beautiful and profound. But at first glance, it doesn't sound so great. But he said, Dave, this won't crush you. I would have preferred, he said, Dave, everything's gonna be great. Don't worry. My brother died a couple weeks after that. Always be prepared to give an account of that with you. As I get older just being with the Lord is the comfort. But he sits with me. And he sees me. And he feels my weakness and my brokenness and my fear and my anxieties. And he loves me in the midst of that. And I shared that that when we were kids, with the priestess warning, that when we're kids and and you scrape your knee, you run up to your parents, and and they give you a hug, and they kiss you on the forehead, and they send you off. And that's all we needed. But we grow up. And the Lord wants to do the same thing with us, and we think that's not enough. Always be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. Hope does not disappoint. Because the love of God has been poured forth into my brothers and sisters. If we place our hope in anything or in anyone else, we will always be disappointed. My mom's got MS. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was five years old. And for 55 years, you do the math. I've been praying that the Lord would heal her. And He hasn't. It's my prayer. It's not my hope. If my hope was rooted in my mother's healing, I would be a frustrated, angry priest. And I like to think I'm a happy, joyful priest. Because that's my prayer. That's my wish. That's my desire. That's my dream. That's not my hope. My hope is in Jesus. My hope is in a God who keeps his promises. My hope is in a God who was risen from the dead. My hope is in a God who said, Dave, I will not leave you orphan. I will not abandon. My hope is in a God who's merciful. If the thousandth time I go to confession, it'll be merciful one more time. Always be prepared. But it has to be your story. It has to be your encounter. It has to be your experience. Again, Paul says in Romans 5, hope does not disappoint. Because the love of God has been poured forth into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured forth into our heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. This becomes, brothers and sisters, the hinge of which everything else in our spiritual life changes. I love and I find myself praying and thinking about the disciples who had every advantage. I mean, think about this. They were with Jesus for a number of years and they saw Jesus do remarkable things. They saw Jesus heal the blind, cure the sick, literally raise people from the dead, right? Raise people. I've never experienced a funeral where somebody has been risen from the dead. That would be fantastic, amen? I would suggest that more people come to your church, that people would literally be raised from the dead. You hear a knocking on the casket from the inside. You would think this would have a pretty profound impact on them. Right? They saw all of these amazing things. Jesus had been even risen from the dead. And yet, where do we find them? We go take a look at the Acts of the Apostles. Acts 2, verses 1 to 4. Time of Pentecost is fulfilled, and they were all in one place together. The doors were locked, they were frightened, and suddenly a strong driving wind. Noise like a strong driving wind comes and fills the entire house. Then there appeared on them tongues of fire which parted and came to rest on everybody. And the world is never the same. When we think of this, then there's this all of the faith and all the stories and everything that Jesus has done. It's this wide gap and it comes together at this point to Pentecost. My suspicion is when Jesus was going to the cross, he was not thinking, I hope you go to a room, lock the doors, and hide. That would be great. I'm doing all of this, that's what you would do, right? In the book that I did on freedom, one of the lines that I had stated, I said, Jesus is not enough. And there's something about that that seems just, ah, it doesn't sound, of course it's not, because he's trying. But these individuals had had these encounters with Jesus and they had seen all that he did, but they weren't able to actually be disciples until Pentecost. Until they experienced the Holy Spirit. And Peter says, I'm not drunk, it's only 9 o'clock in the morning. Because it's not possible to be drunk at 9 o'clock in the morning. Those of you who are laughing have a story to tell. It's interesting, Acts 19, they're talking about the Holy Spirit. And he said, We've not even heard of the Holy Spirit. The reason I did the wild does is because there were too many people with not even heard of the Holy Spirit. The spirit that animates us, the love of God has been poured forth into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything changes at Pentecost. I think in my own experience, and when I was younger, the experience was Romans 7. Why do I do the anybody like this? Why do I do the things I don't want to do? Anybody? And I can't seem to do the things I want to do. Anybody? For me, this experience of Pentecost was an experience of power. It was an anointing that radically changed me. I was a 20-year-old kid. I was at a conference somewhat like this. And somebody comes up to me and he asks me about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and I had no idea what he was talking about. Let me switch. Don't turn it off. Don't turn it off. I like what you did here. Off Amen? Oh. What is that? So 20-year-old Kidney asked me about this experience of baptism of the Holy Spirit, which we just read about in Pentecost. I was talking to somebody and they said it's just Pentecost. I said, what do you mean it's just Pentecost? And they said Pentecost isn't just this experience that happened 2,000 years ago. It's something that's supposed to happen today. One of the things that if I was Pope, it's easy to say because it will never happen. You'd never have an American as a Pope. Our Holy Father John Paul established what he called the new evangelization. But the reality is there was no evangelization until after Pentecost. So John Paul, Benedict, Francis all spoke of a new Pentecost. This new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I was a 20-year-old kid, had no idea what this whole Holy Spirit was, what this Pentecost was, all of this stuff. But it was in a small chapel by myself. And I said, Lord, I don't understand this Holy Spirit. I don't know what they mean. But if you want this for me, then I want it. And I experienced the love of God that was poured forth into my heart. That I've never been the same. Right? And I and I've experienced that many times since and before. This is you don't have to answer this, you don't have to raise your hand. Have you experienced that? Always be prepared to be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. And that hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured forth into hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. My older brother would say, as I came back from this retreat, and and he he looked at me and he noticed something is different about me. And he would say to my dad that Dave is finally the person he's always wanted to be. Right? He could look at me and he could see that something was different. And this is going to be the invitation to you is to go back out in the world and always be prepared to give an account of that which somebody looks at you and they said there's just something different about you. You seem happier. You don't seem to engage in conversation that you used to engage in. You don't seem to be so negative. You seem to be so positive. Why are you smiling? That makes me nervous. And then we can say let me tell you. We don't just say, Well, I don't know. We've got a good night's sleep. Always be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. My lovely assistant Heather is going to lead us in in a moment or two of just prayer. Do me a favor, just take a breath. I love in the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit comes with a strike, strong driving wind with fire. But in John, it's just a breath. Jesus comes and says, Peace be with you. And he breathes on that. Just in your own mind and heart. Just as a hoister to come. And just as we sing that, that it's not just a song, it's not just a hymn, it's a prayer. What I'd like to do really simply is just to sing that again. The first is just the men are going to sing it. We're going to ask the ladies to pray for us and pray that the Holy Spirit would fall on us. And brothers, as we pray that, we're just praying that God would come to us, that the Spirit would come to us, the love of God would be poured forth into our heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, brothers, we sing that together. Anoint them, empower them, come with power. Jesus, in your name, free them from a vice of self-control and the vice of self-reliance that they have to do everything themselves. Free them from a spirit of perfection. Fall with your Holy Spirit upon my brothers. And ladies, I just invite you to sing that with Heather. And just as you sing that, make that your prayer that you'd be filled with the Holy Spirit. I love in Luke, Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. And brothers, we just pray for our sisters as they ask for the Spirit. Fill them with your love, your presence. Jesus, free them from spirit of disappointment. Free them from despair. Freedom, free them from just the thought that they never quite measure up, they're not good enough. Just come with your Holy Spirit of love on them, Lord. And the beautiful thing about the Spirit of God is that He pours forth into us, and we are not merely vessels, we're conduits. And the Spirit comes upon us and flows through us. So I'm just going to ask you to very simply, person to your right or to your left, just place your hand on their shoulder. And now what you're going to do is the spirit that we've been praying would come upon us. We're now going to pray that the spirit would bless that person next to us. Lord Jesus, and just very simply pray that God would bless them. You may or may not even know them. Lord, what is their struggle? Free them of that. Lord, pour out your love into their hearts. Lord, fill them with your Holy Spirit. Release in them your Holy Spirit. May they experience a new Pentecost that your love is poured forth into their hearts by your Holy Spirit. Just pray for them. Ask the Lord's blessing upon them. The Spirit comes upon you and it flows through you to them. Come, Jesus. That they would be prepared to give an account of that which gives them hope. That they would cross paths with somebody who needs to hear their story. Give them the words. That when your Holy Spirit comes, it comes in power. It comes with transformation. It comes with healing. It comes with conversion. Jesus, we pray for this community, we pray for the diocese, the archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Continue to come in power in this community. We pray for grace, we pray for conversions. We pray for healings. In your name, Jesus, I claim all that you've done in this conference this day. The words that have been spoken, the grace that's been received, and the manner with which the evil one wants to rob and to steal. I just come against him in your name and is your priest. That the seeds that have been planted will bear great fruit. Release the power of your Holy Spirit in this place, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus. Mother Mary, you who were the spouse of the Holy Spirit, we pray that you would intercede as we pray together. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour. Amen. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and the snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. The Lord be with you. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Be prepared to give an account of that which gives you hope. Amen.