SPEAKER_00: My friends, this morning's Mass is simple but sacred in this beautiful church.
SPEAKER_00: It's our last Eucharist together as pilgrims here in Italy.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord invites us to pause and recognize what He has been doing in us all these days.
SPEAKER_00: Every pilgrimage has a moment of discovery.
SPEAKER_00: Not of a place, but of a part of ourselves that God has been trying to reach.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we've visited many beautiful basilicas, many beautiful works of art, beautiful places, but God desires to reach us in a very special way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus calls it the lost shepherd, the lost sheep, that small hidden piece of our heart that we often overlook, a forgotten desire, an unspoken wound, a prayer we have been afraid to make.
SPEAKER_00: When the shepherd finds that missing part, everything else begins to change.
SPEAKER_00: Grace works like yeast.
SPEAKER_00: One surrendered place of our hearts can be transformed into a whole new way.
SPEAKER_00: We see this in the prophet Isaiah from the first reading.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He heard God call, Comfort, O comfort my people.
SPEAKER_00: But the moment of grace was Isaiah's quiet openness.
SPEAKER_00: What shall I cry?
SPEAKER_00: That single surrender allowed God to shape one of the most beautiful voices of all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: He had the courage to ask.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you have had a moment like that on your pilgrimage, on this pilgrimage, because you've shared it with me.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it was in a moment in the chapel in Rome, in one of the major basilicas.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was on the Scavi Tour or in the catacombs, or maybe it was a special moment in one of the chapels in Assisi, or here in Florence, or in Siena.
SPEAKER_00: Or even amidst the stony roads of Italy.
SPEAKER_00: But something small may have been awakened.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe something in you has been found.
SPEAKER_00: And that is God at work.
SPEAKER_00: And it does not end because this trip ends.
SPEAKER_00: A pilgrimage is not a break from life, it is a lens that clarifies things, perhaps.
SPEAKER_00: It teaches us that holiness begins with availability.
SPEAKER_00: Beauty can convert the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And community carries us further than we could ever walk alone.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're trying to do at Saint Augustine.
SPEAKER_00: Build community.
SPEAKER_00: Walk together.
SPEAKER_00: Pray together.
SPEAKER_00: So as we prepare to go home tomorrow, the Lord asks us for one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Do not lose what he found.
SPEAKER_00: Let the grace that touched you here on this trip become grace that shapes your daily life.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, what was new on this trip for me?
SPEAKER_00: What did the Lord find in me in this trip?
SPEAKER_00: There was something, I promise you.
SPEAKER_00: Let that grace touch that was touched become grace that shapes your daily life, your prayer life, your relationships with your loved ones, your decisions that you make, the hope that you carry forward.
SPEAKER_00: May we leave this place.
SPEAKER_00: But we do not leave each other.
SPEAKER_00: We continue to walk as a community of faith, a community of parishioners.
SPEAKER_00: We walk as disciples on the same road, guided by the same shepherd who has carried us through these last couple of days.
SPEAKER_00: So as we gather around the altar of the Lord on this anniversary of Archbishop Fulton Sheen on this second week of Advent, may what God began in you on this pilgrimage really grow roots.
SPEAKER_00: Grow into a steady, quiet renewal, a renewal that will last forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.