SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Heart of the Homli Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Michelle Lopez, and I'm here with Father Gilbert, our pastor.
SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: How's it going, Michelle?
SPEAKER_01: Good.
SPEAKER_01: Doing good.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you.
SPEAKER_01: Good to see you as well and to be back on our podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Um, back on our podcast.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't here last Monday.
SPEAKER_00: I actually went to Spain for a wedding.
SPEAKER_00: What a gift to preside at a wedding where the couple just love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Such a faithful couple.
SPEAKER_00: They did a really great marriage prep, and just it was just a beautiful ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: And that was their whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted the ceremony to just be about God and about faith.
SPEAKER_00: And um just I mean, this little bit of a tangent, but they got this choir of about 30 kids uh that that do this.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know how the Vatican choir have these amazing, incredible voices.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I promise you, during the responsorial psalm, I felt like I was in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: It sounded like angels were singing.
SPEAKER_00: It was so incredible.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it was in Madrid, uh, a little rainy, cold, but just beautiful just to be there.
SPEAKER_00: How fortunate.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then I got back on Sunday and uh I was here for the 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: and 6 30.
SPEAKER_01: Right off the plane.
SPEAKER_00: I and the beauty of our airport, and a lot of people complain about our airport.
SPEAKER_00: I don't because I've done this many times.
SPEAKER_00: I I land and literally I landed at 4.03.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I landed at 4.03.
SPEAKER_00: By 4:46, I was in my room.
SPEAKER_00: Walking over.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, walking over to celebrate the 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: Mass.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that insane?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I was praying.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Jesus, I want to get to that 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: Make it happen.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's impressive, Father.
SPEAKER_01: My goodness.
SPEAKER_01: I think so.
SPEAKER_00: A really great week, and I'm I'm really happy to be with all of you this Monday, uh, talking about this sixth Sunday of Easter.
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: And actually, we're gonna start by reading the gospel since it's short and sweet and beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll start us off.
SPEAKER_01: It's from John 14, uh, verses 15 to 21.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to his disciples, If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him, but you know him because he remains with you and will be in you.
SPEAKER_01: I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.
SPEAKER_01: In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live and you will live.
SPEAKER_01: On that day you will realize that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I in it, I in you.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.
SPEAKER_01: And whoever loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.
SPEAKER_01: So so beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: So beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: It's like love language, right?
SPEAKER_01: It is, it is.
SPEAKER_01: And Father, your homily did a really good job of um kind of asking some great questions about like a real relationship with with um with Christ and with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: I struggled with this homily.
SPEAKER_00: I actually rode it on the plane on the way back eight and a half hours uh of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: But I really struggled.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I started over.
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna go with the whole I I don't leave you orphaned, uh, there was a bunch, erased all of that, start over.
SPEAKER_00: It was uh it was very challenging.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that I wanted to just flesh out was is that most Christians have never been told they're allowed to be friends with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I struggled to that.
SPEAKER_00: I all my life I was raised to be very reverent.
SPEAKER_00: And um you saw a priest or you saw a nun, and you were just super reverent.
SPEAKER_00: Father, oh wow, we're to see a priest and how just to greet them and to be so it's almost this you have this huge reverence, and it's it's this respect, and so that kind of for me was translated into this relationship with Jesus as well.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's my friend, but I still want to love you and worship you and honor you in such a way that it's not so comfy or so casual.
SPEAKER_00: It's I am the servant, you're the master.
SPEAKER_00: But as I'll talk about later, that's not what he says, right?
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say that in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But that I think even in my own personal life, that's I've struggled with that.
SPEAKER_00: And um, one of the questions that I just wanted maybe to put there is like when you pray or when you're you're thinking about your relationship with the Lord, is it almost like a boss, a judge, a distant God who keeps records, or really truly as a friend?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that invitation of friend is is so human, so yeah, like how we're built, we're wired for friendship.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and I think that's the tension there, father, is like there's this reverence and awe owed to God because he is God and we are not.
SPEAKER_01: But then also he now comes and extends a hand of friendship, which is so friendly to our humanity, but also so uh amazing.
SPEAKER_01: But it's we can kind of get tripped up in it, where we but this is an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_01: I think is he's offering things that we we know how to do this, we know how to be friend, and how do we now extend that to you know Christmas?
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds so beautiful, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I think that many of us were catechized into a transaction, transactional God.
SPEAKER_00: Be good, get to heaven, be bad, you're gonna go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: Um that's not friendship.
SPEAKER_00: It's not this is like almost like a bending machine with eternal consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do think that many Catholics, and it's not the fault of me because I'm in that same list.
SPEAKER_00: It's many Catholics live their entire spiritual life like a ledger.
SPEAKER_00: Did I behave this week?
SPEAKER_00: How many times did I disappoint the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Am I in the black?
SPEAKER_00: Am I in the red?
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And and one of the things I tried to talk about in the hami was notice the order.
SPEAKER_00: Love comes first, then obedience is the result, not the cause.
SPEAKER_00: And and many times uh a scorecard Christian is trying to earn love.
SPEAKER_00: The friend of Christ is trying to return love, and that's the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the stickler, is the scorecard Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And we're not talking about bad people, we're talking about good people, people who love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm what I'm saying is how do we move to a deeper faith, a deeper holiness where it's it is a friendship.
SPEAKER_00: I do what I do and I follow the commandments because I love you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and there's an analogy that I was thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: I I was gonna write this, but I I said, well, maybe I'll keep it for the podcast.
SPEAKER_00: But think about this analogy, all right?
SPEAKER_00: And I think uh it's it's good because it deals with marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you that are listening are married or were married or hope to be married, and I think you can get this point.
SPEAKER_00: But imagine a husband, right?
SPEAKER_00: And this husband doesn't cheat on his wife.
SPEAKER_00: He's a faithful guy, 20 years, never straight.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: the reason this husband doesn't cheat on his wife is because he's afraid.
SPEAKER_00: He's afraid of getting caught, he's afraid of the divorce lawyer, he's afraid of losing the house, he's afraid of losing the kids, afraid of what his mother or his family are gonna think, he's afraid of going to hell.
SPEAKER_00: So every day this husband wakes up and says to himself, Well, you know, today I will not cheat on my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I will white knuckle through this day and I will resist every temptation, I will keep the rule, I will not cheat.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we have is this man faithful?
SPEAKER_00: Well, technically, yes.
SPEAKER_00: He hasn't broken any commandments, but is this love?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where's his heart?
SPEAKER_01: His heart's not there.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: That's I don't think it's love.
SPEAKER_00: That's not even fidelity in any meaningful way.
SPEAKER_00: That's just being a coward.
SPEAKER_00: That man on one bad day, one good-looking co-worker, one weak moment, he's one weak moment from blowing up his marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Because the one thing holding him in place is fear.
SPEAKER_00: And fear is a terrible foundation.
SPEAKER_00: Fear cracks under pressure.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's what I was thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: It's if we love Jesus and we do what we do and we follow the rules, follow the commandments, because out of fear, that's not friendship, that's not love.
SPEAKER_00: Now, picture a second husband, the husband who doesn't cheat, but this husband doesn't cheat because he loves his wife.
SPEAKER_00: He looks across the table at her and thinks, I can never betray her.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to white-knuckle anything.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to resist temptation by force of will because the temptation has no purchase on him.
SPEAKER_00: Why would he want a counterfeit when he has the real thing sitting there?
SPEAKER_00: Why would he trade gold for plastic?
SPEAKER_00: Why he has great respect for what he has, for the union, for the promise that he made.
SPEAKER_00: So, same external behavior, two completely different souls.
SPEAKER_00: The difference between the scorecard Catholic and the friend of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that analogy works.
SPEAKER_01: It does.
SPEAKER_01: It's very striking.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it also calls us to um that friendship requires vulnerability.
SPEAKER_01: It requires the heart.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes in our faith we we can get very good at doing external things, right?
SPEAKER_01: And the inside can be corrupting.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Because we know what we need to do or what the rules are and we follow them, but relationship is vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And it's exposing the the heart.
SPEAKER_01: And I think to really know Jesus, we have to know that like he wants all the good and all the bad and all the ugly.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's the all of us.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just he wants the cookie cutter Christian.
SPEAKER_01: He wants like the heart of people.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And I think people and love don't need a list of rules, and they know that right away.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: They instinctively protect what they love.
SPEAKER_00: They reorder their lives around the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has to tell a new father to stop drinking himself stupid on weekends, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the baby reorders his love.
SPEAKER_00: That love for his family, that love for that newborn, that love for wanting to be a good father.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and one of the things that I I think I mentioned in the homily is that saints didn't keep commandments because they had to.
SPEAKER_00: They kept them because they couldn't help not following it.
SPEAKER_00: Why because of this deep friendship with the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's um, and that's what we're after.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the questions you said in your homily, I think that uh it helped to start thinking about this, which is you said every relationship reveals what it's built on when sacrifice or suffering comes.
SPEAKER_01: And kind of applying that to faith.
SPEAKER_01: Um what happens to our faith life when things become difficult, kind of kind of expose whether there's an actual friendship foundation or not or not.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's very easy when things are going well.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh things are so great.
SPEAKER_00: And and but w the reality is we live in this world, and you two different people are coming together, and there's going to be difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be differences of opinion, uh, whatever it is, but you're going to have hard days, difficult days, beautiful days, but it can't be, oh, I love you only on good days.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that vulnerability, that that surrender, that that desire to say, no, I respect you, I love you, I know you.
SPEAKER_00: This is my life, and this is what I've committed to, where it keeps me faithful because of the love that is in that union.
SPEAKER_00: But it's something that is practiced.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that is recognized and acknowledged on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: Because the moment that you take that for granted, it'll become where it's just automatic and then fear comes into it, or whatever it is, comes into it.
SPEAKER_00: And then that plays a part of how you behave or what your act, how you determine your different actions.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I also what comes to mind is um kind of the question like, do I approach God differently when I'm disappointed, suffer, suffering, or afraid?
SPEAKER_01: Or like, do I approach him differently when I'm when I have fear?
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think that's where we tend to be self-reliant and we don't approach God.
SPEAKER_01: We kind of come to God only when we're perfect, or we feel like we got the scorecard in order to be able to be like, all right, I've earned time with you, Jesus, instead of knowing that it's relationship, which is going to him on the on the greatest day, on the worst day, like because he's friend.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what you would do in a real friendship.
SPEAKER_01: You go to them at all times.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just when you show one side of your face.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's the whole friendship thing is something that is like a muscle that needs to you need to break through to get to that other side.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna happen just automatically.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Father, I think that's kind of like one of the truths I know that started my journey.
SPEAKER_01: Um, like my my initial conversion was in being introduced to having a friendship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Like I kind of thought like it's his, it's God though.
SPEAKER_01: So God doesn't want to do friendship with me.
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, but really being able to understand that like I know friendship.
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm gonna get to know someone, like it's being vulnerable with them, it's being faithful to them, it's getting to know them, it's allowing them to get to know me.
SPEAKER_01: And some of those basic characteristics of friendship actually dramatically changed my understanding of who God was.
SPEAKER_01: Because then I was like, okay, well, if I want to grow in friendship with Jesus, the first thing is I have to spend time with him.
SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, I don't spend time with him.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I you know, I don't.
SPEAKER_01: And I never read, I never read scripture before that.
SPEAKER_01: And some of these basic things I started really growing in my life with Jesus because I was like, okay, well, to be a good friend, I need to spend time with you.
SPEAKER_01: I need to get to know you.
SPEAKER_01: And so I was reading scripture, the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: I went through the whole New Testament because I was like, well, there's a book about your life.
SPEAKER_01: So why don't I read it?
SPEAKER_01: What am I and then begin to be vulnerable with you, share my heart with you, like grow in trust, grow in like all these things that we know of friendship applying them to Jesus because it's a real person.
SPEAKER_01: And I I think that's the game changer.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God can remain as like an idea or like a list of rules that we follow, yeah, but per like person, personhood.
SPEAKER_00: And I think somebody could ask, well, how do I build a relationship with someone I can't see?
SPEAKER_00: And it's a practical question, it's an honest question.
SPEAKER_00: I want to love Jesus, but I can't see him.
SPEAKER_00: Um, how do I do this?
SPEAKER_00: I think that you just said three pillars.
SPEAKER_00: You just outlined three.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people think that we rehearse this, we don't rehearse this, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I people might be scandalized if they saw how we do the spot and be like, what?
SPEAKER_01: But um the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It just reminds me of three pillars that are very important to establishing that friendship with Jesus, and it's time, silence, and scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So time, no friendship survives without it.
SPEAKER_00: Daily, non-negotiable, even 10 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine wanting a friendship with someone and you don't ever show up, you're never there.
SPEAKER_00: That's not going to be a friendship.
SPEAKER_00: And then the other one is silence.
SPEAKER_00: This is I think that this is the hardest part of a relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's and I and I remember Mother Teresa said that God is the friend of silence.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We don't go to the best friend's house and talk the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we just sit and and have you ever been with a friend or even maybe your spouse, where you're just being just sitting there.
SPEAKER_00: They're not even saying anything.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like this comfortable silence.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're not comfortable or you're not good friends, or you're it's an awkward, even a good relationship, maybe in the beginning or something, you want to fill the space.
SPEAKER_00: You want to talk, you want to do especially if you're in the car.
SPEAKER_00: Especially in the car.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like, are they think they don't want to talk to me, or they don't want to start kind of like that?
SPEAKER_00: But what does deep friendship look like?
SPEAKER_01: It's trust, it's vulnerable trust and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Peace, ease, and and the coolness of just being, where you can just sit there and not say anything at all, and you know that you are in the company of someone that loves you, supports you, and and that's friendship, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so time, silence, and then scripture as a love letter.
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the best things, and I this is something that I try to do often is Lexio Divino.
SPEAKER_00: Pick a favorite scripture piece that maybe you know well or but go through it.
SPEAKER_00: Pretend that you're sitting there.
SPEAKER_00: One of the my favorites is where Jesus takes a scripture passage from Isaiah and he reads it.
SPEAKER_00: I picture myself inside that synagogue and I'm watching him read that to me.
SPEAKER_00: Lexia Divina is a great, great way of doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it's just being able to say, well, what is what is Jesus saying to me in this verse today?
SPEAKER_00: Because I think that the trap is vending machine prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I need this, Lord, fix this, Lord, can you do this?
SPEAKER_00: And that's not friendship.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's give me, gimme, gimme, gimme.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's customer service.
SPEAKER_00: It's and hey, and I've been guilty of this.
SPEAKER_00: So it's something that it takes a lot of practice and a lot of prayer time and just struggling with being there in the presence of the Lord and feeling sometimes empty or sometimes not even in the mood, but just doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you show up, you show up with friends, and that's how it works.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I remember um kind of realizing this with friendship, and something that helped me commit to a life of prayer more, more concretely was realizing how many books I've read about like celebrities or people that I would admire, and then how excited I would get.
SPEAKER_01: And like, oh my gosh, if I ever met them, like I would know about their life, I'd be so excited.
SPEAKER_01: Like I'd remove my whole schedule around.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking about this when I was struggling with prayer, and I'm like, but Jesus, like you are even better.
SPEAKER_01: Like, and so how do I how do I do that in my head in my heart, knowing that you're a real person and like you're you're greater than any, any celebrity?
SPEAKER_01: Like, think about the person.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, if I knew this person, then my problems would be solved in my life, which you know it's not true.
SPEAKER_01: But but we kind of think about, you know, if only I knew this person, or if only these, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is that.
SPEAKER_01: And like if I can really draw into deep friendship with him, like he would answer all the questions of my heart of my life.
SPEAKER_00: You're so funny because I can never picture you liking any celebrity.
SPEAKER_01: DC Days.
SPEAKER_01: Beginning of my conver it's funny at the beginning of my of my conversion, really.
SPEAKER_01: It was um it was realizing how much time I was spending doing other things for other people.
SPEAKER_01: But like, gosh, when I realized that Jesus was Jesus and wanted to be my friend, it was like, it was like a switch.
SPEAKER_01: I had to like look at all these other things and be like, but he is the one.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's the one.
SPEAKER_01: And do I change my schedule to meet him every day?
SPEAKER_01: And it was a kick in the butt because I I didn't.
SPEAKER_01: I was lazy in my spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I thought it could just, it should just happen naturally or something.
SPEAKER_01: But but applying those characteristics of friendship changed everything for me.
SPEAKER_01: And it still does.
SPEAKER_01: I go back to those basics.
SPEAKER_01: If I feel like I'm struggling, I kind of go back to basics of like, okay, like, am I spending time with the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Am I offering my heart vulnerably?
SPEAKER_01: Am I, you know, giving him my heart and also asking him to share his with me in return?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and again, it I think it goes back to being disciplined and even in that silence.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I I mentioned this earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Silence, I think, is one of the hardest things for modern people in our society right now because we've erased silence from our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We get, we we wake up, what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: We we reach for the phone, we drive with our radios on.
SPEAKER_00: It's just constant having noise in the background.
SPEAKER_00: We work with music on, we eat with the TV on, we fall asleep with a podcast on.
SPEAKER_00: And um so I I think that we are a distracted generation, and distracted souls do not hear God, period.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And silence is something that it takes kind of like practice at first.
SPEAKER_01: Like you have to like silence yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and I I've, you know, having that as part of my my spiritual life, having you know, silence with in prayer and then just making sure that's done an element to my life.
SPEAKER_01: Um I I realized how much as I've grown in relationship with Jesus and learn friendship from him, that I'm able to offer it to others so much more clearly.
SPEAKER_01: I'm able to be with other people, you know.
SPEAKER_01: So like Jesus gives us a model of friendship, but then it also changes all of our other relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Like we have the capacity now to actually like be good, be friends and be present and be available and not be so distracted and like have that space of even silence and friendship, like you were talking.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's so powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And then again, just scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about Saint Jerome, that famous saying that he says is ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you don't know the word, you don't know the word made flesh, they are the same person, right?
SPEAKER_00: I would just say take 10 minutes, any passage, just one, there some just a very some few verses.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to read the whole Bible, and I think that that's how people quit because they they want to do these uh God get this monstrosity, you know, like these huge feats.
SPEAKER_00: No, just start always small, start small.
SPEAKER_00: And um Lord, what are you trying to tell me in this text today?
SPEAKER_00: And then um the one of the other points that I was trying to talk about is that the most important point, I think, in this how do we build a relationship with Someone who's invisible, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I was trying to drive the point home of the Eucharist is the answer to invincibility or invisibility, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus solves the visibility problem himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's not absent, he's veiled, and the veil is the bread.
SPEAKER_00: Um I I would love to ask people, do you feel alone at Mass?
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a good question to ask people.
SPEAKER_00: Because if the answer is yes, the problem is not that Jesus isn't there, the problem is that we never learned how to look.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the Eucharist is not a thing, the Eucharist is a person, a friend who is there waiting for us.
SPEAKER_00: Um I remember a story by uh, and I think I learned this in the seminary, but by Flannery or uh Flannery O'Connor, the famous line at a dinner party when someone called the Eucharist a beautiful symbol, she shot back and said, Well, if it's a symbol to hell with it.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's a Catholic conviction, real presence or nothing.
SPEAKER_00: It is it it this is if this this has to be either Jesus or it's not Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Either it is or it isn't, right?
SPEAKER_00: And um another story that I love is from uh St.
SPEAKER_00: John Bienni, the cure of ours.
SPEAKER_00: He said that there's this old farmer sitting silently at church, he would come every day for hours, every single day.
SPEAKER_00: And and he asked him one day to, you know, he said, Oh, you're coming every day, and you just sit here and uh what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: And and you're just staring there at the monstrance.
SPEAKER_00: And the farmer said, I look at him, he looks at me.
SPEAKER_01: So simple.
SPEAKER_00: It's so simple.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole of the spiritual life right there in one sentence, right?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think with the Eucharist too, I like you're mentioning, it's it's um Jesus knows what we need.
SPEAKER_01: And so he left us this gift to be able to and like come and be in his presence at any time.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And I really, I really love that and found that so helpful um at different moments of my journey when I have that feeling of like God being distant, knowing that he's not distant, but feeling like he is.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I love it because that's when I go to adoration and I'm like, well, here you are, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't leave, you know, and being able to give him my heart and know that there's a place where I can go.
SPEAKER_01: And even if I don't feel anything, like I know the fact that like Jesus is with me and is in front of me and here.
SPEAKER_01: And he does that for those days, for those hard days, to be able to go and um be available to me like this.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's just like what a friend, like what a uh what a best friend to be so intentional, um, to be present in that way.
SPEAKER_00: And again, it what something I've been trying to drive home uh at least past couple weeks is is the real presence of Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: And if we think about Ignatius of Antioch, it's around the year, I don't know, year a hundred, but on his way to be martyred to Rome, Ignatius writes to his community warning them about heretics who abstain from the Eucharist because they don't confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Within 70 years of Jesus' resurrection, the real presence was already the dividing line between orthodoxy and heresy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, anyone who tells you that the real presence was medieval, a medieval invention, has not really read the Church Fathers.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's that from the very beginning, the real presence, the real friendship, the real God who loves you and desires a relationship with you is there, physical presence.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it goes back to that promise.
SPEAKER_00: I will be with you always.
SPEAKER_00: I will send you the advocate.
SPEAKER_00: You will never be orphaned.
SPEAKER_00: And that's powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And I I think that that's why the Eucharist is is fundamental to us understanding our relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think there's such an invitation to go and spend time with Jesus in the Eucharist, and it's um it's something that deepens with time spent.
SPEAKER_01: And I love um the example you gave of like the farmer going and be like, I look at him and he looks at me.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, if we feel like we can't touch Jesus or we're not able to access him, the Eucharist is a way in which he's there waiting for us always to come and encounter him in his presence and be with him, like friends, just be and sit with him sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I think the struggle is that if or or I I think that if we do struggle, pray to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The forgotten person, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um because I really do feel that the Holy Spirit is is gonna be the one to fulfill that promise that we're not orphans, we're not abandoned, we're we're not fighting this one out alone.
SPEAKER_00: The third person of the Trinity is closer, is closer to you than your own breath.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: And and that's the Easter promise.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus loving us so much and saying, I know that you're afraid right now, I know that these words that I'm telling you, that I will be leaving you, that it's it's really shaking your world because outside these doors, there's people that just want to destroy me and to destroy you.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you all of this so that when it happens, you know why this is happening.
SPEAKER_00: And so imagine sitting there and listening to all this, and and fear just comes to you.
SPEAKER_00: And then he's saying, But please don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: I love you so much that I am never ever gonna leave you alone.
SPEAKER_00: I will be with you always, but I won't, I will send an advocate, I will send the Holy Spirit to be with you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I love the Acts of the Apostles, and we've been reading about the Acts every day at Daily Mass and during this Easter season, but you see that the the early church already understood this.
SPEAKER_00: Philip reaches, Samaria, Peter, and John come down specifically to lay hands on the Samaritans so that they can receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit is not a bonus feature, the spirit is the indwelling of a friend.
SPEAKER_00: And and the early church understood this.
SPEAKER_00: And so, does it get lost in translation all of these years later?
SPEAKER_00: I think it does in a good way and a bad way.
SPEAKER_00: I think that not because we're bad or we're doing something wrong, but it's just we gotta retrain the brain, rewire our brain to say it's about love.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's like Saint Therese, uh, the little flower said, My vocation is to love.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's and I want to just call our attention.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be a scorecard Christian, don't be a scorecard Catholic, where I do things to please God because of fear.
SPEAKER_00: That's not it.
SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be, I love you so much.
SPEAKER_00: I desire you so much.
SPEAKER_00: I I desire to be never to be separated from your love.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I will do this.
SPEAKER_00: It comes easy to me, right?
SPEAKER_00: It comes easy to follow the commandments, to be a good person, to love my wife, to love my children, to respond differently, to be kind and to do all these beautiful Christian things, but I do it, why be first because I love Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then everything else flows out of it, right?
SPEAKER_00: And some of the things that we've been talking about this week, uh even uh from today's gospel, is that it it just when we receive the gospel, when we open our minds and our hearts to receive it, it flows outward to the other.
SPEAKER_00: That's love.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: The same love that he's saying, I want because here's the thing, if if our relationship with Jesus wasn't about friendship, then how could we understand that we must be that outward love to someone else?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's it's hard to be able, if he's not, he's the one that models it for us.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that he does, he comes to do the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: But everything that he does is so that we imitate him in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how we should live.
SPEAKER_01: That's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: So, Father, maybe as we kind of wrap up our time, um, what would be some encouragement for maybe someone that's listening thinking, like, man, I I usually just do things for Jesus, but I don't spend time with him?
SPEAKER_01: Or, or maybe they're they feel like they're the scorecard, or they um so what are some encouragement?
SPEAKER_01: But then also maybe what are some things to do when you catch yourself doing scorecard things?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: What would be some things to kind of make that switch back to relationship, back to friendship?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what I would say is go back to those three pillars that we started with.
SPEAKER_00: I would say time.
SPEAKER_00: Spend time with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: No friendship, no friendship in history or the human race has ever survived without time.
SPEAKER_00: If you stop calling your best friend for a year, you're not gonna have a best friend anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You stop seeing your spouse for a year, you're not gonna have a marriage anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Time is the soil which every relationship either grows or dies.
SPEAKER_00: So I think that go to time.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to spend time with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second pillar, I would say silence.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the hardest.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the hardest one.
SPEAKER_00: Be still, be quiet, let him look at you and let yourself look at him.
SPEAKER_00: That alone is prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And then third is scripture.
SPEAKER_00: We gotta be better.
SPEAKER_00: We let our Protestant brothers and sisters lap us on this one for a very long time.
SPEAKER_00: But the church has always taught, even from Vatican II, that the word of God is the scripture, it's the living voice.
SPEAKER_00: When you read the Bible, Jesus is speaking to you right now, today, personally.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I would say spend 10 minutes just dedicating your time on scripture.
SPEAKER_00: So time, silence, scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Go there, start there.
SPEAKER_00: Baby steps, don't go crazy, because if we go crazy, then you end up doing nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And then you start seeing your faith as a burden.
SPEAKER_00: No, faith has to be joyful, has to be beautiful, has to be something that you enjoy and love because the friendship that he's calling you to draws you to a deeper place, a deeper relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And then hopefully it pours out into how you treat others and how you evangelize in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: So thank you all for joining us today.
SPEAKER_01: Um, please feel free to share this message with others that might need to have an encouragement from it.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, we hope to see you next week.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Father.
SPEAKER_00: All right, Michelle.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks a lot.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week.
SPEAKER_00: Take care.