John Beaulieu - Life in the Spirit: Part 2 of 3 (2021 Priests, Deacons, Seminarian's Retreat)

[Music] [Music] i hope everyone's having a good day i hope everyone had a good afternoon it was nice maybe to get a little down time right just uh okay let's show of hands let's do a quick poll how many uh took some extra time to pray how many took a nap how many took a walk just enjoy i mean like seriously this is like one of the seven days where the sun shines there's no clouds in the sky that we get every year so you were here at the right day god has blessed us with some wonderful weather because we didn't have much of a spring this year it seemed like it was like 40 degrees every day and all of a sudden it was like 80 degrees and have it go back down to the 70s and not be too humid true a true blessing and have such a sunny day god is so good and so um we're just going to enter in uh this is the second session of the life of the spirit it's life in the spirit uh you know yesterday i talked about it being this this all-encompassing experience it's not just a one-off kind of retreat or a seminar that we go through and can check the box saying okay did that receive that grace what's next what else you got for me truly life in the spirit is the gift that god has given each one of us and has given the church to animate all that we do from our evangelistic work to our transformation to becoming more like jesus uh but today i do want to talk about baptism in the holy spirit and then at the end we're going to take some time just to uh surrender and empty ourselves you know saint mother teresa and i think i might have shared this yesterday one of my favorite saints where is god can only fill that which is empty so if we want to receive more grace the question is what are we letting go of what is in us that needs to go so there's more space within us and not only that but but to ask the lord to expand the capacity of our hearts to receive him and i think god wants to come very near to us in a very intimate way and breathe his life into us to restore and to renew and refresh our spirits but our cooperation with that movement is absolutely essential as it is with the grace of any sacrament as i said yesterday life in the spirit has its roots everything flows from our baptism so what we are asking for is a renewal and also a new effusion a new outpouring of the grace of our baptism as we move forward together and we're really blessed today because john paul is here everyone's waving john paul he's behind the piano he's this is a man of many many talents he plays the guitar he plays the piano i've even seen him play the radio in his card he's pretty good at that so uh we're lucky to have him with us this afternoon he's going to lead us in a song of just bringing our hearts our focus back upon the lord and his spirit so why don't we all stand together and just spend a few minutes worshiping the lord and giving and putting ourselves in the lord's presence jesus we praise you we bless you jesus we praise your holy name jesus thank you for your presence we ask you to please bless this time together send your holy spirit down in a powerful way holy spirit you are welcome here i want to follow you with all my heart i worship you god i want to follow i want to follow you with all my heart i worship you god i wanna follow you with all my heart i worship you god i want to follow you with all my heart i worship you god we have come we have come to give you glory we have come to give you praise we have come to give you glory lord [Music] we you're welcome you're welcome in this place you're welcome in this place in this place jesus you're welcome in this place you welcome me to this place you're welcome in this place have your way have your way have your way have your way [Music] with our hearts lord have your way have your way have your way and bless the lord and bless the lord o my soul and let all that's within me shout out shout out and bless the lord o my soul and let all that's within me shout out shout out and bless the lord o my soul and let all that's within me shout out shout out bless the lord o my soul and let all that's within me shout out shout out and have your way have your way have your way [Music] have you [Music] thank you lord god i just want to invite us you know to sing a song together is one thing but i love the the psalm where where david cries out let's sing a new song to the lord i think one of the gifts that the spirit gives us is the ability to worship god from the heart and it's only when we can let go of what might be blocking us in our minds and just be free as children to adore and praise god that the spirit is continually released in a deeper way in our lives i believe that through this experience of this time together the lord wants to put a new song in our hearts a song that no one's ever sung before because it's your song given to you by the spirit to honor and glorify god to worship him from a depth of spirit from from deep within and so john paul's just going to continue to play for the next couple of minutes i'm just going to invite you as the spirit leads you you can either say it or sing it however you want to do it just to speak the praise that's in your heart to god to not be afraid not to be worried about am i saying it right am i singing it right do i have a good enough voice to sing like this for god you know one of the gifts of the spirit that i think was misinterpreted in our church through the 70s 80s and even up to now is a lot of people have learned to sing without moving their lips which is pretty amazing but i like old school singing where we actually open our mouths and noise comes out and even if it's off key the lord delights in it if you're like i'm ashamed of my voice i don't sing the best you know what it doesn't matter because if you don't if god doesn't like it he'll change it all right miraculously make you sound like pavarotti or something like but for now he delights in it he's just happy to hear you sing from the heart so we're just going to ask john john paul to say have seen that have your way again and we'll just break into some spontaneous words of love for our lord whatever the spirit puts on your heart it's come holy spirit let us sing a new song unto the lord praise to you lord jesus glory to your holy name lord your god we want to sing a song for you lord have your way have your way we give you our hearts lord [Music] come holy spirit we love you come holy spirit we adore you jesus we praise you we glorify you we love you lord have your way we love you jesus praise to you lord god our king we give you our hearts lord praise your mighty name lord jesus christ jesus jesus we love you jesus [Music] [Music] we love you jesus i love you lord my god and king i give you my heart of praise all the praise and glory let's do your name o lord we sing out our hearts to you o lord we love you jesus holy is your name lord god praise your mighty name holy is your name o lord thank you jesus holy is your name o lord thank you jesus thank you lord god we praise we worship and exalt you jesus we love you lord god just tell the lord you love him we love you jesus we welcome you holy spirit to fall upon us now have your way spirit you are the master you want to form the interior man you want to strengthen us to enter man you want to pour into us boldness and courage confidence in who you are a new sense of hope a new sense of trust a deeper faith to believe in the miracles that you want to do in us and through us we say yes to all of this holy spirit have your way thank you jesus we praise you and together we pray all glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end amen amen thank you all righty anyone here from chicago or have ever lived in the chicago area all righty people from chicago love chicago in a way that people who aren't from chicago don't understand i have a cousin that lives in chicago i love going down to uh you know the up and down uh i grew up in upper michigan so i grew up half an hour from lake superior half an hour from lake michigan and so the great lakes are an important part of my life i love going back up there i'm leaving on the 29th to spend a week with my dad my brothers and my sister up there vacationing my grandmother when she passed away left us the house that she grew up in she remodeled it fixed it up made it like a little summer home and it's right on the the bay in grand marais michigan in a little village of 400 people has a gas station a hardware store a grocery store and a craft brewery that makes the most amazing blueberry wheat beer because they use fresh blueberries that grow up in the upper upper peninsula so i'm going to eat white fish and pasties for a week and drink a lot of blueberry wheat beer with my family and just enjoy the beauty of god but for people from chicago you know like you got to get your classic chicago hot dog your chicago deep dish pizza there's food everywhere but for me you know when when i think about chicago i think about the the year uh 1871 does anyone remember what happened in 1871 i'm looking at you guys from chicago yes the great chicago fire what's interesting about the great chicago fire is that it started you know if everyone knows that the uh the the chicago river flows down through the the middle of the city and at the time in 1871 the the the river would turn and flow into lake michigan but this river was also where all the slaughter houses were it was also the river in which most people dumped their their waste and so in around the late 1800s the chicago river was really nothing more than a boggy you know flow of slow-moving bog of sewage i've actually seen pictures of ducks standing on the surface of the river and they called it the stinky river because it was so bad when the fire broke out it broke out on the lakeside but it spread because the surface of the river actually caught on fire because of all the fat and waste and disgusting stuff that was in the river and it spread to the rest of the city even after 10 years after the chicago fire was had had burned itself out you know and they had rebuilt and so much you know there was nearly a hundred thousand people had died from illnesses carried by the diseases in the river and they were even considering what to do with the city there was there was talk of even shutting down the entire city maybe even moving it away because it wasn't sustainable because the river was flowing with all the sewage into lake michigan right and that was where the intake for all the water supply from the city was coming from so all the sewage was flowing from where they were drawing the water that they were supposed to live off of and it was polluted and diseased and filthy and putrid and it could have been the end of the city until an amazing group of engineers came up with a plan and they built a number of dams and locks on the part of the river that connected the river to lake michigan and actually changed the flow so that now water would be flowing into the river but where was it going to flow well they built a 28-mile canal from the downtown chicago down to the des plaines river that then flows into the illinois river and then into the mississippi and then down to the gulf of mexico they literally changed the flow of of of that river in order to save the city i mean they it took years and years to build they they moved tons and tons it was at the time was the largest engineering feat done in the country and they did it all because they had to reverse the flow they had to save the city and when they were done fresh water was flowing in and cleaning out all the sewage they also put in new restrictions on what could be dumped in the water they did a an amazing job turning the whole city around and now it's it's the magnificent city that we know that it is and when i read this story online you know like i was very fascinated by it and it reminded me of ezekiel 47 chapter 47 where the lord comes to ezekiel and he shows him this image of water flowing from the temple and this is what the lord says to ezekiel he says son of man have you seen this and he led him to the banks of the river he said the water flows towards the eastern region and goes down into arabah and when it enters the stagnant waters of the sea the water will become fresh and wherever the river goes every little every living creature which swarms will live and there will be very many fish for this water goes there that the waters of the sea may become fresh so everything will live where the river goes and this is where i what i really think like when we talk about baptism of the holy spirit you know we are constantly bombarded by a world that's under the control of an enemy that what seeks to steal kill and destroy destroy your relationship with christ kill your joy rob you of your sense of purpose to constantly discourage you and hold you down and and god wants to reverse that flow in each one of our lives you know that that grace of the baptism needs to be joined by a new flow to move our hearts to take what is dead in us and make it come alive so that wherever the spirit enters into us and touches becomes alive and produces fruit and not only for us but for the people that we serve for those of you who are priests of your priestly ministry for those of you who are deacons to your ministry as a deacon for those of you who are in seminary who are preparing to be priests this is what it all is all about is allowing this flow of grace to flow in you and through you has come you know the simple belief that i've come to learn through my own faults and my own foibles in ministry is ministry is not nothing more than the overflow of what you first let the lord do in your own life and if you are generous in the way you let the lord work in you you will have an abundance of grace to overflow in the lives of those that you serve and so the call for us as much as it is to go forth is to yield to let god first have his way in us so that then he can do his will through us and when we talk about baptism in the holy spirit that's exactly what we're referring to that yielding that allowing that that spring of grace that was poured into us at baptism the graces that we got through confirmation the graces that we've received through every eucharist we've ever celebrated and been a part of to well up in us to for to change the flow of who we are to bring life to this world you know the term baptism in the holy spirit is controversial because a lot of people say well we have baptism it's a sacrament it's one of the big seven it's the one that takes you from being a pink little pagan as a baby and makes you a child of god it does everything that you need to have happen it gives you this outpouring of grace this sanctifying grace this this dynamic always with you grace that is there to sanctify and you make make you like the lord jesus christ so why is it necessary for us to talk about baptism in the holy spirit as another thing it confuses people is there another expression we can use i would i would propose that we don't need to look for another expression to talk about what we mean when we say baptism holy spirit but look at the words of scripture and what have been affirmed by different saints and popes throughout our time jesus starts talking about the coming of the holy spirit in luke chapter 12 verse 49 when he says i've come to cast fire upon the earth and i wish that it were already kindled even as jesus thinks about his work as redeemer he knows that his work is completed with the coming of the holy spirit that the final phase of our our kind of our religion and religion is a word in the latin just means to you know the ligament the connector that's why the lig in religion is the same lig that we use when we talk about the ligaments that connect our muscles to our bones the last part of our reconnection to god the last part of our religion is god's spirit then being manifested and poured into our hearts in a dynamic way not resting upon us like it did in the old testament but indwelling of the holy spirit and jesus sees this as casting fire in acts chapter 1 some of the last words he says to his apostles before he ascends is he says while meeting with them he enjoined them not to depart from jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the father about which you've heard me speak for john baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the holy spirit so baptism in the holy spirit is a biblical phrase that signifies this coming of the holy spirit upon us and and he and he goes he completes his thoughts when he says but you will receive power when the holy spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in jerusalem through judea and samaria and to the ends of the earth and have we not seen the fulfillment of these words the church is everywhere the universal presence of the church preaching the gospel to all nations it's funny because like he says in matthew 28 go but before you go you got to wait and doesn't that seem like they're they're we're in this constant tension between okay i've got to go there's things to do there's work to be done but i got to wait upon the lord this waiting upon the lord is so vital for we have to be equipped and empowered before we can go we need to receive saint john the 23rd in in in the launching vatican ii said renew your wonders in our timeless through a new pentecost his prayer for the church was there would be a new pentecost a new outpouring of the holy spirit upon the church and we saw this spring up where you know we're you know we're we're literally an hour from what is considered and is got ground zero for the charismatic renewal of the catholic church in america the ark and dove and if you haven't had ever you've never had a chance to visit the arkan dove i highly recommend you go there and if you have an extra hour or two on friday you know before you have to drive home and if you can make the trip go there and just there's a there's a special spirit that's upon that place and some of the priests who are here from the the diocese of pittsburgh will tell you that it is their go-to place for refreshment renewal and retreat and this this this renewal this renewal that started there spread across the country now there are millions of people who've been who've received baptism in the holy spirit and are living out their life in the spirit in a more dynamic way because of it saint john paul the second in looking at the renewal you know he had the ability to to see it from its infancy and his formation and into the 80s and into the 90s this is what he said he said the institutional and charismatic aspects are co-essential as it were to the church's constitution it is from this providential rediscovery of the church's charismatic dimension that before and after the council a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements and new communities it's so amazing that you know like i love how he says this the institutional the sacramental life of the church it's like one lung that needs to be breathing deeply we need to be going to the to the sacrament of reconciliation we need the eucharist we need our ongoing rootedness in the sacraments of the church but there's also this charismatic along that needs to be breathing deeply with so for the human to be you know 100 healthy we need two healthy lungs for the church to be healthy we need two healthy lungs one breathing deeply of the institutional grace and those channels and another breathing as the spirit wills and and as he graciously provides this grace we receive it and i love what he says he goes it's a providential rediscovery it wasn't an invention it wasn't a watering down of pure catholicism it was a rediscovery of a pattern of living that was first lived out by the early apostles and the acts of the apostles and it's not been it's not like it happened ended with the acts of apostles and was rediscovered in the in the late 60s early 70s there had been many times of great renewal there were times when the monks would record that they would be chanting their prayers and at the end of the the formal chant the written chance that they would pray together they would continue to chant in tongues as the spirit was moving through them that their their their communal prayer led to communal praying in tongues in a very beautiful way and this was springing forth in different religious communities across the world at different times but i think it really came to life you know for for us in this modern day because the lord knew that we would need special graces to meet the challenges that we're facing right now as individuals trying to live pure holy lives in an impure unholy world and to lead and build and renew a church that has suffered from internal decay and external attack there's no doubt that our enemy is strong when 70 of catholics claim don't don't have a clear understanding that they don't believe that jesus is truly present in the eucharist that's that's diabolical deception that scales over the eyes kind of stuff you know that that's a uh you know a falling down of the lies of the enemy that blinded people to see who jesus truly is could you imagine if every baptized catholic had an encounter with jesus christ where they understood that in that tiny white host was every was the fulfillment of every one of their hopes and dreams and they built their life upon the worship and reception of that and everything else in their life became secondary to that singular pursuit of loving jesus in the blessed sacrament what would our church look like if that was the case i believe i'm i'm i'm a i'm totally optimistic you know that god is going to do something amazing that the best days of the church are not behind us you know god did not lead us this far to say okay guys i'm sorry it's the graces run out blast went out the door turned the lights off all right it's been fun we've had a good run let's let's let's fold up our tents and go home now i believe that the lord is still going to work in power and i think his grace and power are going to be revealed even more so as we courageously and bravely say yes to the power of the holy spirit to meet the challenges that rise before us that rise before us like the giant rose goliath rose before david and david had to listen to them jeer and taunt and run down god and run down him but in the end there was one person standing there holding the head of the other for all to see that's pretty ba you'll be like ah i yeah you think you you're god you're gonna you're gonna run me down you think you're big my god it's bigger and the beautiful thing about this life and the spirit this baptism and spirit is we don't have to be strong we just have to put our faith in a god that is ultimately strong pope benedict xvi he said in effect jesus's whole mission was aimed at giving the spirit of god to men and baptizing them in this bath of regeneration and i love that because you know when when we look at the completion of jesus's work as savior in his humanity and he dies upon the cross and he says it is finished it is the work of of the lamb of god but he said look i'm not done yet i'm going to send you a advocate i'm going to send you this power you will receive power when the advocate comes you will be transformed when the advocate comes peter will become the rock everything that i said will happen will happen the promises that you know that the call i've put on your life all the grace that you need to fulfill it will be given to you do not doubt but wait and believe and this was on the the regina celia of pope benedict xvi in may of 2018 and he concluded his comments to the audience to say saying these words today i would like to extend the invitation to all let us rediscover your dear brothers and sisters the beauty of being baptized in the holy spirit once again we hear that word rediscover let's rediscover let's let's find this treasure that's laid hidden you know it's kind of like all right we're kind of like the bumbling nazis in indiana jones we've come across the ark of the covenant do we dare open it you know i mean like we've we've rediscovered this amazing power it stands before us do we have the courage to open our hearts and let it flood our lives you know to penetrate us you know if you've seen that movie indiana jones you know where they open up the ark of the covenant and light starts shooting out you know it's pretty pretty graphic but you see this light flying into people and they're like wow you know it ends very badly for them but it ends very well for us this baptism in the holy spirit but i love that he says let us rediscover the beauty of being baptized in the holy spirit he then he goes let us recover so he says let us rediscover and let us recover awareness of our baptism and confirmation has anyone ever seen the movie sixth sense with bruce willis he's dead the whole movie i'm sorry if i just gave it away if you haven't seen it yet you deserve to have it spoiled for you i'm sorry um but that's the way most catholics live you know it's like you're you're i'm sure this is even more so for you as you're dispensing communion i see dead people they just don't know they're dead you know like their their faith has not been activated it's like we have this brand of zombie catholic that shuffle through the motions out of habit that the lord is looking at and saying no no i want you to recover eucharistic amazement i want you to recover this idea that you're a child of god i want you to rediscover that there's a strength given to you in your baptism and confirmation for you to change the world i want the whole church to have this i want everyone on fire i wish that you were already rekindled but it hasn't happened because of the normal flow of human events we should receive these sacraments as children and then we should have this grace fostered and nurtured and built up in us and we we will be taught well and prayed well with our parents but that's just not the experience of most catholics the domestic church is in decay yesterday morning i wasn't with you because i was just like 15 minutes down the road is catholic family land and there's like 750 people family members there celebrating the eucharist and i i spoke with them about the need for prayer but you know but i see these catholic families they're looking to they're struggling to strive to find their identity and maintain it after i got done speaking i talked to a woman her greatest ache right now in her life and it's deep a deep deep wound is her daughter just she just completed a doctorate in transitional sexual identity she now identifies wants to be called they are them not a he or she i'm a they and has rejected everything about the catholic faith she won't come and have dinner with her family if they're serving meat because she thinks eating meat is cruel and that's her line of morality abortion absolutely gotta have lots of abortion but to eat a meat to put meat on your table is sin you know in her mind you talk about the blindness of of the enemy and his ability to deceive and pull souls into hell here on earth we have people who probably are more like mary magdalene than the mother of god more mary magdalens running around men and women who are just under the influence of pure evil blinded by it and what we need is a church in in an imitation of our lord and savior that can cast out blindness that can open the eyes of the blind who are working on that level of power pope francis himself you know he's been very challenging to the charismatic renewal because he says it's not good enough to just have a renewal if the renewal is not at the service of the church and if the renewal is not about helping other people discover this gift then it's not really a renewal and at the gathering of all the different uh ecclesial bodies and movements of the church that that operate in the power of the holy spirit and their leaders he said you the charismatic renewal have received a great gift from the lord your movement's birth was willed by the holy spirit to be a current of grace in the church and for the church this is the thing you know if you're going to be given this great gift of the holy spirit it's not for you you know it says in first corinthians chapter 12 every gift is given to one for the benefit of another like we get gifts from the lord not so we can say oh look what i got from the lord he loves me i'm special you know we're being activated to use those gifts to serve and he goes on to say he goes what is the very first gift of the holy spirit it's the gift of himself the one who is love and makes us fall in love with jesus and that love changes our lives that's why we speak of being born again in the spirit he finishes concluding his remarks by saying i expect you to share with everyone in the church the grace of baptism in the holy spirit so once again we need to understand that baptism holy spirit is an experience that has been given to the church to release and strengthen the effects of baptism and confirmation in our lives it is a current of grace that transforms the human heart and forms the church and when we look at the theology of our sacraments we can also see a very clear understanding of why baptism in the holy spirit is so important in the catechism in article 1302 it says it is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of confirmation is the special outpouring of the holy spirit as once granted to the apostles of the day of pentecost that's great well what happened on the day of pentecost the room that they were in was filled with wind tongues of flame descended from heaven they stepped outside proclaimed the gospel peter stepped up gave his first homily 3 000 people entered into the church became believers they were speaking in tongues there were all these signs and wonders and conversion was happening because the spirit was moving in such great power i wonder if we've ever seen a confirmation ceremony at our churches that look even similar to that in any way shape or form but the same grace the same power that was poured out in the church on the day of pentecost is what comes down and fills and is stirred up in the hearts of every young person but that needs to be fostered that needs to be there needs to be a personal response to that grace because we know that the sacraments are not magic dispensing the sacraments you're not a magician you're offering a gift that gift needs to be received that gift needs to be unwrapped that gift needs to be used by every baptized catholic so that he can become all that god made them to be and if they choose to reject or not respond either through sin or through negligence we know that that's that sacrament doesn't have its full effect it says in 1127 in the catechism it says celebrated worthily in faith the sacraments confer the grace that they signify as fire transforms its into itself everything it touches so the holy spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to its power and i would also add he will transform whoever subjects themselves to his power puts themselves humbly beneath the power of the spirit overshadowed as it were an imitation of our blessed mother that's that's not a posture that you enter into casually to put yourself under the power of the holy spirit to put him to be subject to his power is an act of the will the deepest parts of our heart need to be activated as we pursue the holy spirit and most people are not there most people are not aware have never maybe never received the catechesis of needing to personally respond with a heartfelt yes we know that there's two parts to every sacrament god's part in our part god's part is opus operon tomb the promise that god says that when you pray when you administer this sacrament in a illicit and valid way no matter what it is the grace is there so that's that's a great relief for those of you who are priests right you may not be right 100 right with the lord but every time that you get up and say the prayers in a valid and illicit way and dispense the sacrament of records of a sacrament of communion or reconciliation whatever marry somebody grace is present because god that's god's part you're god's instrument to bring that grace but the other part which is just as important to the to the to the life of the church and the in the to make these sacraments come alive is the opus operontis the person receiving their part that's why we're in the proper state of mind a proper state of receptivity a proper state of the soul namely free from mortal sin our hearts and minds attuned to god a will desirous of what god desires to give us in that sacrament and when we line up who we are with what is happening in front of us amazing things happen when i was baptized in the holy spirit the the most important thing that happened to me was the mass came alive if i had a dollar for every mass i received in in such an ill state and i'd be a rich person the first 18 years of my life going to mass tuned out unaware that there was a mystery a heavenly banquet taking place that if i had the eyes of faith i would have seen the saints and angels praising god around the altar you know if we have these eyes of faith to see everything that's contained in the mystery of the holy sacrifice of the mass so when it comes to baptism and confirmation what is the operon piece what is our part well number one it's faith we have to believe we have to say yes to that a faith that isn't just okay as a concept but i'm moving my heart like saying okay god i believe and i want what you have that faith that becomes receptivity i hunger for what hap is happening there i want this the third thing is we need to have a repentance of our sins right we can't let sin sin is the only thing our choice not to let not to go to confession can block god god is such a respecter and lover of us that his free will for him is everything he doesn't knock down the door he knocks on the door he waits for us to open it to to to enter in by invitation only there's a door uh you know in your heart and it only opens from the inside and god will never kick it down and it's our surrender to that and that's the hardest part just letting go doing a trust fall into the arms of god and saying spirit have your way and believing that our god is going to do something in us that that will blow us away that will make us more of what we were created to be and we must be willing to respond in the bible there's there's many different ways that people receive baptism in the holy spirit and that's one of one of the things i want to make very clear as i wrap things up because we're going to turn our hearts to prayer here in a second is that there's no algorithm for this there's no formal process by which people receive this this is the spirit's work you know i've prayed with a lot of people to receive the holy spirit but i've never seen i've never been able to personally baptize anyone in the holy spirit why because that's jesus's job jesus is the one that baptizes people in the holy spirit we pray for this release of grace and the lord comes through the spirit comes through and and great things happen but it is god's desire and god's will at one point you know uh um you know in acts chapter eight you know they they heard that there had people had to come to believe in jesus had given their hearts to the lord and when peter and john go to them uh they they went down that they might receive uh the holy spirit for had not yet fallen on them for they had only been baptized in the name of the lord jesus there was once a time where you were baptized into communion with christ and then received baptism in the holy spirit so there there's one way we see it um you know he goes to another place in acts chapter 19 he says how were you baptized and the believers there said well we were baptized with the baptism of john for the repentance of sins and they asked him uh were you baptized in the holy spirit and they said we didn't even know there is a holy spirit so catechetical issues plagued the early church they're nothing new but you know the point i'll say in all this is that you know we we stand before the lord like without a formula we can only stand before god with faith and with the expectation that he's going to be who he says he is and do what he says for me i was 18 years old and um and i think i shared this yesterday maybe i didn't but i at 18 i had my major conversion in the confessional i had uh witnessed when i was in junior high school my grandfather dying in a car accident happened out in front of us in the street out in front of the uh the uh school that i was attending and i was on the front lawn his car got hit burst into flames spun out of control ended up on the front lawn of the school and because of that my grandmother became an alcoholic my dad had to take over running two businesses you know there's just a lot of turmoil and chaos in my life i became very angry angry with my grandmother for her drinking angry with my dad because he was never around angry angry angry angry with god and i kind of shut god down i mean i still went through the motions because it's easier to sit in church for an hour zoning out than it is to argue with your parents and i knew heading into my senior year of high school that my heart was was miserable miserable and i was getting ready to go off to college and it was at that time i went into the confessional and i sat down in front of this priest and he said you know what do you want to confess i said i don't know i haven't done this in a while and i hadn't i hadn't gone to confession since my first confession he says well what is it that you want from the lord and i explained to him i just said i'm miserable i'm angry i you know i just i see everyone else around me on this retreat they're they're experiencing god and i'm experiencing nothing i'm frustrated they said well why are you on this retreat and i began to explain and tell my story this is all that i had gone through you know and my sins included you know lying to my parents shoplifting alcohol smoking weed dabbled in pornography you know a lot of impurity because of that in my life you know just negative humor and cutting people down i was sarcastic i was mean i was rude self-centered that was a complete jackass you know if jackass was a mortal sin i was definitely not going to heaven and as i was confessing these things i i started crying and the priest he was very nice he came forward he put his hand on my shoulder and started tapping and as i leaned forward his stole hit hit my arm or my face and i grabbed it because i thought he was handing me a handkerchief so i i actually at the moment of my conversion before the lord zapped me with the holy spirit for the first time hawked a loogie on a priesthole so i mean like god can work through anything i still think the priest was very cool about it he laughed but anyway when he prayed the prayers of absolution i i said was there anything else i need to say he was like because i didn't know the the you know act of contrition or anything at the time he just said are you sorry he led me through it i'm like yeah i want to be right with god he said do you promise to to live a new life for god i'm like i want this new life so he prayed the prayer of absolution and it felt like i just came alive like the paddles had been put to my chest and i've been brought to life i walked out of there a living man a son of god with a new realization and it always had been in me but it had been awakened in that moment god came very near to me and breathed his spirit into my lungs the next morning the man who founded net ministries because this was a net retreat came up to me said i was praying last night and i know that the lord touched you deeply and i want to invite you to be a missionary with net in the fall i'm like you're kidding me i just like i have no formation i mean i just finally figured out after 18 years that god is real and that he loves me and i don't know anything other than that he said don't worry we'll train you i'll be good so i had to go home and i mean like i knew this was what i mean at the second he said i knew this was what god wanted for me so i went home and i told my parents i'm not going to college in the fall after all this was june i was getting ready to go to college in august they looked at me my mom started crying she was like did you just join a cult i'm like no mom these people are catholic but i've experienced god's love and i'm like i just want to do this for a year i promise i'll go to college and my grandmother cried because i was just expecting that i'd go to college everyone did right out of high school and you know like this experience was so powerful but i wouldn't even say like god god would just like started the process like i don't think i had this experience where i was baptized in the holy spirit and everything i needed was given to me in that moment but i became hungry for more because during that training i got prayed with and received new graces and even throughout the year with my team we pray with one another and pray over one another and i could still feel these graces stirring up i remember the first retreat that i was that we were doing is that at the small church in northern minnesota this was 1983 so the new evangelization in the word evangelization really wasn't part of the catholic lexicon per se for most catholics and when we came to town the priest said to us i don't know if we're going to get a lot of kids here the parents heard that you were an evangelization team they think you're protestant they're keeping their kids home they're afraid that you're going to take them out of the church and they're like really did you not explain that where catholic evangelization was like because i tried but we did get some kids to show up and there was one kid in my small group who was this young man who was just angry and closed off during the whole retreat and we do this thing at the end of net where we just you know do a little prayer ministry it's just asking god to bless them because they have this encounter we want to ask god to bless them and this young man sat down in front of me and i asked him you know like what can i pray for you he's sitting there with his arms closed looking very solid like nothing are you sure nothing in particular i can pray for you no well can i just pray a blessing fine so i put my hand i said can i put my hand on your shoulder so i put my hand to shoulder i start praying i'm come holy spirit and bless this young man and as i started praying for him i saw this image as clear as a like a picture being like curtains opening and here's this picture of a crossroads of the railroad crossing on a road in the middle of a cornfield and i thought why am i thinking this right now is it going to try to clear it out okay some yes lord just bless this young man you know and all of a sudden it was right there again in front of me and this happened two more times and finally i'm like okay god what are you doing so i just paused and i just sucked it up and said okay god i'll see it so i said i i said to him i'm praying for you and every time i start praying i get this image of a railroad crossing in the middle of a cord field does that mean anything to you and this kid just his face just dropped and he just started bawling like a month before this retreat his dad had been hit in a car by a train and killed at a cross stop and i was just able to spend a few more minutes praying with him for healing and restoration and forgiveness and it was like i i walked out of there probably as stunned as the young man did you know you're like oh my gosh what just happened god just showed me something that acted like a key to unlock the heart of this young man so that god could pour his mercy and love into his heart and i asked one of the other guys who you know a little older than me i'm like has this happened to you before he was oh yeah that's a spiritual gift it's like a prophetic word a word of knowledge and i'm like god really does this stuff he goes yes god really does this stuff when we put our faith in there the power comes and god really does what he says he will do and it wasn't like i walked out thinking look what i can do now i was like trembling like oh my gosh this god his power is real but it just confirmed in my faith that this is what i was supposed to be doing with my life you know at age 18 before i went into that confessional and god touched my heart if you would have asked me what i'd be doing right now i'd probably say i'd be practicing medicine i really wanted to be a doctor i'd been accepted at a you know in a pre-med program in michigan i was all set to go i was going to do my undergrad go to medical school because i wanted to make money and medicine was one of those fields where you knew you could make a lot of money because i wanted a big house i wanted a hot wife i wanted all these things instead the lord gave me himself his holy spirit well he gave me a hot wife that's true um but i would not have picked this path for my life give me a give me a hundred different options i would not have picked this path but god put me on this path and i'm so grateful and so i mean i'd like to share everything i want to share tomorrow morning i'm going to be speaking and i'm going to kind of tell you some of the other things that the lord has done but for more than anything what i think i came to realize is that it was in a moment of complete vulnerability when i was dealing with the weight of my sin and i had nowhere else to turn that i just let my guard down i completely surrendered and said okay lord take my sin take my brokenness and fill me with your light i want you more than the sin i want you more than anything i want your spirit alive in me you know to surrender this complete emptying was in that complete feeling of poverty and having nothing before the lord that the lord was able to break into my heart and do something amazing and i think you know one of the things that the lord wants to do is oftentimes and you probably have felt like this maybe at times during the this year is he invites us to go on to the cross with him right and to strip us you think of jesus being stripped of his flesh being scourged and the lord invites that into us into that like i want to strip away some layers i want to strip some of the old man away some of that worldliness some of that sin of the flesh or some of those fears i want to strip you i want to strip you and i want to leave you hanging naked because in your vulnerability you're going to cry out to me and commend your spirit to me in such a way that i'm going to move in power and it's the most unpleasant feeling in the world to go through a scourging by the spirit to be stripped and so many of us had things taken from our lives this past year really felt like a continual scourging for many people but we know for christ all of this suffering ended in resurrection a new life and i would contend that that's how god is going to end this for you today this through the rest of this retreat is whatever you've endured for him and had to suffer for him he wants to then you know in a much greater generous act pour his holy spirit out upon you but what i want to do as we wrap up here we're going to spend some time praying is i just want you to to think about not everything that god wants to do god already knows what he wants to do and what he wants to give you how he wants to bless you i think what we want to do for the last few minutes is just take some time to pray and say okay god where am i holding back what have you been trying to strip for me that i haven't let go of yet what is my struggle that that is the thing that i'm hanging on to that i know i don't need that you're inviting me to let go of is it my pride is it another layer of my pride because you know most of us no i gave up my pride well there's another layer peel that onion keep peeling that onion to pride there's always another layer okay lord if it's another layer of my pride take that if it's not my dependence on you know my my binging alcohol is it binging television is it binging whatever it is that we're you know that we're just using to kind of medicate us ourselves to help us get through these days let me let go of those crutches and let me cling to you lord even if i have to let go of those crutches and crawl to you jesus i will do that because i know once i'm with you and you i have you have you and you have me in your arms i'm going to be healed [Music] so let's just pray come holy spirit

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

Views: 21

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

Id: 1XkuqQZk5hI

Length: 56min 12sec (3372 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021