John Beaulieu - Witness to Hope (2021 Priests, Deacons, Seminarian's Retreat 2021)

[Music] [Music] one of the questions i always get from students and people when they first find out that father dave and i were roommates in college is what was he like in college what was he like and i would say that he was the same person he is now he's probably a lot holier than he was now you know because god has been working in him and he had more hair other than that you guys i i still recall being uh convicted like we we lived on the second floor of saint francis dorm in like almost kitty corner from our dorm room was the the chapel on the second floor and i knew if i came back to the room and i was wondering dave was just here where is he inevitably i would find him in the chapel praying and it convicted me it kept me honest to say look am i really living out this faith and so he dave's been a father david's been a blessing in my life for so many years and uh it's good to be able to be here and minister under his leadership here at franciscan it's such a tremendous blessing it should have happened 10 years ago but we were patient and it happened and i'm just glad he's here and i'm glad to be able to to minister alongside of him this morning i want to talk about hope uh the name of my talk is witness to hope because right now we need people who can witness to the hope and glory that god brings to our lives amen my story of hope um many of you might have heard some of this story before i'm going to share it again only because it really encapsulates for me what god has been doing in my life really for the last seven years and three years ago it'll be three years this july i was in rochester minnesota running one of our youth conferences 2 000 teenagers all fired up for jesus we had a great friday night a great saturday morning we sat down for our team lunch on saturday and as i sat down to eat my phone rang and i got one of the most chilling calls i'd ever received in my life at first i didn't recognize the number but i answered it because normally i'm the kind of guy like if i don't recognize a number that pops up on my cell phone i don't answer it i'm an introvert any introverts in this room guys who are extroverts look at all these introverts adopt them and bring them into conversations because sometimes we just don't know how to do that help us but this number popped up and i felt compelled to answer and i answered it it was my son andrew's girlfriend krista letting me know that they had just been in a car accident that she wasn't sure exactly what was going on with andrew because he was unconscious he was just airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in downtown pittsburgh she didn't even know the name of the hospital that he had been taken to but she said it was very serious and my heart just sank i'm like here i am sitting in a convention center in rochester minnesota i hung up i called my wife i said honey i don't know what's going on you need to get to pittsburgh as quickly as possible and i don't even know which hospital to send you to so just start calling and find out you know who's who's who has andrew so he gathered up our daughters got in the car and drove to pittsburgh to find out what was going on with our son meanwhile i'm scrambling i'm on my phone trying to book a flight back to pittsburgh as soon as i can packing up my stuff trying to you know get everything together and it was the the first flight that i could get out didn't leave until five o'clock in the evening it was flying out of st paul minnesota it was going to take me through atlanta because there was no direct flights left and i wasn't going to get into until about 11 o'clock at night and i just stopped in my room and i got down on my knees and i just said okay lord i don't know what's going on but i surrender this all to you and i just got a sense of peace that came over me i was still kind of dazed trying to absorb and trying to process everything you know that was going on in my heart when my son was three years old it was a christmas day and we were at my in-laws celebrating with my wife's family and my son running out the back door completely misjudged the step tripped on the door uh you know the door lip and fell head first into a planter and split open his forehead i had to take him to the emergency room and he had to get stitches on christmas day he was only three years old at the time he's a squirmy little kid and they had to wrap him in one of these little mummy suits to keep him still and i just remember standing over him watching the doctors you know stitch up his forehead and his his eyes just locked on mine you know locked on mine like daddy's gonna be okay i'm so scared i'm like it's gonna be fine you're gonna be fine you're gonna be fine and you know and and all the emotions you have as a father in that moment where i was brought right back to that is my son going to be fine and i felt in my heart the lord saying i've got this trust in me and so i said okay lord i trust in you i know that you're going to take care of this and as i was getting ready i started texting uh some people that i that were important to me letting them know start praying um you know and this is one of these moments when you realize how blessed you are to be catholic and how god lines up things in your life long before you're aware that he's preparing and and making things going to happen in a beautiful miraculous way we had six youth conferences going on that weekend across the united states and canada and so i was able to send out six test text messages to all the hosts of the conferences saying tonight when all the youth are before the blessed sacrament please pray for my son his life is hanging in the balance in the night of my son's accident there were over 12 000 high school students across the united states and canada praying for my son before the blessed sacrament i got on my plane i was delayed getting out of saint paul so now it's 6 30 almost seven o'clock i finally get on in the air i fly to atlanta i get to atlanta another flight delay i don't get back to pittsburgh until 1 30 in the morning and as i'm in atlanta saying honey i'm not going to get back to late just go home get a good night's sleep when i land in pittsburgh i'll drive home in the morning we can go into pittsburgh and take care of andrew meanwhile another good friend of ours who's a tor went to the hospital and gave my son the anointing of the sick they had to do an emergency craniotomy because my son he didn't have any broken bones he did not have any internal injuries like you know bruised liver or anything like that what happened was he he was driving down his girlfriend was driving down the road and a car coming the other way the driver fell asleep crossed the center line and just veered into them hit them head-on doing about 55 miles an hour my son was not wearing a seatbelt my son can sometimes be an idiot he was lying in the backseat of sleep and took the full brunt of the accident in the upper left side of his skull he had 19 fractures across his forehead into his eye socket and into his cheek he had severe brain trauma they operated on him they reconstructed the bone they actually had to pull some pieces of the of his skull out of his brain to reconstruct and then they had to do an emergency craniotomy they took the upper one-third of his skull out completely and in case you're ever wondering what they do in situations like that they actually just put it in a jar of solution and put it in the refrigerator somewhere kept it on ice until it was time to put it back in but in that moment you know what he was hanging on to life they had him on heavy anti-seizure medicine he hadn't regained consciousness they had him on a breathing tube and he was in the intensive care unit at upmc hospital in downtown pittsburgh so i got home went to bed got about three hours of sleep woke up at 5 30 got up took a shower and drove with my wife into pittsburgh i was not prepared in any way shape or form for what i was going to see when i walked into the uh the intensive care unit my son was there his face was swollen his eye was swollen shut there was blood oozing from his eye he had blood on his neck from the injury they had done the surgery they had got him you know as much as they could uh he had a drainage tube coming out of his skull for those to keep the fluid from building up because the biggest threat was the pressure on the brain could damage his brain even more than it already was and i walked into the room some lying there and i just fell to my knees at the side of his bed and put my hands on him and just started praying come holy spirit lord jesus christ heal my son restore him you know be there help him you know like all the prayers that a father would prayer like oh my god i love this boy lord jesus just keep him here you know whatever it takes lord i'll do it whatever it takes just just don't don't take my son from me i'm not ready for that the doctors came in a couple hours later and sat my wife and i down and and basically laid this out in front of us and said we want to be completely honest with you in our experience the level of brain trauma that your son has experienced it may be weeks before he wakes up and when he does he might not remember who he is he might not remember who you are he might not even remember how to talk we may have to reteach him how to tie his shoes to feed himself everything we're not sure the extent we'll begin to learn over the next few days the extent of his brain trauma but we want you to be prepared for months if not years of rehabilitation and therapy for your son and they were they they came with some literature like here's some you know this is where you can find rehab this is you know they were the nursing staff the doctors were wonderful and as i listened to this you know you know like once again there was just this sense of okay god whatever you want i know you're going to give me whatever i need the next day my son was lying in his bed and my daughter madeline who's a nurse started wiping the blood off his face you know because she's a nurse she wanted him to clean him up because he really hadn't been cleaned up since his accident the swelling in his face had gone down significantly they had taken him off of his breathing tube because they had balanced out his medication they were sure he wasn't going to see he wasn't going to die but they wanted to make sure that you know like that everything was going to be all right before they took out the breathing tube so they took out the breathing tube and then uh my uh my daughter's like wiping off his face and as she's wiping his face off my son starts to twitch a little bit like he's being bothered by this we're all looking at this like what my my daughter madeline keeps doing it and she's a nurse so she's talking to him like andrew it's going to be okay i'm just cleaning you up just let me do what i'm doing here and about a minute later after she's continuing to wipe him up and clean up his neck and his face he just turns to her and says will you please stop that and we're all like what did he just talk because he hadn't said a word hadn't said and no signs of consciousness and i realized in the moment in that moment there's there's two things that are more powerful than anything in the in the world number one of course the power of prayer and the power of god to heal and to restore the second is the power of a sibling to annoy another sibling because my daughter madeline literally annoyed him out of a coma before we knew it they had taken out his ivs from his legs had him sitting up in a chair and then he you know he you know he they started asking the questions like do you know your name i'm andrew do you know your siblings uh madeleine katherine john paul and therese do you know where you are i'm at work you know i think he's after they started asking questions like do you know where you are and what's going on he had no idea he was speaking some really wild stuff it was crazy but he remembered who he was he remember where he lived he remembered his siblings and they told me he said look you know his his recovery is going to go a lot better if he sits up and gets out of bed a little bit so i helped him up with the help of a nurse and i'm on one side the nurse is the other and we're going to take him to the bathroom to use the bathroom he can bare he can't see out of this i can barely you know he can barely get his balance so we're just holding him he looks past the bathroom he points to the door of the of his room in the icu and he just wants to walk i walk a hundred feet down to the end of the hall and back with him and get him back into his chair the next day they bring him his breakfast he sits up in bed and starts eating his breakfast on his own now my son will tell you he doesn't remember anything from the first two and a half weeks after his accident and it was really dicey they would they were coming in and they started doing the therapy right away and they would say okay andrew i'm going to give you three words apple pear umbrella can you repeat those three words apple pear banana umbrella great then they'd ask them some more questions and they'd come back and say andrew i gave you three words just a couple minutes ago can you tell me what they were and he would go apple pear i don't know you know they they would show him pictures of uh here here's some orange juice and here's a frying pan and here's some eggs and here's some milk you know in the kitchen what are you what are you trying to do and he he couldn't even say well that's for making breakfast like there were he was totally disconnected he couldn't couldn't put things together at all and so i was just grateful like my son is alive so about a week later he got out of icu five days after that we transferred him from upmc to a rehabilitation center in harmerville which is right outside of pittsburgh he was there for another i would say week and a half and after four days of being there was like god flipped another switch boom and all of a sudden everything that he was struggling with was gone he was going just ripping through his occupational therapy ripping through his physical therapy ripping through his speech therapy just nailing everything and i was absolutely amazed and overwhelmed and so grateful there were so many tears of joy during those days and when they turned to me and said we think he's ready to go home and i'm looking at my watch and it's like okay it's august 10th are you sure he's ready to go home it's not even been a month since his accident they're like yeah there's nothing more that he needs from us he's fine we are going to prescribe that you do some outpatient therapy to keep him growing and moving forward so we took him back over to a place that's local where he could continue his therapy after four days of therapy they're saying they said to us we don't want to waste your time or your insurance company's money he does not need any more physical occupational or speech therapy he's fine two months later he was back taking classes here at franciscan towards his mba he completed his mba with almost a 4.0 grade point average and now is finishing up a nursing degree and the only lingering effect of his accident is he doesn't see out of his left eye and i share all this with you because i remember the prayer surrender that i said god whatever it takes whatever you want whatever it takes i will i will do whatever it takes to get my son well and i think this is what hope is like and people used to come up to my wife and i during this whole thing and say your family's so strong it's so beautiful to see your faith it's so beautiful to see what god is doing and and i was so humbled by the whole experience i said i'm not strong i'm not strong at all actually i'm very weak but i've put all my faith and all my hope and even when my faith felt like a mustard seed or even smaller i put all of that in my god who is very very strong and i truly believe in that moment god had revealed to me what hope is really all about and i want to share it because we need hope right now hope not as a concept but as a living reality in our souls if we don't have a living hope then we do not have hope for there is no other hope other than a living hope it says in the catechism 1817 it says hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness placing our trust in christ's promise and rely not on our own strength but on the help of the grace of the holy spirit hope is a surrender to something bigger than ourselves to a god who loves us who's always on our side the problem is that we put our hope in a desired outcome we see hope portrayed in movies and on television as this is like we've tried everything else i guess all we can do now is hope like it's this depressing little last-ditch effort that hopefully what we want to happen will come true and if we put our hope in a desired outcome that's not hope that's a wish you know i you know i told father dave if i win the lottery i'll give you 10 million dollars i haven't won the lottery yet and i realize you have to buy tickets to win the lottery and i would say if i say oh man i hope i win the lottery that's not hope that's a wish lord i want this but that's not where my hope lies my my hope lies in heaven and god and his promise to be there with me no matter what my dad is charles burro mayo bowl you iii that's a pretty cool name i wish i was charles borromeo iv sometimes but he just decided that it was he wanted me to be john my brother is michael my other brother's christopher what saint charles borough mayor says is god wishes us not to rest upon anything but his infinite goodness do not let us expect anything hope anything or desire anything but from him and let us put our trust and confidence in him alone what a powerful saying what a powerful challenge for us that we would not expect anything that's the problem i think we've become very entitled and we expect things to work out for us i know where my pride when i get angry i know exactly why i get angry 99.9 of the time it's because i've created some sort of expectation of something that should happen my way and when it doesn't i get easily angered and frustrated by that because i've placed hope in something that isn't worthy of my hope and hope is both a movement of grace it is god's initiative drawing us into this confidence in him but it's also a decisive response on our part because every movement of grace requires demands a decisive response on our part grace is not magic god cannot wave a magic wand over you and give you hope we need to yield who we are and what we desire to god and let him transform our desires until they're in him and him alone and right now the world is dying because it's lost hope the suicide rate the united states has gone up every year for this last 13 years it's up 30 percent since the year 2000. for our young people 10 to 18 suicide is a second leading cause of death the number of 25 to 34 year olds dying from alcohol related liver disease has tripled since 1999. the united states which has five percent of the world's population concerns consumes eighty percent of the world's opioids do you see what we're seeing dealing with in 2019 70 000 americans died of a drug overdose in 1999 that number was under 20 000. we are literally literally killing ourselves medicating ourselves into death it's not enough like people cannot see that there's something greater that they can place their faith in their hope in their trust in meanwhile in our church we see regular mass attendance on the decline in some diocese that number is now well below 20 of of baptized catholics are regular church attendees we've all heard the statistic that only 30 of catholics believe in the real presence of jesus christ in the eucharist and we have we we have countless former catholics who've lost all faith in the institutional church because of the scandals so where do we as men who love the church who desire to see the church renewed where are we going to turn to find the strength and courage to persevere we have to once again recommit ourselves to put our hope in heaven and hope in the lord and the perfect example for us to look at is the blessed mother mary's hope was absolute and unshakeable in the promise of god even in the most mysterious dark and difficult moments in her life she never lost hope at the enunciation she desired no other explanation after revealing her humility before the message of the angel when the angel comes here and says you're going to become the mother of god this child will be holy see her response is how can this be since i'm a virgin and that's not a response of questioning or doubt that's a response of understanding her limitedness that she was looking to god like you are the hope for this so i will wait upon you to show me how this is going to be and the angel says to her the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you therefore the child will be will to be born will be holy and be called the son of god and now your relative elizabeth in her old age has conceived a son and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren for nothing will be impossible with god then mary said here i am the handmaid of the lord let it be with me according to your word then the angel departed from her when she says how can this be she's like i know myself i'm just the humble servant of the lord i cannot make this happen on my own what you're saying is not about me and when the angel says you know the holy spirit is going to come upon you you'll be overshadowed by his power and you will conceive for me i would have about 300 follow-up questions you know wait the holy spirit's going to come to me how's that going to work am i going to be aware when is it going to happen how can i prepare what do i need to do i need to start planning is this going to happen soon because i've got to figure out like okay i got to get a stroller i got to get a baby crib i got i mean like okay i'm going to have a baby okay all these things that like okay angel tell me like how how's this gonna work you know like how am i gonna tell joseph this is this is crazy like i would have had all these follow-up statements and questions but hers was like simply let it be done unto me i trust i believe and i hope as we look around we you know we wanna okay we got a plan what is the plan how are we gonna fix the church how are we gonna restore the church and renew the church the first thing that we need to do is like mary's just fall silent before the holy spirit let the holy spirit come upon us renewal of the church starts with us in our personal renewal our personal yes so that we can be witnesses to hope so that we can with quiet patience wait upon the lord to reveal and lead us to these things that are going to allow us to be renewed personally and to be agents of renewal in a church that so desperately needs it know when joseph became aware of her pregnancy he resolved to send her away short you know quietly he didn't want to cause scandal but he just knew that whatever is going on i'm not a part of it and mary must have detected the anguish the emotional turmoil that maybe joseph was going through as he was thinking about these things and she did not run to joseph and try to justify herself joseph just chill an angel came to me and said this is all from god she didn't want to stand up and defend herself and make herself something other than she was other than the handmaid she knew that god was going to justify and reveal and lead joseph through this as well and we know that god fulfilled the hope of mary by letting joseph understand that he had an intimate part an intimate role in bringing salvation into the world to protect the blessed mother to provide for the incarnation to be the stepfather of the son of god mary often pondered things in her heart which is such a great kind of posture a disposition for us to have it's just to meditate upon what god is doing she must have pondered the words of isaiah from chapter 30 verse 15 when it says in quietness and entrust shall be your strength that's where mary drew her strength by just waiting upon the lord and placing continually placing her hope in the lord and mary's it didn't end with that with mary like as jesus you know grew into a toddler and then to a young boy and then a teenager and then an adolescent and then a young adult mary had to wait patiently because maybe there weren't outward signs of christ's divinity or his fulfillment of the prophetic word that he would become you know the king of many nations and be called holy he in many ways looked like everyone else's children but she never lost hope in the promise that this was the savior promised by god and when jesus was betrayed and arrested and scourged and beaten and spat upon and crowned with thorns and mocked and led away carrying a cross and crucified when all seemed lost mary's hope was unaltered right and it didn't just diminish in any way and rather it grew it became the courage that allowed her to walk with jesus and where did we find mary in the midst of this tragedy at the foot of the cross she had the courage she had a quiet confidence a courage to go where even most of the apostles were afraid to go when they ran and hid in their houses she walked with her son to the very end because her quiet hope grew into courage and confidence it became something that we need to look at and say okay if this is the pattern of how we grow to be courageous to follow christ all the way to the cross then what do i need to change about the way i approach god and see god and give my heart to god and surrender it to god what do i need to change how do i need to be be stripped the way jesus was stripped you know this invitation to hope is is is a call to go to with christ to the cross as he's you know tied to the pillar and the the whips are coming down and the flesh is being torn from his body the lord is inviting us to join him there to be vulnerable to be stripped of these things of our flesh that we cling to that we put our confidence in our talents our gifts to be stripped of those things that we use as our comforts that protect us from being naked in the world and having to rely completely on god for our stability and our peace like all these false little things that we cling to god wants to strip us of them so that we can be worthy of the cross by christ's stripes we are healed by us being stripped by god of all our unhealthy attachments and false comforts that we cling to we will become more like christ more confident more full of courage and boldness more given this grace to go forward and to and to proclaim the love of jesus christ and as i was going through this whole thing with my son and i kept hearing people say man it's amazing the witness of your family and the faith and this miracle that god has done because my son is a miracle the doctors if i had a dollar for every time the doctor used the word remarkable with me in discussing my son's recovery it's remarkable i'm like ah it's miraculous no it's remarkable it's miraculous i'm like and i actually said this to the surgeon he was you know a great guy i mean like i said god blesses this guy with some tremendous gifts but he would not acknowledge that they came from god i said wouldn't you like to put on your resume that you assisted god in a miracle is that not it's not a cool thing to be able to put on your resume i assisted god in a miracle but he didn't want to be looked as as the assistant he's like no i my skills you know i saved your son you know i you assisted god in a miracle and i wasn't trying to be rude about it i was just trying to like help him understand like god was at work in this situation and i realized you know i did not receive a special grace in that moment when my son was in his accident i didn't receive a gift of hope but rather god had been forming in me over the last three years leading up to that the grace that i needed in that moment let me explain three years prior to that my mom had died of cancer she suffered with cancer for seven years before she died when she was first diagnosed with cancer she had been kind of nominally catholic she converted when she got married she was methodist converted when she married my dad and while she made sure that we had a catholic home where all of us went to mass together on sunday that we all received our sacraments and went to faith formation there was not i would say an explicit devotional kind of experience of prayer within our house my mom didn't really have any interest in saints and the rosary and things like that i had my conversion at 18. i started talking about these things with her and her response always was well i have a relationship with jesus why would i want to talk to his mother when i can just talk to him and she had very simple beautiful faith in christ she really did but when she was diagnosed with cancer she wanted to up her game so to speak and she called me she said i want to do a novena i have a friend of mine who said i should do novena in preparation for my surgery cause she was overwhelmed cancer is a scary thing and god used this sort of this this this poverty of her being having to deal with something that she she really couldn't deal with she was overwhelmed by the idea of cancer and surrendered okay i need something more so she asked me what novena should i do and i suggested to the saint teresa of of lesu novina you know pray to her and she liked that because it came with the promise that at some point you're going to get a rose and she wanted a sign from god that god was going to hear her prayers so they scheduled her her surgery she had colon cancer they were going to remove the tumor i drive up from michigan she starts her novena nine days before her surgery we get up there for a couple of days just to be with her to comfort her to pray with her and then we go to the hospital she checks in and the night before her surgery i'm alone with her in a room and i'm talking with her and praying with her and i wrap up praying with her and i said mom it's going to be all right god has got this you got to believe just trust and she looked at me with this look on her face i'm like mom is everything okay and she goes well i've been praying this novena john and i did not get my rose you know and what do you say in those moments like my mom is just this is her first toe in the water of catholic devotion and i don't want to crush her and i don't want to dissuade her from believing that god is going to you know fulfill his promises he's heard her prayers it's going to be all right so i just say something like i'm i'm scrambling here right so i'm like well mom these signs are to affirm our faith but our faith comes from jesus you know all this is coming from the lord and his grace and you believe that he heard your prayer you believe so even if you don't get the rose you can put your faith in jesus that he's heard your prayer and let me tell you brothers she was not satisfied with that answer not a bit she just okay so i kissed her good night they were gonna wake her up at five in the morning prepper for surgery go in for surgery around six surgery was going to take a couple of hours a couple hours of recovery around 1 1 30 in the afternoon they said she should be out of the effects of her anesthesia you can go in and talk with her so they do the surgery everything goes smoothly early afternoon we walk into her room to to be with her and she's sitting there in bed kind of groggy and on the tray in front of her is her glass of water and another glass with a rose in it and i'm like mom you got a rose she goes yes yes so this is what she said that that night before her surgery the lord uh you know she was praying and she gets awake she they wake her up at five in the morning this nurse comes in to put an iv in her arm and it was a younger nurse and the nurse could not find a vein in my mom's arms like she tried five times to find the vein and missed every time and on the fifth attempt ended up sticking my mom in the tendon with a needle and my mom was in tears and and the woman's very apologetic she goes let me get another nurse i'm sorry i i don't know why i can't do this this morning the other nurse comes in and my mom's like please you know just i feel awful my arm is killing me please do a good job just find the vein and the nurse is like ah don't worry about it i find the vein first time every time no problem my mom's like well why don't you teach your little trick to the other nurses there's like it's not a trick when i go to do a procedure especially where i have to poke a patient or any kind of instrument on them i always pray to my guardian angel to guide my hand and the guardian angel always helps me and my mom's like you pray to your guardian angel and the woman's like you don't and my mom's like i don't even know i didn't even know i had a guardian angel she's like everyone has a guardian angel god gives you a special angel to watch over and guide you no matter where you go to strengthen you to pray for you to give you assistance my mom's like really she goes yeah i've been praying to my guardian angel for years in fact i was praying one time i asked god to show me to tell me what was the name of my guardian angel so i could talk to my guardian angel but with his with his name and my mom's like really she goes yeah well what's your guardian angel's name the nurse goes it's rose and my mom's like oh and the nurse is like what you know and she's like well i've been waiting for this sign i think you're your guardian angel being named rose is the rose i've been waiting for because i've been praying this naveena the saint teresa la sioux and the woman is wrapped up she's got the iv in first time went in smoothly my mom's all ready and she goes i'll be right back she leaves for a few minutes comes back and gives my mom this rose and my mom's like it's like 5 30 in the morning where did you get a rose at 5 30 in the morning and the nurse explained she goes well at seven o'clock i get off my shift i'm gonna go pick up my daughter and take her to the airport she's flying to florida but she hates to fly so every time she flies i give her two roses for her guardian angel and one for mine but today when i was at the florist shop i the lord just told me to buy a third rose and i didn't know why but now i do here you go and my mom that moment of of god intervening and working in such power just broke open my mom's heart this this sign this wonder this miracle broke up in my mom's heart also she was hungry to know everything she could about mary and the saints and she's she wanted more of this and as it were i was right across the street at the hotel i was staying at from a catholic bookstore so i went and got a statue you know a medal a couple of books i gave her the saint charizard sioux starter pack i said here you go mom dive in so she starts to learn everything she can about saint teresa lasso and her faith just takes off and then the cancer went to her lungs and she had surgery to remove one of the lobes in her lungs and it went to her spine and there was nothing they could do about the cancer there then it showed up in her liver then her other lung and then her kidneys and then her ribs and after seven years and four rounds of chemotherapy there was nothing more that she could do that they could do and but because of what god had done with my mom i too doubled down on my devotion to mary i made it a a vow like because of what saint teresa la su had done for my mom and awakening her faith and being her strength throughout these seven years by the time you know leading up to the time on my mom's death she was a regular communicant daily communicant doing her holy hours praying she was all in in a way that i had hoped she would have been all her life but i seemed so impotent to be able to lead her to and the night before she died i was with her again and she told me and she and she told me like john i'm offering up all of my suffering for the conversion of your siblings and for your children and for their children and i'm like mom that's beautiful she goes how does that work i'm like well christ has through his suffering has made suffering a beautiful thing that has the power to transform that when we unite our suffering with his it brings about real grace in the lives of those we pray for she goes oh that's awesome then she asked me like because i told you will it still work and i'm like mom it's not a birthday wish okay it's you've been offering up your suffering it works believe me it works and my mom passed away on christmas eve in just a view a very beautiful peaceful way a month and a half after my mom passed away i went up to go be with my dad drove up from ohio to michigan and while i was there my brother chris calls me up john i'm struggling i i was not prepared you know because my my dad was a funeral director he and he he sold his business to my brother chris so my brother chris was actually the one that had to do all the preparation for my mom's funeral that was the hardest thing he ever had to do and he was just an emotional wreck and he calls me up he says can i just talk with you so he comes up to my dad's house and we start talking and all of a sudden this door opens up and i'm starting to share who jesus is to me the confidence i have in god and the grace that gives me peace and strength and he says i need that i said let's pray i ended up praying over him for 20 minutes come holy spirit praying in tongues i mean i went for it i didn't just like okay god bless my brother i'm like we're going for it god just show your love reveal your love come holy spirit i'm praying in tongues and just he had this massive conversion you know like this past year he was a you know he he wasn't able to but this year he's going to be a chaperone for some of his kids he's taking them all to a steubenville conference like he wants to he's like wants to be the you know lead other people he's been teaching confirmation teaching these young people about the holy spirit he became a eucharistic minister like all these great things are happening in his life my brother mike came back to the church my sister who was twice divorced and felt like she had lost all hope in god came back to the church went to confession for the first time in like 15 years like all the things that my mom said she wanted to see happen started to happen and i realized that when i saw this i got more invested in in in following the the example of our blessed mother and praying into that and when my son was in the hospital and after after everything had happened he was miraculously raised from the dead and completely healed i remember going to the lord and saying lord why are you blessing me like this i don't deserve this you're so wonderful and he said to me john do you know all those times you got out of bed and prayed yeah yes and you didn't feel anything yeah i was preparing you remember all those times when you were praying and and just you know you didn't think i was listening or you didn't sense that i was doing something yeah i was preparing you and what the lord let me know is that there's never been a time in my life when i've wasted any prayer every prayer that i ever prayed god was using it to bring about his good in my life unawares to me and i think that sometimes that's the way the world works because if we start to say okay god is praying i'm praying and god is doing this we put more stock in our own ability to pray and we grab onto it like this is what i've done i've given myself hope through my prayer and all i could do is say i surrendered over and over again and stayed faithful to prayer and god gave me something that i could never get there on my own he did this miracle inside of me when i prayed for my mom i wanted my mom to live if i would have said god i'm only going to pray for my mom to be healed of cancer she would not have gone through the radical transformation that she went through and god used that to bring about the conversion of my siblings but this is how god does it our virtues are formed in the fire of trial and in the practice of godly habits where we ask the fire of the holy spirit to conform our wills to the will of the father listen to what saint paul writes in romans chapter 5. therefore since we are justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ so first we put our faith in jesus christ we say jesus christ you are bigger and better than anything in this world i put my faith in you and you alone it goes on to say through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand peter sister miriam all talk about the grace this need to stand in grace even if that's all we can do is okay lord i stand where i receive grace i will put myself in a place where i can receive grace because grace is enough and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of god and not only that but we also boast in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance endurance produces character and character produces hope like this is the process we put our faith in jesus we endure our sufferings we place our confidence in god this produces the character and the virtue of hope in us and it goes on to say and hope does not disappoint us because god's love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit that has been given to us this is how god works the trials and tribulations of this last year god has been using it to prepare you for what's coming next to rise up with confidence and boldness romans chapter 8 verse 28 is the most audacious piece of scripture it says we know that all things work together for good for those who love god who are called according to his purpose so if i love god and i'm called in doing his will all things will work for my good that's hard to believe but if this isn't true then none of it's true we need to stake our lives on that singular idea that no matter what if we love god and stay and and feel called to his purpose and stay in that that all the things that happen in our lives will work for good i stand before you as a witness of that singular reality if i have nothing else to say i've endured with god and he's made so many things in my life that seemed hopeless work for my good and the good of those i love and he's still doing it he's still producing the fruit of all the things that i've had to endure because what i didn't share is in between my mom my mom died of cancer my son's accident i had to walk with a year with my own wife with cancer which brought its own share of struggles and challenges but through it all the one anchor that i've had in my life is prayer if jesus christ is the anchor of our hope if that's where we place our hope and he is the anchor of our lives then prayer is that chain that keeps us connected to the anchor what good is it to throw your anchor overboard in the storm if you don't have a solid chain connecting you to that anchor it won't do you any good you need to be connected to christ we need to be praying being rooted in christ is the source of all hope this is why jesus christ in john chapter 15 jesus uses the words abide nine times in that one chapter we need to remain in christ abide in him live in him if we're not abiding christ if we're not rooted in christ then we will not have the living hope that saint peter talked about in his first epistle when he says blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ by his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope not a conceptual idea that hey there's a god that might make it all work out in the end but a living presence in our soul hope is alive in me because jesus christ is alive in me and he is my living hope and it happens through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading the strength of the church as witness in the world may be fading and it may be defiled by the sins of men but our hope in jesus christ is unblemished imperishable and unfading in the midst of that as i was praying this morning i thought of all my years of youth ministry and i used to say to the young people don't let anyone say that you're too young as one of saint paul's calls to timothy i'm here to say brothers don't let anyone say that you're too old god is not done yet all that he's done in your life has gotten you to this point is preparing you for what's next and it's not defeat it's not being overcome because we overcome by what the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony that god is alive in us and we need to proclaim that to everyone and to one another that jesus christ is alive and we need to fight for and strengthen our prayer no matter what satan is convinced that if he can get you to stop praying he can destroy every part of you and so he will do whatever it takes to pull you from the arms of jesus he you know the enemies in war know that the first thing that you need to do if you want to take out your enemy is disrupt their communication systems tear down their towers find out where their base of operations are and how they're talking or if they have one of these code machines the enigma machine back in world war ii that the germans used we need to crack that we got to figure out how they're talking to one another if we can crack you know and satan knows us if he can crack or disrupt our communication with the lord then the living hope that sustains us and strengthens us will be diminished perhaps even lost and this is why we got to cling to our relationship with jesus cling to christ no matter what he's living hope and understand that we're not going to put our heart on a desired outcome and i'm not saying that we don't have goals and we don't have plans because god uses those as a mold as a template as a as a way of of creating things now our plans are important because we create like a form you know they ever try to pour cement the first thing that they do is they they build the form that the cement's going to be poured into because if you don't have that in place and the cement comes it just goes everywhere and you don't get anything good you just get a big mess so yes you need to have a pastoral plan you need to prepare you need to be looking and listening to the lord and saying what dimensions how deep how wide how big show me build it and then let the lord pour into it his grace because the strength of our ministry is not the frame work that god creates for us to to build upon or to build within but the living hope the living grace that's the cement that that hardens into something lasting and enduring but that frame needs to be empty to be filled and in the same way even as we plan and we prepare we we listen and we build for god we need to be emptying ourselves so that when the grace the real stuff that's going to make the church renewed is pour it in there's places for it to go and it doesn't just run amok but it runs down the channels that god wants us to be using to channel his grace to where the church needs it we need to be in prayer we need to be listening to god we need to be saying how do you want to renew your church because i don't have anything within me to renew the church to be unashamed and unafraid to admit our own poverty see ourselves as we truly are hanging naked on the cross with christ saying lord i have nothing everything's exposed apart from you i am nothing apart from you i can do nothing but your grace is enough because i don't put my hope in anything that i can see anything that i can smell and touch anything that i can taste or hear i put my my faith my hope in you christ in the things unseen i want to conclude with these words david loved the lord he had such zeal for the lord such a powerful loving zeal for the lord and he desired nothing more than to build god a temple a temple worthy of god and i think that's what we all want deep in our hearts is we want the church to reflect the glory of god we want to see god's glory restored on this earth it breaks our heart the way people mock jesus diminish jesus try to you know and just everything that we hold dear being dragged through the mud but it wasn't for david to build the temple david had complete confidence in the lord but he the lord said to him look you are not going to build my temple that you're going to have to pass that task on so he passed that task onto his son solomon but david was very clear with his son he's like look i want to encourage you i want to encourage you with these words and this is what he this is from first chronicles he says and you my son solomon know the god of your father and serve him with single mind and willing heart for the lord searches every mind and understands every plan and thought if you seek him he will be found by you but if you forsake him he will abandon you forever [Music] take heed now for the lord has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary be strong and act david further said to his son solomon be strong and of good courage and act do not be afraid or dismayed for the lord god my god is with you he will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the house of the lord is finished [Music] brothers i just want you to know the lord is not done encouraging you and strengthening you building you up the sun is not setting on your life jesus christ the living son is rising again upon you to shine his light upon you to strengthen you to be strong of good courage and act do not be afraid [Music] serve him with a single mind and a willing heart that's all we have let's fix our hearts upon the lord love him above all things and be willing to do whatever it takes whatever the lord asks us not expecting anything but to hear the words of the lord say well done good and faithful servant to please him and not please ourselves and in all ways giving him the glory let's pray

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

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

Id: t-P5vrhO870

Length: 56min 36sec (3396 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021