Keynote Day 2: Scott Hahn & Sr. Miriam James Heidland, SOLT: Love | SEEK2019

the atmosphere here is a lie we have 17,000 people super excited for a few more great keynotes dr. Scott Hahn will be up first a personal favorite of mine his book the lamb supper really helped me understand a lot of the parts of my Catholic faith who's up after him and then sister Miriam one of my favorites too so please stay tuned and God bless [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome back [Applause] I mean besides being a little quiet the mood is pretty good yes whoa [Applause] seems like everyone came back tonight so that's a great sign thank God thank God thank you for bringing them back thank you for being here again everyone what a party you know Emily last night we were talking about our first focus conference yes yes and I remember my first focus conference ok years and years and years ago years ago and I walked into the ballroom a lot like this one and I walked in I remember seeing all the people I mean a ton of people filled this broad room there were like 300 people and at first it intimidated me a little bit oh yeah but the thought that really hit me was you know what I'm not alone I'm not alone in this journey no no I I do early I talked a little bit about my first conference yesterday but I do remember getting here I didn't know anyone the missionaries that oh Emily Villa rebellious we're gonna put her in a room with the girl who wears Chuck Taylors okay so we're good but you know we're still friends today she became a very close friend of mine and I think I started learning that I'm not alone here years ago you see we feel all kinds of emotions in college we're starting to figure out again who we are maybe for the first time and we feel all kinds of different things maybe all at once and Emily and I were recently some people call it Facebook stalking we call it getting to know each another know each other we were digging through each other's pictures of when we were back in college yes yeah and we found a few that really hit a couple emotions some of you are feeling right now maybe you're feeling some of that all of them right now so we want to show you some of our old facebook posts real pose arey and when we were in college so why don't we talk about the first emotion okay so the first emotion is sass and this is humbling that's sassafras tea we were theater majors we like our emotions you know these are great stories everyone especially about Emily oh wait they take a breath take a seat and we'll keep going thank you yeah College made me feel sassy sometimes I guess that's very sassy you know we are why did yeah why does that does that say we are Christmas yeah are you claiming to be Christmas next vote okay here's my picture there it is it's a throwback that's me and one of my best friends who was actually a focus missionary at the time on my campus we had been challenged to a sand volleyball game by our girlfriends and obviously we knew that we would win if we dressed up like goose and maverick and we dominated that game okay SAS it was the SAS TV really this as an extra motion okay excitement excited all right guys this is a picture from my very first date with my wife she had only rejected me six times but she finally said yes as you can tell I am much more excited than she is she's so wondering why she said yes to a date so I excitement excitement all right well he was dating I was hitting the books and I joined an Honor Society and this was me in college I got into mortarboard Honor Society and actually ended up leading me to someone who introduced me back to the Catholic faith so it was a huge time in my life when I started coming back to the faith so I was very excited very excited our last emotion is confusion fusion so that's fun yeah I was a tour guide at Nebraska Lincoln as well and I think I'm confused cuz someone's taking a photo of me yeah I don't think you knew what was going on there okay what about you Steve so this I'm I am on the Camino de Santiago on on a focus mission trip and I realized in this moment I was confused as to why I did not prepare because you walk about 15 to 20 miles and this was day seven and I thought how do I just go home I was very confused what was going on yes so the point of all these emotions why are we bringing this up are we talking about emotions in college into your young adult life we wanted to talk about what actually are college students feeling right now so we googled it college makes me feel let's find that slide as possible I think it's back it was good we're gonna see all of the slides here it is again everyone Oh fun there it is so College makes me feel and this is real you can type this into Google right now and this is what pops up College makes me feel stupid suicidal like a fail you're worthless lonely and the list goes on and it's so so sad because this is the reality that a lot of your friends are living in maybe this hits home for you in some way why because I think we've forgotten the depths of who we are that we are loved and that we are known and it's about time we start encountering the love that Google cannot describe but let's be honest that all of these emotions that we feel in college don't magically disappear the day we walk across the stage at graduation day that all of these tough emotions continue with us in life we know the divorce rate is close to the 50% in an anonymous poll 85% of people admit to not liking their jobs and we know the struggles that religious and non-religious alike are having with depression and anxiety and pornography the struggle is real and those emotions continue and it's all out of a desire to be known loved and cared for and tonight's theme is love and Paul's letter to Timothy he says what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust a faithful men who will be able to teach others as well or as Curtis likes to say teach teachers to teach our speaker this evening invested his life into a handful of friends and those same friends are now leaders of world-changing organizations like focus and the Augusta Institute his conversion story originally recorded on a cassette tape and spread throughout the world brought thousands to or back to the Catholic faith he's the author of many books my favorite being Rome sweet home continues to impact many he's a leading scholar in Scripture in the Catholic Church and we were blessed to have him here with us this evening it is with great joy that I introduced to you dr. Scott Hahn [Applause] what was sorry oh thank you Steve Thank You Emily what a joy to be here what a joy to see my beloved bride in the front row along with three of our sons Jeremiah Joseph and David and this whole focus family as you heard the theme of this conference is encounters something more and this translates out into learning about the love of God and discovering that the journey of life for each and every one of us is this discovery but the journey is something that we share in together and so for us as Catholics conversion is not simply something that is over and done in the past I heard Steve talk about our conversion story but in fact tonight is part of my conversion story because for us as Catholics conversion is something that is ongoing it's continuous it's ever deepening and it doesn't start to get easy it's all about carrying the cross and so when you think you've got it down you think you know you're really familiar with it suddenly life throws you a surprise and so many of them are unplanned and unexpected except they are planned by God our Father I'm reminded of a visit from Steubenville Ohio where I've taught since 1990 back to my hometown oh yeah back to my hometown of Pittsburgh I wanted to find a friend who was in Mercy Hospital and I grew up in Pittsburgh I knew it was downtown so I could find it easily except I grew up Protestant I knew where Presbyterian Hospital was but not mercy so I got downtown and I got lost and I finally did something that many of us seemed to have trouble doing I asked for directions well I asked the wrong guy he started laughing at me on the sidewalk I said what's so funny he said you're practically there and I said but I can't find it he said just turn down pride and you'll find mercy and he walked away chuckling and I'm thinking that's the last time I asked for directions until I looked straight ahead and the street sign read Pride Avenue and I turned down pride and sure enough I found mercy staring me in the face one of my favorite life experiences was unplanned unexpected and rather embarrassing but it reminds me of another story my favorite story in all of the Bible it's found in Luke chapter 24 beginning in verse 13 going all the way to verse 35 you all know the story it's about Clovis and his companion and how they spent Easter Sunday afternoon traveling on the road that leads from Jerusalem to Emmaus I'm gonna be on that road in a couple of months with Kimberly and many pilgrims it's a long and winding road it would have taken hours but the time was spent talking to a stranger who met up with them at the beginning of the trip at least they mistook him for a stranger it was the resurrected Lord but they didn't recognize him for whatever reason and so he asked them what they're talking about are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know about what Jesus of Nazareth a prophet mighty in word and deed we thought he was the one to redeem Israel but the chief priests handed him over to the rulers he was crucified but then some women from our company came and reported an empty tomb a vision of angels and they go on and on and on and at any point Jesus could have stopped him and said hey guys take a closer look after all he had just spent the last few years disciple in them leading them into the truth and kindling them and kindling in them a love for truth but at no point does they do that and you might think when they're done he would give them some consolation he would say it's not as bad as you think but instead he says o foolish men so hard to believe all that was written of was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things before entering into his glory and so beginning with Moses in the law and all of the prophets he explained to them all of the things in the scriptures concerning himself mile after mile hour after hour the single greatest Bible study in all of history and their hearts are burning as we find out later but not once did they say what what does this sound like who does this remind you of it wasn't until they got to a mass when he looked at me going further and they persuaded him to stay and join them for at least a meal and so they're at the table he does something he actually does four things he takes he blesses he breaks it he gives the bread it's the same sequence of four actions that you find two chapters earlier in Luke 22 in the upper room when he Institute's the Eucharist fulfilling the old covenant the old Passover by instituting the new and that's what it happens he takes he blesses he breaks and he gives them a bread and at last their eyes are open but just as suddenly as they recognized him he vanishes from their sight and why is he playing hard-to-get hide-and-go-seek no once their faith reached the point where they recognized the real presence of the risen Lord of lords the King of Kings his physical body his resurrected body was no longer needed if anything it would have posed an impediment to their faith and so what do they do they get up and they go all the way back to Jerusalem and they arrive there Easter evening and they tell the Apostles in the upper room our hearts were burning within us as he opened the scriptures but eyes were only open in the breaking of the bread I look at that story and it summarizes my life for more than 10 years I had this conversion as an evangelical protestant that led me to become a Presbyterian pastor and my heart was burning consistently as I studied the Scriptures the Old Testament in the new to discover how the new is concealed in the old and the old is revealed and fulfilled in the new just like Clovis and his companion learn from the risen Lord that day but it wasn't it's how I went to Mass for the first time I wasn't just a non Catholic I was an anti Catholic and the mass just seemed to me to be so unbiblical except that when you read the old and the new together with the help of the early church fathers suddenly everything just kept turning up Catholic for me and so reluctantly but curiously I went to a Mass and I followed along and when I heard the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world my eyes were opened in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread because as you probably know that phrase the breaking of the bread was the expression back in the first century for what we call the Holy Sacrifice the mass year after year mile after mile and my own spiritual journey going deeper and deeper into the Scriptures this love of truth this this passion for the truth of God's Word is what led me to a rather unexpected an unplanned encounter with something more the Eucharistic Savior Jesus body blood soul and divinity in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass I thought I had it down I can look back on when it happened to me in high school the conversion experience a weekend retreat after I barely escaped a year and a half sentence in the juvenile county court system it was a I won't go into that but I heard this young man explain to all of us how Christ paid a debt he didn't know because we owe to debt we couldn't pay and there were at least 200 young people in that room and I think on the basis of my own spree I owed more than anybody by the time I figured it out that Christ had given his life for me I knew what I had to do I had to return the favor and give my life to Him and I fell in love with Scripture I came to realize that not only does God exist but that God loves us he sent his son to die for us but the discovery of that wasn't complete conversion for me is something that is ongoing but the experience of Christ in the mass was the turning point it was the hinge on which have all turned because what I discovered was something that I should have known but never did you know we all as Christians believe that Calvary is the sacrifice but what I discovered was back on Good Friday none of the none of the witnesses would have seen that and said oh we just witnessed a sacrifice because every devout Jew would know that a sacrifice can only take place inside the Jerusalem Temple on top of an order Jesus was crucified outside the walls far from the temple where there was no altar so what happened there what would the witnesses have described if they'd gone home later they would not have described a sacrifice they would have described a Roman execution and a rather brutal and bloody one at that so the real question became for me how did a Roman execution suddenly get turned into a sacrifice and not only a sacrifice but one what did I do can you still hear me no take a handheld oh yeah now you can any better problem would have looked like a Roman execution plain and simple how in the world did an execution become the holy sacrifice all Christians embrace the only way you can understand Good Friday is by backing up and looking at it what happened on Holy Thursday celebrating the Passover one last time but fulfilling it as the Lamb of God and how did he fulfill the Passover by transforming that into what we call the Eucharist celebrating it the same way they'd always experience growing up until the words of consecration that we heard all of our lives they'd never heard before take this and eat of it this is my body which is given up for you what was that you don't just improvise in the middle of a Sacred Liturgy but Jesus was back on track and then near the end of the Passover he tooks that he takes the chalice the cup of blessing and what does he say this is the cup of My Blood the blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins do this in remembrance of me there he goes again just making up things on the spot but he wasn't because he wasn't just celebrating the Passover one last time to kind of end the Old Covenant he wasn't just fulfilling it so as to retire it he was transforming the pastor of the Old Covenant I discovered into the Passover the new and what was the Passover in the Old Covenant was it just a meal like I thought of the Eucharist no it was a sacrifice first and foremost just ask any lamb and he would tell you he could talk but this is the Lamb of God who came to fulfill it by making himself the sacrifice if the Eucharist is just a meal as I thought then Calvary is just an execution but if the Eucharist is the Passover the New Covenant it can't be just a meal earned wouldn't be a Passover but it's not some irrational it is the Lord of lords it is the Lamb of God it is the King of Kings instituting the Eucharist so suddenly you realize if this is the Passover the New Covenant then this is what transforms the Roman execution into the climax of the sacrifice that he initiated when he instituted the Eucharist he wasn't the victim of Roman violence on Friday he was the victim of divine love on Holy Thursday but giving us the Eucharist he didn't lose his life at Calvary because he made his life a gift of love and so suddenly in experiencing the breaking of the Eucharistic bread at my first mass hearing the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world a second time a third time they all dropped to their knees the priest elevated a host and said behold the lamb of God and then he blessed all those who were invited to share in the wedding supper of the lamb this is who we are as Catholic Christians we're the Bride of Christ we're called to a covenant of marriage I could have said to my bride on our wedding night when I heard a Catholic priest pronounced in that first Mass I could have said to her this is my body which is given up for you I didn't say it and I couldn't do it Christ has said it Christ has done it and this is the journey were on a road to a mass that leads us again and again to an encounter with something more than just the sacred page something more the inspired word it is the word incarnated in the Old Testament God gave us his word but then the word became flesh he dwelt among us he suffered and died for us and he rose again and he gives to us himself now I know that there are people here who believe in God but they're not sure exactly what the make of the Eucharist or the mass God might seem just too big to be bothered with me I'm just too insignificant I mean after all God is all-powerful all-knowing he's got galaxies and solar systems to sustain so he's not that concerned about that small stuff well it's true God is big bigger than we can imagine and the universe is vast but I want to propose to you that our God sees us and loves us and is concerned with us as much as he is with solar systems and galaxies why because our God is the one who sustains subatomic particles as well as solar systems because solar systems and galaxies are really nothing more than subatomic particles for the almighty Guard it's all small to him but you can see in the manger as we celebrated in Christmas you can see on the cross as we'll celebrate on Good Friday you can see in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass do them no matter how small we feel no matter how far we fall God is more concerned with us and we are with ourselves God knows you better than you know yourself God loves you more than you love yourself and your loved ones he loves more than they you do too when we take him at his word we discover not only does this love of truth lead us to the faith in its fullness but in the process it also shows us the truth of love that the truth of the gospel is not only true but powerful not only powerful but meaningful but not only meaningful but beautiful I can say now after more than 30 years of being a Catholic that the faith is truer than ever realized I can also say it's much harder to live out than I ever realized before but what we have in Christ the gift of the son is the revelation of the love of the Father I want to just conclude by sharing an experience that I had with well with my wife the first time we became parents over 30 years ago she had gone through over 30 hours of labor been an emergency cesarean section for the next four days she spent recovering major surgery when I got my wife home and our little baby boy he wasn't so little 9 pounds 7 ounces there wasn't much I could do I couldn't nurse him I hadn't learned to change diapers but at 3:00 in the morning when I saw her finishing nursing him she hosted him up onto her shoulder to burp him and I'm thinking I can do that so I said handing off to me you go back to bed and she did and she fell into bed and fell fast asleep well I walked down the hall burping my little baby boy Michael for the first time and I heard him burp and then suddenly I felt something warm and wet going down my back and I walked into the baby room and I realized he felt much better he had burp but he had also vomited down my back now if you'd asked me in a year before has anybody ever vomit on you would have said no you had followed up and say how do you think you're gonna feel the first time somebody does I would have been honest and said anger frustration maybe rage but Here I am a year later looking into the eyes of the only person of the planet who's ever vomit on me and I'm feeling such love welling up within me I didn't want to lay him down in his crib yet even though my pajama shirt was now cold and clammy and sticking to my flesh instead i sat down to the rocker I began rocking him back and forth his eyes were drooping he fell fast asleep but even ten minutes later I wasn't ready to lay him down and that's when I felt a presence God was there and I didn't know why I didn't see a face I didn't hear a voice but I knew he was there and I was trying to figure out what was the the message he was trying to get across and it was simple it's like you see how you love your child and like God words can't begin to describe the love welling up within me and then I realized there was something more I couldn't figure out what it was and then I realized he was saying do you think it's possible that you love your child more than I love my children and I'm thinking theologically that's absurd I'm a first-time father you're the eternal father but then I realized it wasn't a pop quiz in the middle of the night he was not just trying to convince me of some theological truth he was trying to convince me that he loved me more than I loved my little boy and all I could think of was the countless times that I'd vomited on God figuratively speaking with my pride and my anger all my weaknesses assuming that every time I did he loved me less and less if Hillary showed me you can't have the human tail wagged the divine dog your goodness is not what causes me to love you my child I love you and I caused you to exist I brought you to this day to this night to fatherhood so you can see how much more I love you than you love him even though you can't even find the words to describe the love that you have for your little child this is how much God loves us and more we've got to take him at his word but he gave us that word and that word became flesh he died for us he rose again and he feeds us his body blood soul and divinity this is who we are as Christians this is what we do as Catholics this is why the mass is the main event and every time we hear the Lamb of God it is a call to continuous conversion it is a call to the Emmaus Road it is a call to the encounter with the risen Savior to whom we owe our lives let's be sure right now to unite our hearts to thank them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Almighty God our Father in Heaven we thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ your eternal son we thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit that enables mortal men to transform earthly matter into Christ's body blood soul and divinity we thank you for the Holy Spirit that has come upon these mortal men through the bishops from the apostles who got the power from your son our Savior we ask in Jesus name for you to pour out upon us the spirit of holiness the spirit of understanding that we would go forth from this place not only informed by your word inspired but transformed by the word incarnate who taught us to pray our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil on then Hail Mary grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen I could go on but they only gave me 18 minutes that I went 19 but I wanted to mention that my favorite book I wanted to make available to you is called understanding our Father biblical reflections on the Lord's Prayer it's at the st. all the the st. Paul center booth normally goes for like 15 or more it's available this weekend for five but above all I want you to open up your heart to understand the love of God the Father god bless you thank you so much [Applause] [Music] you I met Scott Hahn in 1990 recently married and I had an opportunity to be at a conference where he spoke nobody knew his name yet he hadn't released his famous of conversion tape and he got up and spoke and my wife and I said this could be the guy I think that what makes him unique in the New Evangelization is his ability to lead leaders and leaders respect him and they they want to emulate him I think Scott has shared his infectious enthusiasm for the faith with so many and in that way he's like st. John Paul the second because he shows that we need to know the truth and then we need to communicate it with love when he would come into the office and spend time it wasn't really just let's get this done let's get that done he was interested in the people who were contacting him he wanted to know about them he was interested in people as a young professor he was always looking out not just for those who were already committed but looking out for those who were still maybe on the on the corners of the faith on the edges of the faith life to draw them in so not only through his own work has he been the principal evangelist in the United States over the last decades but also as I mentioned the grandfather of so many other apostles by way of the persons he mentored to draw forth their gifts and that was the great thing about Scott as a teacher he was always the first student I was always moved by his life of Prayer he'd always see Scott in the chapel praying always doing his holy hour and you know that was the takeaway for me is that if I was gonna pursue theology I had to do it like Scott I had to do it on my knees and he so he just spent all this time reading and studying and teaching of course but it was really grounded in a deep interior life one of the most meaningful encounters in my life was to go visit my father when he was terminally ill and he had been diagnostic for the last several years and I've been praying for him just about every day and so I was willing to take a risk I went up to the South Hills Village Shopping Center to pick him up and instead of going home by way of Route 19 I took him the back way I pulled over by the creek and I told him this is where I used to play as a kid and if you don't mind I would like to pray together with you and I said okay and I let in prayer and I just thank God my father in heaven for this father of mine on earth that I knew I wouldn't have much longer and then I said the Amen and I hope that I waited but to no avail because he didn't feel like praying I went back home and I started beat myself up for trying just one more time to kind of get him to believe you know and then I heard a couple of weeks later that he was really he had really taken us a deep decline he was gaunt he was unshaven there was a razor but he was too weak to even lift it and so I volunteered to shave him and he's like oh no you know the nurses will do that and I said they're too busy and and he said I can't let you like dad you you changed my diapers the least you could do is let me shave you and so I did then when I was done I asked him what's it like for you now in a hospital he said it's the it's the hardest thing what I missed the most was getting my strength back for a few days and being able to drive myself up to the mall but for several days I actually drove myself home the long way down by the creek and I don't know if you remember this but you know when you pulled over and we prayed he said I go there alone and I know I can't pray like you do but I'm praying to God for the first time in my life and it's really special that's what I missed the most I was so blown away by the mercy of God that I had taken the risk after praying so hard and that I had let him in prayer but it seemed to no avail and now I was looking at my father and sing like a little brother in Christ learning to grow spiritually by praying for the first time in his life and I looked back at that experience as one of the greatest gifts of God one of the things that Scott did so beautifully was he didn't just talk theory he made life concrete practical application he didn't just tell us that it's important to pray he would invite us to pray he didn't just tell us to read the scriptures he taught us how to read the scriptures go out through authentic friendship teach others to have this intimacy with Jesus and then teach them to do the same to others this is what the church needs today this is what dr. Hahn has ignited and that's one of the things I've learned from them is that if you're if you're going to get ahead and you're gonna make disciples and you're gonna influence people don't be stingy with the great things that you're learning give it away this idea of discipleship mentoring spiritual fathering reproducing the life that Christ has given to me through professors through pastors through ministers this is the logging on my heart to impart to others what God has lavished upon me [Music] [Applause] Thanks there isn't a single person in this room who would be here tonight if it weren't for you and we were talking backstage I've known Scott for 30 years and I said in the last 30 years I know you've mentored me I know that you've mentored dr3 and dr. gray how many I know many many others and we started counting and said about 70 and then then he said what about the theologian is that you've been mentoring the doctoral students and doctors of theology and he said okay that that adds another hundred we give the award not because Scott needs an award it's actually not good for him it's a we give it because you need to watch us give the award and we need to give it you've changed our lives stop crying so we giving you the st. John Paul Award as a great evangelist and not just an evangelist but an evangelizer of evangelists who ripple through we're just [Applause] what's your story [Music] this is the power of one one man one woman this is a room of 17,000 the next Scott Hahn the next Archbishop shaft you were Fulton oisin we've been praying is sitting in this room be generous with God with one another thank you so much it is an inescapable fact every man's life ends the same way it is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another there was one man who understood this reality and distinguished himself in a big way that man's name was Ernest Shackleton met in 1914 this polar expert decided to conquer the unknown he set out into the deep in pursuit of a great adventure to be the first one ever to cross the continent of Antarctica this endeavor will truly test the limits of his endurance couldn't do it alone legend has it Shackleton took out an ad in nineteen men wanted for hazardous journey low wages bitter cold long hours of complete darkness safe return doubtful honor and recognition in case of success the only needed a small proof for this enterprise yet he received five thousand responses five thousand men ready to die rather than to suffer a dull monotonous existence Shackleton's I had promised them something a chance to do something great with their lives [Music] do we dare to venture into the deep like Shackleton management how are you going to live I love that how are you going to live I really encourage you to pray about going on mission with focus go see them at their booth after this so I don't know about some of you but I had a really rough semester you know when you can just feel the weight of the Cross you can just feel your own pain right it's it hurts and it's really hard but this next speaker is proof that the cross is not the end of our story she is proof of the resurrection she is proof that there is hope there is so much hope whatever you're holding with you tonight maybe it's the lie that you're not enough or that you don't have what it takes whatever the lie is it doesn't stand a chance against the truth that this woman speaks about our Lord she spoke truth to me in my own life via her podcast abiding together yeah she is she's talking with two of her best friends are talking about the Lord and life and you can hear her when someone says something good she's like yeah Amen girl amen I love that about her she's just allowing herself to be continually transformed for our Lord her heart is just desiring to be closer to his you can hear it right she she comes to us from Texas she went she graduated from the University of nevada-reno and she was there on a volleyball scholarship upon graduation she joined the Society of our I'm gonna make the sure I got this right the Society of Our Lady the Most Holy Trinity whoa salt for short and since then she's been traveling across the world sharing this beautiful love of our Lord so please join me in welcoming sister Miriam James [Applause] good evening friends how y'all doin um I'm honored to be here with you this evening and tonight we're gonna talk about love and I think when we talk about things you know there's a million ways you can start a talk there's a million ways you can start a conversation but really what tonight I'm gonna talk about us I'm gonna talk about the heart of Christ and the revelation of his face so I thought that maybe what I could do is just start by beholding your face so could you look up here at me we say what we say the eyes are the windows to the soul if there's somebody in your life that you love very much and you know their face you know that they have a whole conversation that is revealed in their eyes and you see them and you love them and you know them and when we talk about love it's not some sort of theoretical concept or precept it's a reality it's a person so I thought that maybe after that there'd be no better place to start a talk than to talk about somebody whom you might know very well anybody a CS Lewis fan in the house right yeah I love CS Lewis and I I just his works are amazing I love Narnia I love the whole thing but I came across a work that I had never ever encountered before and it's a little book called till we have faces right a retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche and it's a story of a girl named Oriole who's that she's the protagonist of a story and in her life she's had some suffering and she has some struggles and what she's done throughout her life is she is actually a master book of complaints against God and her complaints were that God is not fair life is not fair and God does not answer and she's been eloquently writing down complaint after complaint after complaint after complaint and she finishes her first book and she says there is no answer for you do not speak you do not speak until she has a very transformative journey and at the end of the story she gets a chance to read her book before God and she realizes that she stands there before she's about to read this eloquent story but what she realizes that she's not holding a book that she's written of complaint after complaint she sucks holding one piece of paper a shabby little piece of paper that has one complaint one itching in the depths of her soul that she keeps reading over and over and over again and she said as soon as she finished it she started reading it again and she couldn't stop herself and so she was confronted with the presence of the one she had ached for and she says this the complaint that I was making was the answer to have heard myself making it was to be answered when the time comes at which you will be forced to at last utter the speech that is laying in the center of your soul for years which you have all that time been saying over and over and over again you will not talk about the joy of words I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly nor let us answer till that word can be dug out of us why should they hear the babble that we think we mean how can they meet us face-to-face until we have faces the Greek word for revelation means to in veil one's face is to see someone if you read the book or you saw the movie Lord of the Rings if you've seen any Lord of the Rings fans here at all right at the very end of the story at the very end of story and The Return of the King when King Theoden of Rohan lies dying on the on the battlefield he's about to die in his knee sail and runs toward him and she leans over him and he opens his eyes and he sees her and he puts his hand on her face and he says I know your face and it was her face that accompanied him in his dying moments as he went to rest with the kings of old her face I was listening to a fascinating podcast recently on the neuro plasticity of the human brain how the brain is able to regenerate itself and create new pathways and the woman that was the guest on the podcast said that there's actually a pathway in your brain directly related to the recognition of the human face that it goes directly from your line of sight to the brainstem where you can immediately pick up on people's facial expressions because that's how you've survived your entire life as an infant we see our mothers faces and we're intuiting her nonverbal cues and we're looking at her and we're looking for affirmation we're looking to be seen known and loved and we have a very keen ability to do that with one another and so when Christ comes to reveal who he is he comes with a face and I love that Pope Francis in the year of mercy he wrote a letter on the year of mercy in the very first sentence that the entire work was this Jesus Christ is the face the face of the father's mercy the mercy has a phase and we heard dr. Hahn quoting San Agustin when he says God is more intimate to me than I am to myself and he speaks to the depth of who we are and that love is poured out the face is poured out the heart is revealed in the face st. Paul had been fascinated literally by st. Paul's letter to the Colossians and he says this in st. Paul writes his letter in prison and he says this he says and when you were dead in trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh God made you alive together with him when he forgave us all of our trespasses erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands he set this aside nailing it to the cross he disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them triumphing over them in it the Christ comes into our life to reveal his face and I'm telling you man the beauty is in the breaking there is no resurrection without the crucifixion but see what happens when a heart breaks wide open is that love is poured out and that's why we find the love of Christ so captivating one of my favorite quotes from Bishop Baron he says you know Jesus Christ hasn't come to us as a kindly and inspiring moral teacher Jesus Christ comes to us as a cosmic warrior has come to do battle with all those forces that keep us from being truly alive amen oh man you better believe in and that's what he does and he comes to us vulnerable and little and we celebrate that now doing on in the Christmas season this summer had a very beautiful experience of doing an eight-day steiner retreat with a lovely young jesuit priest and we were doing a meditation on that very thing uh Nativity and you know it's just and then imaginative prayer like holding christ so vulnerable so little so dependent so frail upon mankind as he gazes upon us and father said you know a sister miriam he said jesus teaches us how to be human he teaches us how to be human in his vulnerability because he has no self defense mechanisms he has no walls if you came to the workshop on forgiveness today he has no walls of self protection his heart is broken open for you and for me and we see that very clearly in a profound way as he goes from naked as an infant to naked and his final act of self gift as a man i hope you know that the very last thing that the romans did to you before they crucified you which was the most humiliating way to die they indeed a scourge you to the point of death they were masters at scourging they would watch you right until you're about to die but they wouldn't give you the luxury of dying they would keep you alive they would indeed put the instrument of your death on your shoulder you would march through town with your crime around your neck your spit on you were cursed at they would march you through town right outside the city gates and they didn't crucify you out in the highway somewhere way out on the middle of nowhere the crew surprised you outside the city gates but on the main highway so everybody would know the Romans rule here and this is what happens if you defy us and fear I think we know is a very powerful motivator and one of the last things that they do before they crucify you is they strip you naked to shred any sort of dignity or modesty from you to completely humiliate you they strip you utterly naked and our Savior the man fully alive is nailed to a cross completely stripped and the beauty is in the breaking and we see how his sight is pierced in his hardest poured out and we see from his face how he gazes how he gazes upon us and his heart is broken open wide open so you and I can come and find rest and healing there and it is captivating I found out this year that I too had something written on the piece of paper of my heart and it wasn't some thing that I didn't already know because you know what quite frankly I think we all have this no matter what stage of life or and no matter what vocation we find ourselves and how no matter how young or old we are we all have this piece of paper that has something etched in the depths that is unuttered and perhaps we don't even want to look at it and I realized this last year which was incredibly excruciating right that God had allowed me to be put in a crucible and he turned that fire very very hot and what comes out of precious metal when the fire is turned out but all the imperfections and they were coming right out of me and it wasn't some horrid addiction that I had because I'd already dealt with that some of you perhaps might know my story but I was conceived out of wedlock my biological parents were high school seniors to this day I've never seen their faces I don't know them but I have a deep intuition that at one point my mother thought of aborting me but she didn't and I standing here before you today on this stage because a scared seventeen year old girl said yes to life and I was the child in her womb I was giving up for adoption was put in a foster home and I grew up in a family that a wonderful family who loved me very much but you know what sometimes really broken things happen in beautiful families when I was 11 years old I was sexually abused I didn't tell anybody on my 12th birthday I began drinking when I was 13 I was raped and my life shattered and I thought you know what if I could just get my act together enough I could just gonna get this facade together enough if I could just get enough walls of self protection enough well then you wouldn't see the depths of me you wouldn't see this because this was horrifying and I think all of us had this place in her heart where were afraid that were not enough and were afraid that when we find out where we're not enough to one another the God quote-unquote finds out that we're not enough that love will be withdrawn but at some point we're gonna have to grasp but love or strive for love or beg for people to love us because we feel we're not worthy enough that we don't have what it takes to be loved and we managed quite well sometimes don't we and I thought the fallout from that because by the time I was sitting in these seats at your age if I were to come to a conference like this I was already a full-blown alcoholic and I thought you know what I heard Jesus call me I was mentored by a wonderful priest who loved me very much and I said yes to religious life I heard Jesus call me to be his bride and I said yes to that and I thought that all the baggage would fall away because that's what happens in the sound of music you know that's what happens if I just had a guitar in some mountains we'd be good y'all you know I'm saying right okay I was gonna come on stage with a guitar that we totally cliched I didn't do that but but what I found my dear friends was that was just the beginning I mean it's not just because I do live in the great nation of Texas but my motto in life is go bigger than anything there we go my motto in life is go big or go home and I was like you know what Lord if we're gonna do this let's do this because you cannot leave one part of my heart unconverted you can't leave one part of my heart untouched by your love because I ache for you so what I found out this year was there was something that was lying uh Nutr din my soul that my bridegroom wanted to hear and I didn't want to speak it and he said to me I love you I behold your face I love you and there is nothing in your life that will separate you from me because you are mine and I am yours and I want you to utter what is done uttered and your saw I want to hear it from you to my heart what it was terrifying but it was a gradual process of speaking the depths of my soul speaking of the Parts I did not want to speak of that I found out you know when I did that it was a deep deep breaking but what happened in that is these parts of my heart that had been isolated that had been disintegrated began to come together in ways that I did not understand how they could have ever done so before because that's what Christ does he takes what is broken he takes this out here and this out here and this I hear and he integrates it into himself and he brings it into his own heart and a fascinating privilege of suffering is the Christ is there first but there is nothing in your life that you have suffered there's nothing in your life that has ever happened to you that has ever been done to you the Christ cannot redeem because he's redeemed out already because he's taking it into himself naked on the cross the vulnerable broken open for you and his face is gazing upon you and do we not want to be loved like that do we not as well in our nakedness and our vulnerability and the places that were stripped do we not want to be deeply and passionately and compassionately loved that's what we find heroic love so attractive I don't know what's written for you here but I do know that Christ is already here and my dear friends this is my personal opinion you can take it or leave it but I really believe part of what we're seeing in the church right now the crisis that we're seeing in the church on the particular nuance of the crisis is because we have not dealt with this and you and I cannot go through a life one single day more without going to the depths not once but daily he comes to encounter us here he comes to encounters and the deep parts of our soul and yes he knows what's laying there but he wants to encounter us to gaze upon us there with his love because his gaze heals I had a very profound experience of going to Poland a few months ago and I've never been to Poland before and we went to a lot of different places and well we were there but the one place that I will never forget one of them that I will never forget as we went to to our Auschwitz and there was something very obviously sobering about the it wrecked me I'll just be honest yell like a total of the nun was sobbing there was not coming out I mean it was I was overwhelming on so many levels it was so overwhelming on so many levels because you know what happens in a great monster artists disease like that they don't start out huge they start out in small seeds in the human heart and that capacity is within all of us for great good or great evil the lion for you know for good and evil runs down the heart of every single person but there was a place in the tour we stopped actually there's a monument we stopped actually where this the exact place that st. Maximilian Kolbe gave his life it's a story of this Polish priest right who had three men had escaped from Auschwitz and the repperton retribution for that they chose ten men to be starved to death in a bunker and she'd been out with you know like just the horrific conditions already but the torture chambers and Auschwitz were just you can't even imagine them and as the roll call is being called out they would use roll call off to humiliate prisoners but this day they were doing as a death knell it was a death march for you and they called out one of the men and the man completely had a breakdown he said please no please don't take me I have a wife and children please don't do that and at that moment one man made a choice to love heroically what just changed the course of history st. Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward at that very moment and he said I'm a Polish priest that man has a wife and children take me instead can I just say one thing about the priesthood just for a moment my dear brothers as a bride of Christ there's a particular revelation of the church I would just humbly beg you but if Jesus Christ is calling you to become his priest might you consider saying yes because what happens to a man when he is ordained he's actually ontologically changed he's indelibly marked his heart is literally configured into Christ a priest loves in a way nobody else can he loves literally with the heart of Christ in a particular way it brings healing and power and strength and beauty and it's a life of heroic sacrifice in heroic love and it is one love it's one heart it's one yes that changes the world not once but again and again and again and again so if he's calling you my dear brothers there is nothing more noble in your life and you can do then become a Catholic priest a priest configured it to the heart of Jesus Christ of the lover himself so if you were looking for a sign this weekend that God might be calling you started turning there you go alright so don't be asking for a sign if that was a sign because it was a sign so but so as to what happens as we see st. Maximilian Kolbe he steps forward and he trades places with a prisoner and he indeed is chosen and our tour guide I don't know if he was a religious man but our tour guide was kind of a caught a bit off guard and he said you know after Maximilian Kolbe said that he said nobody in the camp said anything everybody including the German guards were in stunned silence because nobody ever did that it was an act on press it was an act of a heroic love unprecedented in history and then the guards came to and they said permission granted and they took my skin million Colby and they put him in the bunker after 14 days of no food or no water he was the only man left alive and the guards came in and what they said is a size faced a serene countenance a gaze of love and as they injected directly into his heart carbolic acid they executed him he died a deep sleep of peace in Auschwitz there's actually a death certificate that has a fake cause of death and it says he died of a weak heart but I would say he died of a heart broken open in love the man that he traded places with lived fifty-three years after that day and one of the last talks that he gave at the age of 92 years old witnesses in Houston Texas and he said I will never tire as long as I live I will never tire I consider it my duty to speak of the heroic love of Maximilian Kolbe and he died the next year at the age of 93 that's Catholic living at his finest you know and for Maximilian Kolbe that journey didn't begin on one hot day at Auschwitz it began much much earlier in a thousands of decisions that he made every single day after day after day after day after day to not stay up here but to go here to encounter the gaze of Christ you know what oriole finds at the end of the story she finds at the very end of the story about her complaints and about what it means to love and what it means to see what it means to be seen she says this she says I ended my first book with the words no answer and I know now Lord why you utter no answer because you yourself are the answer before your face all questions die away for what other answer would suffice that tonight he is gazing upon you and I want to invite you very courageously if you would to bring this to him maybe it's something you've never spoken before maybe it's something that you're wrestling with something it's a joy it's an ache it's a longing it's desire I don't know what I'm telling you he's already there and he wishes to speak to you my spiritual director I was talking to him some time ago and I was speaking about it's just a struggle that I was having and things like that and he could hear the anxiety rising in my voice and as I began to kind of just talk about this and just this is the stress it was kind of emitting in my heart he said well sisters like let's just stop right there I want to stop right there because I want to let your bridegroom speak to you I want them to encounter you and the depth and I want to let him speak to your heart into gaze upon you and if you'd allow me I would like to pray that over you right now so Lord Jesus I pray that you would encounter us with your gaze and I pray that at this very moment you would bring the one thing to mind and our hearts what is lying uh Nutter Dan the depths of our hearts for every single one of us right now that you wish to encounter with your gaze with your healing love and we bring that before you and as you gaze upon us Lord you are so kind you're not afraid and your heart is broken open in love and suffering in beauty to bring us to life together in you I pray for courage for restoration that we would receive your gaze receive your love and to be transformed bring us into the depths of your pierced heart may your precious blood wash over us and bring us to life in you come Holy Spirit you are welcome here you come right here set us on fire melt our hearts and bring us to life we make this prayer through Christ our Lord amen you are deeply and eternally loved my dear friends and it has been a joy to gaze upon you for just a few minutes thank you for allowing me to be with you this evening god bless you always forward everywhere forward we must not be held back by debts bad years of white difficulties at the times man's adversity is God's opportunity the victory will be ours if we continue our efforts courageously even at

Channel: FOCUS Catholic

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Keywords: catholic, catholic church, christian, scott hahan, sr. miriam james heidland, SOLT, focus catholic, focus talks, seek 2019, SEEK, college, catholic conference, catholic youth conference

Id: KHXhJ346RJs

Length: 66min 48sec (4008 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 05 2019