[music] Man: "Mother Angelica Live!" brought to you from the Eternal Word Television Studios in Birmingham, Alabama. [music] <i>Mother: See in you the love,</i> <i>the compassion of Jesus.</i> <i>The most glorious work of all,</i> <i>to praise God in His Kingdom.</i> <i>Anyone moved by the Spirit...</i> <i>Anyone who lives in love,</i> <i>lives in God</i> <i>and God lives in Him.</i> [music] <i>What a wonderful thing</i> <i>is our Church.</i> <i>This whole network</i> <i>is built on trust.</i> <i>The essence of evangelization</i> <i>is to tell everybody,</i> <i>"Jesus loves you!"</i> <i>We're all called</i> <i>to be great saints.</i> <i>Don't miss the opportunity!</i> (applause) Mother: Well, here we are. We just have a wonderful group of our family here tonight and I enjoy each one of them. Only God made me with short arms so I can't go way in the back, but they all know I love them, and so we just have our handicaps, don't we? Do you know what I got, what I found? Lookie here, the Catechism of the Catholic Church in this size, and it's all there, English and Spanish. How do you like that, huh? All of you that read and understand and speak Spanish now can have it and it's a wonderful size. You can put it in your purse, you can take it on a trip and the print is great. I read it very often because every time I read it, it's something more beautiful and more wonderful in it. This is how we keep close to Jesus and Mary because we know what the Church teaches. If someone doesn't teach the truth, you can go there and look at this and say, "Uh-uh," then go and bring your little Catechism and show them. It's written in the book and that's what's important now and see, you can have your own Catechism and I think everybody… Do you know what's so sad about this? Let me show you here. Okay, there are 60, almost 70 million Catholics in America. That's a lot, isn't it? That's 25%, more or less? It says, "8 million copies in print world-wide." There are almost 900 million Catholics in the world, only 8 million have the Catechism. Now, this is supposed to be good news for the publishers. I think it's sad news. I really do. Everybody's, "Oh, 8 million copies!" At least the 900 million Catholics ought to have one! I'm not talking about all the rest. So evangelization-wise, we haven't done too well. So although I'm happy they sold 8 million worldwide, I think you ought to help to raise it, raise that number. Because if you don't know the truth, you can't live the truth and if you don't live the truth, then what will happen to you, do you see? You have to know the truth. It's so wonderful. Our Dear Lord said one day, "I AM the Way, the Truth and the Light." So He does not possess truth like we do; He <i>is</i> the Truth. That's a big difference. Like love - I possess love, you possess love in different degrees but God <i>is</i> Love. We possess mercy in different degrees but God <i>is</i> Mercy. It's kind of hard for us to understand. Somebody else offered me $200 for this thing. (group chuckles) Last week was $100, this week it's $200. If it keeps going up, I might be tempted. (all chuckle) But anyway, we need to, to look at the truth and know that our Jesus is Son of God and He is God. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God, was with God and the Word was God." There's never a moment there was not God. I told you a couple of times about my poor mother. She'd always say, "Who made God." I thought, "Ah! "Nobody made God. He always was and always will be." "Yeah, I know but who made Him?" "Mother, nobody made Him." "Well, somebody had to." I said, "No, no, nobody had to. He always was," and we don't understand that. If we understood that and we understood that that God loves me. I think that's one of the hardest things to understand. Don't you find that hard? You always think, "Oh, come on, I'm just a grain of sand on the seashore." Oh no, no, no, no. He knows you so well, you're born alone and you die alone. That ought to tell you something. It's not like a crowd, you can hide behind somebody. You don't have to hide because He's going to look at you straight in the eye, all by yourself. That's such a consolation. There's one poem I read years and years and years ago. I think I was in grade school. There's only one sentence I remember and we all feel that way. I said, "Lord, in all the realms of Your creation, no one needs Thee more than I." And I think we can all say that. But if we realized how much He loves us… If you could imagine a time when there was no time and God was alone; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Well, at that moment, at some point in that moment, I, I was in His mind. Can you beat that? You were in the mind of God before He created anything or anyone. Does it make you feel kind of old? (all chuckle) But see, if we knew that one truth; you don't have to know a lot if you knew one truth. I like to imagine that time when God knew me and He decided that on April 20, 1923 I would be born. He knew that and He knew whatever it was He wanted me to do, He knew the whole thing. Now, I have free will and I can say "no" and you can say "no" and that's why our aches and pains should be at least a comfort because He knows, He knows! He knows everything about you. Believe me, there's some things you wish He'd forget, don't you? (all chuckle) There are a lot of things you wish He'd forget but He doesn't remember them like you do. He's very Loving, Forgiving and Gentle. He's Just. Oh yeah, He's Just. So Our Jesus was among us, lived among us to show us the way. I would like to go to St. Paul, to the 2 Corinthians. I love Corinthians because there's a special part of Corinthians. One day we were saying what each sister would like to put on their gravestone. I said to them, "I want 2 Corinthians 3:18." They said, "Why?" I said, "Well, here's what it says. 'And we with our unveiled faces…'" When Moses came down the mountain, his face was veiled. Why? It was so shiny, they couldn't look at it. Well, he said, "We with the unveiled face reflect like a mirror the brightness of the Lord." If we knew one truth and lived by it, the truth that God loves you, you'd never be lonely. Who would you miss? He's right there. He doesn't cause you any trouble. He's easy to live with and always ready to love and forgive. Well, it goes on and says, "We reflect like a mirror the brightness of the Lord," and we all grow brighter and brighter, "as we are turned into the image we reflect." Now, how do you like that? You have been called by God to reflect Jesus. You're not going to all do it in the same way. But our love, our kindness, our patience and it said, "We reflect this. It's the work of the Holy Spirit." This is the year of the Spirit. And by the way, I want you to pray for our Holy Father. I saw his picture the other day. He looks so tired. This is a man of great courage, great love, great stamina. You feel kind of tired sometimes. You look at him, you want to go on. He's so prayerful but I think he needs prayers like you and I do. I would pray for him. Today was his birthday. He's 78. He's only 3 years older than I am and we need to pray for him. This is the month of Our Lady, May, and he loves Our Lady. So let's say a prayer, maybe say your next rosary for him. He's our father, he's the Vicar of Jesus, he's the Vicar of Christ and he needs our prayers. Anyway, see, that's your vocation. You say, "Well, I'm married." Well, three cheers. (group chuckles) I'm glad of that but your mission, you primary mission is to become holy. All of you have to be holy, not just me, everybody. You say, priests and nuns have to be holy. We hope. That's our mission. That's our vocation is to be holy so we can give you courage to strive for holiness but we're all in the same boat, aren't we, huh? We all get old, we all get gray. It always amazes me, I always tell you about the people who are gray and they turn it, dye it, 'cause people have good black hair blonde. I never understood that because you already got good looking hair. Why do you want to change the color? But you know what happens? Right here at the roots it starts coming out black. Did you ever notice that, huh? So everybody knows you don't have blonde hair. It's black, then you've got to keep going there. How much does it cost, $10 or $15? Is it more than that, huh? How much? How much more? You know what you could use? Use Peroxide and send me the rest. (laughs) (coughs) It's amazing how I think of ways to make money. (laughs) But you know we're always kind of upset about our aches and pains and I told you when I was healed how worried I was about not having braces and not having pain. Well the Lord took care of me, He did. (applause) I got other kinds of pains. My asthma's bad yet and I had so many steroids, I got diabetes and it's just all kind of little things, not big things just little things and I said, "Angelica, why didn't you keep your mouth shut?" (audience laughs) But I really don't care because it keeps me close to the Lord. I feel rather content you know that I don't have to worry now but here's what St. Paul says. He said, "In view of the extraordinary nature of His revelations and to stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh." Now, there's so many arguments and debates about what it was, a thorn, everybody said, oh boy, he had sex problems. That's stupid. In think he had dysentery. (audience laughs) I'm serious because the water was so bad. Didn't he tell Timothy, "Look, forget that water, drink wine." (audience laughs) Well reason was, you got so sick when you drank the water. You see, the wine at least was alcohol. All my Baptist friends just turned me off. (audience laughs) But you've got to face reality. They couldn't drink anything else. Even today in Italy, you can't drink the water. You can drink battled water. But you go down the Via della Conciliazione and everybody's drinking water from the fountain and I look at them and I say, "Oh, are you going to be sorry by midnight!" (group chuckles) Because you just can't drink the water. So that's my humble opinion of His wounded flesh. "An angel of satan beat me and stopped me from getting too proud." Now, isn't that something? If we would realize what a gift, what a gift our pains and aches and problems are to us, why? They keep us close to Jesus. You have to admit, when everything goes well, you're feeling good, you cooked a good meal, your family's happy with it, you don't have an ache or a pain, everything went right today, you went down the street and you looked down, there was a $5 bill and you said, "Whoa boy!" I mean, everything went right. It's absolutely boring! (group chuckles) It's boring. Why? Because I'll bet you Jesus just wasn't there. Oh, we'll thank Him for something but it's not the same as when you have a worry, a frustration, a concern, a headache. You say, "Well, are you saying you can't be happy in good times?" Oh, no but I don't think you can always have good times. Pain and suffering is a part of, was a part of Jesus' life. It's a part of your life. There's nobody here that's not worried about somebody. That's why some of you came. You're worried about somebody. You want to put them before the Blessed Sacrament because it doesn't seem like you're getting anywhere. But I'll tell you a little secret. If you pray, tell Jesus the whole story, once a day, not over and over. Nobody likes a nag. (audience laughs) Not even God. He heard you the first time. He knows your son or your daughter. He knows! There's where trust comes in. I've been thinking a lot about Our Lady's trust level. What a Woman! She trusted from the very beginning. When She was 3 She had to go to the temple. Her Mother and Father left and that was it. She had to trust so young. She trusted all Her life. What amazed me about Our Lady is that even when our Dear Lord was on the cross and died, She did not have a grave or a tomb to put Him in. Isn't that amazing? Didn't have anything. She trusted. Then here comes a man and says, "He can have my tomb. It's brand new. Nobody's been in it." What trust. When all the apostles left Her Son and there was only John who stayed, and who else? Mary Magdalene, the sinner. She had courage and strength. She had no human respect. She didn't care what they thought about her. But there were two people-- the Most Pure Immaculate One and Mary Magdalene. That's it. If Our Lord looked down-- and He had to look down often 'cause in an effort of pushing Himself up to breath, He had to look down --and what did He do? After three years, all the miracles and all the feeding of the crowds and the talking and the preaching and raising the dead, there were only three people there. Oh, there were other women further on. You've got to give credit to the women. They were there! (audience chuckles) But Our Lady must have thought, "Three years, there are only three of us." What a heartache, huh, that She stood. There's a very important word in the Scriptures, "She stood there." She didn't faint. She didn't yell and scream. Why? Because She was totally united to the Father's Will. And then Our Lord gives Her to John. Oh, I mean, I think John must have been wonderful but he is no substitute for Jesus! But all of a sudden She's given by Her Son to John, "Mother, behold Thy son." Ah, no matter how you think of Our Lady, She's Awesome, Awesome. But here's Paul now. He said, "I pleaded with the Lord three times for this to leave me." Have you ever pleaded with the Lord? "Lord, can't you take this away from me? "It's a big pain. I'm tired of it." I don't think there's a person in this room or a person in the whole wide world hasn't prayed that this cross, this pain, this ache goes away. Paul counted the times. I don't think any of you know how many times you asked the Lord to get rid of something or somebody. (group chuckles) Something is easier than somebody. And poor Paul and what did the Lord answer him? "My grace is enough for you. My power is at it's best in weakness." Would you have expected that? Now, here's where we see St. Paul full of trust. It says in the life of St. Teresa of Avila that she was so disheartened one time that she sat in the refectory with her food in front of her and wasn't eating. It said Our Lord appeared to her and cut up her food for her and said, "Eat, daughter. Worse things are coming." (group chuckles) I bet that gave her an appetite. (audience laughs) (Mother laughs) Our Dear Lord doesn't do what we expect. We think on such a human, human level. It's like the resurrection. By golly, there's Mary Magdalene crying her eyes out because she went and He wasn't there. It never dawned on her. She was there when He said He would rise! And she hears this voice, doesn't recognize Him. Why? She's so full of tears and so convinced that He's gone. Somebody took Him away. He says, "Why are you crying?" She says, "Because they've taken my Master away. If you tell me where He is, I'll go get Him." Dead weight. Are you saying that you're going to carry a dead body, dead weight and you're going to go and pick Him up? See, love doesn't, doesn't think. I bet She would have done it! Our Lord said, "Mary." Now, she recognized Him, see. Wow, what a Woman. We say, "Well, that was kind of dumb." Love does dumb things. You've all been in love. You're married, you did dumb things. Maybe the was the dumbest thing you did. (audience laughs) (Mother laughs) But we all do things that just don't make sense sometimes. Our Lord seems to go along with us though and He brings what? Good out of the dumb things we do. Our Lord was so good to these Apostles. They were so doubtful. Oh, poor Thomas--aren't we grateful to Thomas? He's not going to believe it. "No, unless I put my hand in His wounds, I'm not going to believe it." Oh, you all know somebody like that gripes you to death. You'll tell them about some miracle. "Oh, Mother Angelica was healed." "Yeah? How do you know? "How do you know she had braces? "I've been watching her. "She's been sitting in a chair all the time. "I don't see any braces. How do you know?" Some people don't want to believe in miracles, even the Lord's miracles. Some of the new translations, they kind of water down miracles. Why? He's the Lord God. He's Infinite and Holy and Powerful. He can do anything. Remember the time He cursed the fig tree? Ohh, that scared them. The figs were not in season, that's what got me. I mean, that little old tree was just blooming but no figs. It wasn't time for figs. The Apostles were shocked. They said, "Lord, the fig tree You cursed is shriveled." What was the Lord saying to us? He was saying, "I have to bear fruit in season and out of season, whether I feel like it or not." We blame things around us. We blame our past; we blame our childhood for the things I have to do now. I must love Jesus now. I may not feel it. I may be dry as a bone. I have to love Him now. I don't know if I have tomorrow. I have to love Him now. St. Paul realized that when the Lord said, "My grace is enough for you. My power's at its best in weakness." That's what happened to the woman who crawled behind Him in all that crowd and touched the hem of His garment. Wow! I like to imagine sometime Our Dear Lord getting up early. The Apostles sometime woke up, He was gone. They had to hunt for Him. Even God had to be alone sometimes. He's go out, up a mountain, in a garden and He'd pray, talk to His Father. Well, some of us don't pray at all. If Jesus felt the need to pray, how come some of you don't? We need to pray, just talk to God. I think we need to revive, some of us, the rosary. The rosary is, without question, the most powerful prayer, the most powerful because it's a mini-Scripture. Just as St. Paul here had to really think now that his illness was a grace from God--because Our Lord called it, "My grace is enough for you" --he had the power to overcome, maybe never get healed. So he said, "I shall be very happy to make my weakness my special boast." Paul was one of these people who had to boast about something. Do you know somebody like that? They have to tell you something wonderful about themselves. Well, he was one of these people. Now, he said, "I want the power of Christ to stay over me. "That's why I'm very content with my weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and agonies that I go through for Jesus' sake." Oh, you see, he got a little disgusted with this constant striving, everybody hating him. The worst thing he tried was to give a talk in Greek. (laughs) They laughed at him, said, "Who is he?" and they all walked away. He had his problem, really did. What does he say? "…for it is when I am weak that I am strong." Then when you feel like everything's lost, that's when you're at your best because you can give it to Jesus. Give it to Jesus, just put it in His Heart and try to forget it. I have seen miracles happen over and over when we do that. He's so happy, so happy. Sometimes we get so down in the dumps, so depressed. Do you know what I do? I go to the Infant Jesus-- not the Baby Jesus but the Divino Nino. Now, don't equate this so-called storm. (group chuckles) I get so mad. Everything--every rain drop that falls, it's extra, every cloud--"Oh here comes Nino." (group chuckles) Now, they invented El Nina. (group chuckles) The west coast has Nino and the east coast now has Nina. I wonder if the middle's going to have Ninis. (audience laughs) I mean, they've got to blame God for something or they call it... Why don't we call it Cudigoodness or something? But why El Nino? They say, "Oh, well, a storm used to come every Christmas." If I hear about El Nino once more... All the stuff in the air is El Nino and all the asthma stuff, we had it for years. Now, the shore line's getting shorter--it's been getting shorter for years. Now, we've got big tornadoes --we've had them. This is tornado alley. Do you expect it to change? Why blame El Nino, this Little Sweet Child Jesus? I just look at Him and I say, "Sweet Jesus, don't pay any attention to these people. "They're all nuts. (audience chuckles) "They don't have anything else to do but to blame everything on You." So, don't write me a letter about El Nino. He's the Jesus you and I know--when He was about 8, 9 years old, maybe 7-- running around, looking at Joseph and Mary and trying to figure out what is Joseph doing. You say, "Well, He was God. He knew." I know He knew but, "He grew in wisdom and age." When you don't feel like you're being answered, why don't you go to Him? He's so Small and Loving and Understanding and Good. He's so Little that He understands. One time, the great Teresa of Avila saw this Child coming down the stairway. When I went there, it has a room where the stairway and here's the Child Jesus and there's Teresa of Avila. She said, "And Who are You?" He said, "I AM Jesus of Teresa. And who are you?" And she said, "I am Teresa of Jesus." He disappeared. I think if we all went to Him, the Divino Nino, the Divine Child, I think maybe our lives would change and we would feel the warmth of God's love for us. That's why He became so small. That's why He grew in wisdom and age, so that somehow when we're at our worst, we would feel comfortable talking to God, so small. I would do that. I must have a dozen or two of Divino Ninos and they come to me from all over the world because they know I have devotion to Him. There's one from Spain, I can't find a statue of Him. Anybody have one? I'll give you my cup for it. (audience laughs) It has to be the right one, though. This Child is leaning. He's got some kind of nice coat on and a little coat and dress and stockings and He's, has a hat on and He's leaning on a post, oh, maybe that big. He's crying. He's crying. He has in His hand a little rope and there's a black sheep there but the black sheep won't look at Him. He keeps looking another direction. It's awesome. It's a picture, but I can't find the statue. What I'd like to do is to have all kind of Divino Ninos. Why? Because we've lost the beauty of childhood, haven't we? Children are abused. Children are tortured. Children are thrown out. Babies are aborted. Why? We don't have time. We don't understand and we don't want children. I have decided that the Lord wants me to spread devotion to the Child cause until we become as little children, we shall not enter the Kingdom--not childish but trusting and loving and giving ourself, abandoning our self to the Lord, knowing He is the only One that can help us. St. Paul knew that. That's why. Well, when I'm weak, now I'm strong. We need to know that. Go to the Divine Child. I think you'll find many wonderful things you'll learn and you'll never be afraid to go to Him, never because somehow you'll feel at home. And while you're there, tell Him to give more people a love for children--not only to have children--but to love them and draw them close to your heart, in your mind. Ask Him to give them the reality of His presence in their life. So, if we looked at St. Paul, he says in here in the next chapter, "Examine yourself to make sure that you're in the faith." Test yourself. How are you going to do that? "Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ lives in you?" Oh. "If not, you have failed the test." This is 2 Corinthians 13:5. He said, "I hope you haven't failed it." I hope you haven't failed it. Do you acknowledge that Jesus lives in you? And if you're afraid because of all your sins and your sinner condition, if you feel you've slipped down quite a bit, what I would do is go to the Child Jesus. You don't have to be afraid because He understands. He became very small for your sake. He wants us to be very loving and very trusting and filled with trust for God. So one day we'll come out with all kinds of nice little statues and prayers because I am convinced, until we have the heart of a child and until we love children again from our hearts, we'll never be what God wants us to be. We'll never understand the beauty of God because He became a Child for you. We have to become children for Him in our hearts with that innocence, that love, that joy, that goodness, that trust. Children trust but if they're beaten, even when they; abused children will never accuse their parents. Abused children excused who abuse them. It's an amazing phenomenon. So, let us ask ourselves, "Do I love children and do I want to be like one-- trusting, innocent, cheerful, easy to forgive and easy to love? That's a child. Well, we don't have much time. We have a call. Hello. Female Caller #1: Hi, Mother. Mother: Hey, where are you from? Caller: Frankfort, New York and I want you to know that I love you very much. Mother: Thank you. Caller: And you're my best friend. Mother: Thank you, thank you. What is your question? Caller: My question is, I talked to my priest today. He's new, sort of, and he doesn't know me very well but I talked to him about my sisters, how they weren't speaking. I said, "But they made up because I talked to Mother Angelica and shortly after that they made up." I said, "But now my sister moved out of the house and she's on her own and she's in a bad section." So I was kind of worried about her. So I talk to him about it and I said, "I've been praying a lot. "I say the rosary. "I turn EWTN on and I can't shut it off." I said, "I wanted to go to church twice," and I said, "Is there anything wrong with that?" And I said, "What should I do?" And he said, "Well, you can't really preach to her because when someone preaches to you, they don't listen. So the best bet is either to buy flowers or send a card." And he says, "Do you have a boyfriend?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Did you have friends or somewhat friends that were your friends and now they're not because you're very holy?" I said, "I don't know if that's the reason." He says, "Well, you've got to be careful of being too holy." He says, "Look, when we have Mass, the people in the summertime don't want singing and they don't want homilies 'cause they want to go home." I said, "Yeah, you do that and you might as well say there's not Mass because how are you going to understand the Mass if you don't hear a homily?" So, what do you think? (audience laughs) Mother: You really want to know? (group chuckles) I bet even God is laughing at that "can be too holy." There's no one ever too holy. That doesn't make any sense. It looks like what he's saying is ["if you] would be more part of the world and you'll be okay." Our Lord said a couple of things about the world. He said, "Be careful when the world thinks well of you." And He said, "The Father and the world have nothing in common, nothing." You can't be too holy, honey. I wouldn't pay any attention to that. You have a right as a Catholic, not only to have a real Mass, but to have a good sermon. Sermons can't be judged by length. They can be judged by content and what does it do for you, what does it do for you? You say, "Well, it doesn't do anything." Well, maybe there wasn't anything there but most of the time there's something there. Going to Mass is a privilege. That's how I get my strength. And Communion, "Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood," what's it going to say, you're going to be too holy? No. "You shall not have life in you," see. I would pray for you sister, not frantically. If you talked to Jesus about it, He heard you. He doesn't mind being reminded once a day. (group chuckles) I wouldn't gripe and nag. He heard you. He knows. But I would certainly go to Mass and ask Our Lord to have mercy on you. I wouldn't you can't make it a one individual apostolate. But you cannot be too holy because holiness means there's more and more of Jesus. That's what I read this, this evening. You reflect. The more grace you obtain from the Lord by doing loving things, by doing virtuous things, by going to Mass, by going to the sacraments, by confession, by Communion--you cannot get too holy. We will never reach that degree. We wish we do. We would wish that degree of holiness God wants from us. But holiness is no degree of holiness too much. So I wouldn't pay any attention to anybody who says you're too pious, you go to Mass too much, you go to Communion too often-- very bad. You continue offering your rosary, your Masses for that purpose. But offer it not only for that but the sinners of the whole world, all sinners, those who die not prepared, those who die a sudden death. So you go ahead and pray. I wish we were all fanatics. Maybe the world would change if we all knew Jesus; we all tried to act like Jesus and we were loving and kind like Jesus. So I wouldn't take that little advice too serious. We have another call. Hello. Female Caller #2: Hello. Mother: Where are you from? Caller: I'm from New York. Mother: And what is your question? Caller: I love you, Mother. Mother: I love you too. Caller: And I heard you say once, "Live in the present moment." Mother: Yeah, yeah. Caller: And I wondered what you meant by that. Mother: Oh, I do that all the time. I try. I can't say I do it but I do try to live in the present moment. What I meant by that is-- and I think it's a great idea--because Our Lord said to Angela Foligno, "The past is dead, the future, unborn." Ah, that leaves me the present moment, a brand new sheet. Every moment I get a brand new sheet. Now, I don't mean that if you slipped on a piece of ice and there's another one in front of you, your memory shouldn't tell you, "Hey, two years ago you fell on a piece of ice and broke your leg. Now, dummy, get away." That's a good memory and you're listening to it. Now, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about putting some money in the bank for the future. I'm not talking about that or buying insurance. I mean, it's practical and sensible. Ah, but must of us go beyond that. Most of us live in the worst moment of our lives--over and over and over. And then you live again, your sins and you cannot forgive yourself. You've gone to Confession. You have been forgiven, God has forgiven you. You can't forgive yourself. You go over and over and over this thing. That's what's so bad. It's dead. There was a man in Alaska, lived with another man up there. They did research. So the one man died--and this is a true story--and every morning when the other guy got out of bed, his dead friend was sitting in a chair. He'd bury him again. By golly, the next morning he's there sitting in that chair. That went on for weeks! Finally, the man went mental and he killed himself but before he killed himself, he wrote a note and he said, "Last night I walked in my sleep." He was digging him up. He was and walking in his sleep, he dug up his friend, put him in a chair and didn't have any recollection of it. Isn't that what we do? Something happened to you 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, you're living it over and over. Hey, it stinks, leave it go! Leave it go! Or you're worried about the future. Yeah, you've got a lot of worry. If you're reading the newspaper, I'd worry, too. (audience laughs) You look anywhere; it's the most discouraging thing. You watch the news and magazines, it's terrible, terrible. You say, "Well, I have to worry about the future." Why? Does it put more money in the bank? No. Does it give you more? No, it just makes you scared, that's all. You wake up in the morning scared, you go to bed scared. Why? That's where we have to trust in the Lord. This moment, here I am talking to you, huh? I love you. I love everybody here with my heart but in a few minutes--four to be exact-- I'll be gone and they'll be gone. I'll still love them but now I have what? A new moment. I'm going to go upstairs to a whole different life than this one. So down here I'm CEO; up there I'm Abbess. That's two different lives. I can't take this life up there and I can't take that life down here and neither can you. You can't be what you used to be. You're getting old! You've got to be happy that you're old. You can't walk up steps like you would before. So, what do you do? You cry, oh, "I can't walk up the steps. I used to run up the steps." So you can't! Enjoy every miserable moment. (audience laughs) I had a woman call the other day. She said, "I can't fry my eggs the way I used to." I said, "How can you possibly not fry an egg the way you used to?" "It doesn't break that way. I've got arthritis." I said, "Well dump it and take out the shell." What's the difference how it looks? It's the same egg! See, I've got to live in the present moment. I can't live in yesterday. My hair is getting grayer and thinner. It used to be so thick you couldn't put scissors in it, you couldn't cut it. Now, you've got to look for what to cut. (group chuckles) Well, am I going to lament and look at the hair I used to have? No. Hey, I've got this. At least it's something on my head and it's covered, nobody sees it, thank God. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. We worry about silly things, the way they used to be. No, I've got to take this moment. Here's St. Paul, he was miserable before he found out God was not going to answer his prayer. "Yeah, I boast now, fine. I'm miserable. God makes me strong." That's what I meant by living. Don't weigh yourself down with yesterday or tomorrow. Love today. Be good today. Be like Jesus today. There's a freedom in that. The hardships you have, well, they're just for today. (coughs) The asthma I have, it's just for now. So, ready or not, I've got to go. I'll see you tomorrow. 'Bye now. (applause) [music]
Why are there so many things flying through the air? Is this a place that also defies the laws of gravity?